Creative gear photos - post 'em here

[Michaels HiFi]

Swapping in some Italian Fivre tubes from the 1950's into my 2-chassis tube pre-amp for another 5 hour listening session tonight!

 

[Michaels HiFi]

Having fun with the camera!

 

[Michaels HiFi]

My Alan Eaton 45 mono block - at ~20lbs in front of my monster Aries-Cerat Concero 25's at 175lbs each.

 

[2FarGone]

Somewhat less photogenic than the Aric, the Von Gaylord LAD-L2 is also a two-chassis minimalist preamp. There’s much to be said for a pair of 6SN7 tubes (currently some lovely Raytheon VT-231s. Thanks, Michael!) backed up by a 25-pound power supply.

 

[Michaels HiFi]

A creative photo I took of some tubes here

 

[Projectman]

My beloved preamp

 

[Michaels HiFi]

Gettin' some tubes ready to experiment with. All 1930's and early 1940's. The ones in the lower left are RCA 1960's. YUK.

 

[Michaels HiFi]

I love my vintage Italian tubes so much that the next logical step after Italian beer is…..Italian toothpaste???

 

[Michaels HiFi]

Time to decide which of the testers on the bottom half of the screen to work on next....

 

[Michaels HiFi]

Not very creative, but my OCD today had me color code the labels on my products from most gentle to strongest so I can easily word up the scale to stronger products during my restorations.

 

[brad225]

Seems reasonable. Sense of color temp should work well.

 

[Michaels HiFi]

Seems reasonable. Sense of color temp should work well.

Yeah it took a while to work it out based on experience.

I used to have it color coded by type and then ratio within that type.

For instance all the APC's were one, all the Rinseless wash's were enough, misc were another.

Then I learned that it was better to group them based on overall power vs type.

For instance a 30:1 of Blitz (a rinseless) is the same basic strength as APS at 15:1. They use different chemistry to clean. Since no two pieces of gear are dirty the same way there is no magic 'best one'.

 

[Michaels HiFi]

A picture of my Weston 978 FAA tester I just made all pretty. And I tested it against my reference standard Western Electric 15750-L2 and the Weston is spot on accurate.

The 978 was built for the Civil Aeronautics Administration, predecessor to today’s FAA.

It used a 5 kHz signal for its mutual-conductance test, rather than relying on the power-line-frequency approach associated with many classic Hickok testers. This was done claiming it would yield more accurate results.

Classic Hickok testers derive the test conditions from the AC line-frequency system rather than using the Weston’s dedicated higher-frequency approach.

Pretty cool technology for something approaching 80 years old.

 

[Michaels HiFi]

This is the ANTITHESIS of stolen IP made-with-save-labor clone gear.

100% American ingenuity, design, and manufacture.

Completely redone, calibrated, and now in mint condition for decision day tomorrow: Do I keep this Hickok and sell my Weston or vice versa.

One will have to go due to space and money constraints (need the money to buy other things to restore).

 

[Michaels HiFi]

 

[Michaels HiFi]

Time to have some fun with my refinishing experiments........here is the color for my next piece:

 

[2FarGone]

Michael, I find myself wondering what kind of documentation of these products and their use in restoration, before and after photos etc you’ve created. From where I’m standing, you’ve created potentially museum quality restoration methodologies and records that could be lost tomorrow if you got hit by a bus.

My spouse is a professor emerita from a major university. Knowledge management is her thing, so I couldn’t help but pick up a few things via close proximity. Your accumulated knowledge base of these products and methodologies strikes me as being of greater value than even great photos and good writing. Your contribution to this hobby in that regard seems well worth preserving. Just something to think about.