Tech

Monitoring the Spectrum: Building Your Own Distributed RF Scanner Array

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Monitoring the Spectrum: Building Your Own Distributed RF Scanner Array Software-Defined Radio (SDR) has increased in popularity in recent years due to the decrease in hardware costs and increase in processing power. One example of such a class of devices is the RTL-SDR USB dongles based on the Realtek RTL2832U demodulator. This talk will discuss … Read more

Economy of the Ether: Early Radio History and the Commodification of Music

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The early history of radio is an absorbing and complex saga. Often told from the narrative perspective of its inventors, technical milestones, or regulatory developments, little has been written about the commercial history of early radio and its influence on the commodification of music. Using a theoretical framework of commodification based upon the concepts of … Read more

Advantages of Tantalum Capacitors

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A tantalum capacitor is made of a tantalum powder core surrounded by tantalum pentoxide shell that is coated with with manganese dioxide, graphite, silver coating, solder resin. A tantalum wire extends axially into the core. Since 1960, tantalum caps have been shrinking due to higher-charge tantalum powders. Advantages: 1. SMALLER – tantalum caps have a … Read more

Reactive loading and amplifier distortion

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section 10 of article — Referring to the complex impedance of a loudspeaker, Vance Dickason states [2] that, “Phase angles in excess of 40° at low frequencies, and the same at frequencies about 1-2 kHz, can be considered as a somewhat difficult load for an amplifier to drive.” Also on p.129 of the same book … Read more

Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music

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Mark Katz, a professor at the Peabody Conservatory of Music at The Johns Hopkins University, discussed his book, “Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music.” The event was sponsored by the Library’s John W. Kluge Center, the Music Division and the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. According to Katz, who teaches in the … Read more

“The most expensive mess I’ve ever seen” — Brooklyn’s only headphone tree

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Steve Guttenberg Audiophiliac Steve tours his three systems, and shows off the newly expanded listening space. And talks about bluesman Cecil Barfield. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haNCst3p0p4

Saved by Scott Nixon’s Tube DAC

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$500 tube DAC with optical input to the rescue. We were recently forced (by purchasing a microwave-poisonous TV without analog RCA outputs!) to find a decent, plain DAC to convert the TV’s S/PDIF TOSLINK optical uncompressed stereo interleaved digital PCM into plain-jane, unbalanced RCA analog outputs – in a device preferably having a simple, analog volume control … Read more

Tubes vs Transformers – What good tube “tone” looks like

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Metal and wire is just metal and wire. The real sonic magic comes from the tubes. GAGA gets all that metal out of their way. An examination into the esoterica shrouding audio output transformers, tubes and “tone”, or the various unpleasant effects of bulky metal on faithful, musical amplification. Whereas traditional output transformers – homogenizing … Read more