How my Conscience became the most expensive tool in my arsenal

There's no denying that I'm a Tool Whore. I try to be up to date on the latest and greatest in the tool world and where money allows, I like to have these in my possession.

Recently one of the guys that assists me, commented on the amount of tools required to finish a project and how sometimes there's that one tool that will do just the one job and nothing else.. He then asked what would be the most expensive tool in my possession. Now, I'm not a fan boy when it comes to tools. I won't buy the brand names just because they have the 'contractor' moniker on it. I'll do well enough with a couple of grades lower. My Ryobi 18 One+ system has been with me 7 years now without a hiccup.

  

So I thought about the question and came to the realization that if there's one thing that cost me more in time and money, it would be my conscience. How so??? Oftentimes on jobs, I run into issues not of my making and not inherently connected to the work I'm doing. If the homeowner is around, I explain the need to rectify the problem before carrying on. If not, I'm faced with the quandary of lost time, or fix it at my cost and move on. Many times, it's the latter. Sometimes customers agree to the fix. Mostly they don't.

And so, Conscience costs me time, money and stress. I should box this and sell this new line of tools. Conscience - You pay a lot, but there's nothing to show for it!!!!

Dhiraj

Sounds So So Good

After over two years of being in storage, I finally bit the bullet and got my Rotels converted to 110V. Sure I could've run them through a step up transformer - Not!!

The local agents are Brack Electronics in Toronto and they did an amazing job of the conversion. Thank You Mr. Claudio Landucci!!!

I spent an hour connecting everything together and spent the next few listening to music the way I should've been doing so for the past two years.

Oh. They sound so so very good!!!

Saying Goodbye in Style

The following week is Finale week. 24 - which we follow religiously has a two hour finale on Monday (will Jack survive the effects of the biological weapon??? Will Kim Bauer be killed once and for all - already????!!!!!) Then on Tuesday, the final two will perform for the last time before Judges and Jury followed by a two hour finale of American Idol on Wednesday. This year we are not as rabid as we were about David Cook and while we think that Adam is a shoe-in, would not be surprised to see Kris emerge as the winner.

To celebrate the Season finale, we finally went out and got ourselves an LCD TV. It's still CFL backlit as opposed to the newer LED backlit models. I also opted for the 60Hz model as opposed to the 120Hz as I do not plan to be watching too much sports.

I bought the Samsung LN46A550 as it was rated as Best Buy on numerous forums. Even Consumer Reports gave this TV their nod of approval. Amazon's consumers gave this TV 5 star reviews and this was also one of CNET's editor's choices. I really wanted to get the smaller LN40A630, but it would've cost me $400 more. So I opted for the bigger unit.

First impressions. This TV is big - especially when you see it alone without the bigger units to dwarf it. The screen is non reflective, this is great as it will not reflect the white bookcases that will be behind us. I powered it on and within a few minutes tuned it in to all the OTA HD channels. The reception with 1080i broadcast is nothing short of stunning. This is especially evident in live programming such as news etc. The image is sharp and the clarity is stunning.

I did not think that sports would be so good on the set but this afternoon's broadcast of Ice Hockey on CBC and Basketball on Sun TV proved me wrong. There was little or no blurring with the high speed action and am convinced that manufacturers touting 120Hz as a requirement for sports channels is a load of c&%k

I am in the process of painting the niche where the TV will hang and I will post pictures of the install in a later post.

AI Finale is going to be fun!!!!!

Sorry!! No Video

Apologies. I promised to post a video showing my Retro Squeezebox in action and the camera just would not cooperate. Will post as soon as I have it.

Retro Radio Redux - Part 1.5

It's done. It's complete. It's amazing.

I plan on posting a video tomorrow of the unit in action.

I played uncompressed .wav files though the unit and it sounds simply amazing.

Remember that the speakers are old Creative FourPointSurrounds that I've had since 2002, so it could always be better. My original plan was to shoehorn my Rotel RC-931 integrated amplifier along with my Acoustic Energy speakers into the unit.

I took the path of least resistance in order to get the unit up and running. More mods will follow.

Media Center Build - Part 1

Building a Music Server has been one of the projects that I've wanted to do for the longest time. However, I needed that the Server not look like a computer as I wanted it to reside with my current Audio Components.

HTPC cases are all the rage right now, but the prices fall nowhere within my budget. Which is in the same range as President Bush's popularity. Zero.

I needed this built - and soon. I'm almost finished with the Turntable Monitor and the Squeezebox Mod. Both of these rely of having somewhere to read the information off.

I lucked out at the ReStore when I happened upon a very nicely maintained receiver from the Seventies. It looked about the right size to hold a PC Power Supply and a Motherboard with any daughter cards if and when required.

Turns out that the unit was a Luxman. Anyways, I plugged it in and it did not work. Could it have been repaired?? I plead the 5th on that.

I've so far gutted the unit, removed all of the PCB's desoldered the front panel controls from their PCB's as these will screw back onto the front panel as dummy units. The only things that will work on the front panel are of course the lights, which will light up the tuning dial, the Power button and reset button. The FM Stereo indicator will light up as the PC power indicator and the FM Signal Meter will act as the Hard Disk Drive activity indicator.

On the inside, I do not need anything powerful and will be installing one of my older machines running a scaled down version of Windows XP.

More on that soon.

Retro Radio Redux - Part 1

This is just me being totally impatient. The Radio is nowhere near complete, but all cosmetics are in place. After finding out that the cheapest roll of window tint was CAD 17.00, I decided to beg as a cheaper option.

Turns out that beggars are on to a good thing. The first two shops said that they were not in the habit of maintaining any of the scraps as they were generally of no use to anyone. The third shop invited me in, took an interest in what I was going to use the tint for and gave me a piece for free. This guy did not believe in throwing anything out. Probably was an Indian in a previous life.

After tinting the glass, I mounted the grille cloth (Parts Express # 261-810) and reassembled the entire unit together. I have yet to get some dummy potentiometers to hold the knobs in place. The knobs have no function as the Squeezebox has a remote controlled volume, with a built in Pre-Amp stage.

I mounted the Squeezebox in place just to see if it was visible through the tinted glass. Here are some pictures of what the unit will look like, sitting in my Living Room and pretending to be that what it is not.

Pictures were handheld and without flash as that would wash out the display.

In Screensaver mode - Faux Analogue VU meters

Now Playing - From my Music Library on my Laptop

Searching for Internet Radio - Bosnia anyone????

A Station in Amsterdam

Railroad Radio in Vancouver

Retro Squeezebox Mod

In 2007, I posted my latest aquisition, a Murphy Radio from the 60's or 70's. See here.

In the summer of 2008, Jita, Lynda's good friend and my Logitech Godess gave me a Slim Devices Squeezebox 3. Only this week, I plugged it in and set the unit up. It is an amazing device which gives you access to all you music on your PC as well as a host of Internet Stations. It's only drawback being that it needs to be connected to a Stereo. This has since been addressed by the Squeezebox Boom. But I digress.

I now plan to integrate the Squeezebox 3 with a pair of Amplified Creative Speakers into the carcass of the now restored Murphy Radio set.

It's a Work In Progress and I will be posting pictures soon.