*** This Week Through Your Eyes 2024.05.25 ***

I used to love visiting Tottenham Court Road, to dream about stuff I could not afford. When I went freelance, I managed to earn enough to buy my dream Quad Pre and Power amp there. The pre died a few years ago, but I still have the Quad 303 mothballed. Audio is a bigger, deeper rabbit hole than photography. I had to buy some new connectors for the Naim, and I saw that you can pay thousands of Euros for a metre of cable and connectors. A Rega amp was my second choice, they make really good stuff.

A different sort of subject, with your usual style. I like this unusual portrait.

Superb shot.

Thanks.

Eventhough I like # 2, this one takes the prize.

Great docu shot.

What a place! If only 1 have to choose...

I do have NAD amp and still use it. Amazing.

If you can't make it

fake it

Excellent capture. Lines, shadows, textures- brilliant!

I think you got the best shot right a the start of your walk. With trees and water, you cannot go wrong.

I found your technical comment interesting. I use a geared head for architecture, but it is great for getting precise composition for any subject. Manfrotto do a fairly lightweight one. Have you tried doing HDR combination frames. With the Z7 I fire of 3 frames spaced at two stops. You need a tripod and not much wind.

Interesting set. I wonder who would have wanted to invade Albania. I get the impression it is a pretty wild sort of place. These dictatorships do seem to suffer from a lot of paranoia.

Are you still on your Balkan Travels?

Got home about a week ago after nearly 4 weeks away.
Albania now is a wonderful place to explore, very friendly, affordable, great food and nice places to stay, from boutique hotels in Tirana to homestays in the hills. Of the four countries we visited (+ Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro), it was our favourite, though the albanian parts of neighbouring countries were similar. I hadn't realised how much of the neighbouring areas were ethnically and culturally albanian.

I've been into hifi reproduction for as long as I can remember, with my first proper system comprising a Teac CD player, Harman Kardon integrated amp and Castle speakers that I bought from the delightful little hifi shop that used to be just up the road from the telephone exchange I worked in at the time. The old guy who owned that shop was an ex navy radio engineer who designed and sold his own valve amps, a really interesting guy to talk to about electronics and hifi. In an upstairs room, he had a fantastic sounding Quad system with the huge electrostatic speakers Quad also made at the time.

Around the turn of the century, when my career in the computer games industry was enjoying a steep upward trajectory, I spent, what at the time seemed to be, an inordinate amount of money putting together a high end hifi / home cinema system comprising a Tag McLaren AV32R Pre/processor, TAG McLaren 100x5 power amp for the surrounds and B&W Nautilus 804 speakers at the front, later upgrading the front end amplification with the addition of a Bryston 4BSST for the main two channels and a Bryston 3BST in bridged mode driving the centre channel. The Bryston amps each had 20 year warranties when I bought them, which I think have now run out.

I'm still using this system today and it still sounds great more than 20 years later, but I'd hate any part of it to fail and need replacing as the prices of equivalent replacements these days are insane as hifi, much like cameras, seems to have become very niche in these days where most people are happy with bluetooth speakers and Spotify streaming.

I still only buy music on CD's, although I rip and lossless compress them onto a NAS then use a streaming appliance connected to the AV32R via S/P-DIF for playback.

Reminds of that terrible joke about a guy who used to wear an amulet to protect him from alligators in Trafalgar Square.
"But there are no alligators in Trafalgar Square."
"Exactly..."

Enjoyed these, especially the first two.

Yes, mine is in the loft but would presumably need a new belt. I have a load of vinyl hidden away too.

Wow, that looks way too dangerous. So claustrophobic.