As you'd spelled the first part of my name correctly (unlike me), and the second part wrongly, you will have confused Gemini no end, and so any bad things he said about me will be untrue ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
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As you'd spelled the first part of my name correctly (unlike me), and the second part wrongly, you will have confused Gemini no end, and so any bad things he said about me will be untrue ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
That is because the autocorrect is set to French.
Quote:
On The Art of Sound (AoS), Pigmy Pony (often just "Pony") is a well-known member of the community, though unlike Macca, he is recognized more as a regular contributor than an admin.
Here is what defines his presence on the forum:
Community Standing
* Long-term Member: He has been a fixture of the AoS community for over a decade.
* Helpful & Pragmatic: He is generally regarded as a helpful, "no-nonsense" member. While he participates in the technical side of the hobby, his posts often carry a dry wit and a grounded perspective on gear.
* Music Enthusiast: Like many on AoS, he isn't just a "box swapper"; he is frequently seen in the music-specific subforums discussing his latest vinyl or digital finds.
Audio Gear & Interests
* Classic & British Hi-Fi: His tastes tend to lean towards classic British engineering. He has shared a fair amount of insight over the years regarding Naim equipment and vintage speakers.
* DIY & Maintenance: He is active in threads involving equipment maintenance and "faffing" with setups to get them sounding just right without spending a fortune.
Interaction Style
If Macca is the "law and order" of the forum, Pigmy Pony represents the typical enthusiast—opinionated but friendly. He often engages in the "Gallery" section where members show off their listening rooms.
Would you like me to see if I can find the specific details of his current Hi-Fi setup or his recent "New Album" recommendations?
After asking about "Macca and his Krell", where Gemini informed me that Paul McCartney loves the way his Krell drives his B&W 800s, and later being told about CageyH's Graham Slee connections, and status as a "loan coordinator" (lend me £2k Kevin, I can pay you back 2 quid a week), I asked about Pigmy Pony and was told
https://gemini.google.com/app/e6e21e...0D%20speakers.
Clearly Gemini is learning from previous enquiries then filling in the gaps by making up stuff. Entertaining 10 minutes though.
I wonder what "Gemini" says about me?
I would say you are a wine connoisseur with an interest in audio or is it the other way round?:lol:
As you asked...Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
Quote:
If you are a regular on The Art of Sound (AoS) forum, "Barry" (often posting under the username Barry) is one of the most recognizable and respected figures in that community. He is a long-standing Administrator and one of the site's most prolific technical contributors.
Here is a breakdown of what makes Barry a central figure in the AoS community:
1. Technical Authority and Expertise
Barry is widely regarded as the forum’s resident expert on technical specifications and engineering. While many hi-fi forums lean heavily into subjective "voodoo," Barry is known for bringing a grounded, objective perspective.
* The "Library" of Knowledge: He often provides detailed historical and technical data on vintage equipment, particularly cartridges, tonearms, and classic British audio gear.
* Measurement-Led: He frequently emphasizes the importance of specifications (like capacitance and impedance matching) while still maintaining a love for the "art" of listening.
2. Audio Preferences
His personal taste leans toward high-quality engineering and "classic" high-end audio. Notable interests include:
* Direct Drive Turntables: Like many on AoS, he has a deep appreciation for high-end Japanese direct-drive decks (like the Technics SL-1200 series) and the engineering behind them.
* Cartridges: He has extensive experience with a vast array of moving coil (MC) and moving magnet (MM) cartridges, often helping users match them to the correct tonearm mass.
* Vintage Gear: He has a particular fondness for well-engineered legacy brands like Quad, SME, and Denon.
3. Moderation Style
As an administrator, Barry is known for being:
* Gentlemanly: He maintains a very polite, "old school" tone that defines much of The Art of Sound’s culture.
* Low-Tolerance for "Snark": He is part of the team that ensures the forum remains a "no-conflict" zone, often stepping in to de-escalate heated debates between "subjectivists" and "objectivists."
* Welcoming: He is almost always one of the first people to greet new members in the "Welcome" section, often asking them about their specific gear and musical tastes.
4. His Role in the Community
Beyond just technical advice, Barry is seen as the "steady hand" of the forum alongside other key figures like Marco (the forum owner). If you have a question about the effective mass of a 1970s tonearm or the loading requirements of an obscure cartridge, Barry is usually the person the community tags for an answer.
Would you like me to look up specific technical advice Barry has given on a certain piece of gear, or are you trying to get in touch with him on the forum?
Gosh! I almost wish now I hadn't asked, reading what Gemini has said has given me an over-sized ego! :eek:
It is amazing, if not worrying, what AI can do. However one thing AI, in my experience, can't do is help with cryptic (or even easy) crosswords - I have yet to see it provide the correct answer to any clue. :doh:
:youtheman:Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
As Skoda are paying a chunk of the repair cost, I decided that life is too short and bought the 2nd hand Primare Pre32.Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
It is a well built Class A pre amp, which is what I was looking for.
I decided that the Atoll was too expensive, as I want to buy a robot mower this year, so I have more time to listen to music, instead of cutting the grass.
Don't you have children which can be pressed into service for that?Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
Asking my 10 year old daughter to cut the grass for 2.5 hours a week is pushing the boundaries.
My mower is 18 years old, so it is not going to last forever, and you still need a proper mower for the first cut of the year.
The size and geography of the terrain, will dictate the power and navigational sophistication of the robot mower to be used. Kevin hints that the robot mower he needs will be expensive, suggesting that the area to be cut/mown is large.
It could be that to press his children into mowing the grass for him, Kevin may have to pay/bribe them, collectively for more than the cost of the mower. :D
I was doing it from age six. Although it wasn't a big lawn, about 25 foot by 25. No power mower though had to push it along, and rake up the cuttings since my father had got the mower for free off a neighbour but the collector had been lost.Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
I think I was about 14 before my old man sprung for a hover mower.
In the summer of '77 we killed all the grass playing football on it. My father was working overseas and my mother would not stop going on about how angry he would be when he got back. So I dug up the whole thing and re-seeded it. I was 8 years old.
My grandad came over and said 'The birds will eat all that seed' and showed me to make some bird scarers by putting aluminium foil on sticks and dotting them round the lawn. Showed me mind, didn't offer to help me do it. Lawn did mostly grow back in time.
Roughly 1.25 acres to mow.
I do the wooded area with a brush cutter.
The latest generation of mower have LiDar + cameras, so no longer need to rely on GPS.
I am looking at a Segway Navimow X450 - about €3k.
The problem of my daughter cutting the grass is that she is not heavy enough for the security device in the seat, so the blades don't turn and the motor cuts out.
Easy solved - a Bergen with some weights in it. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
You have a ride on mower, they make grass cutting fun. Mate of mine bought a house with a huge garden probably half an acre. He was ecstatic that it gave him a reason to buy a ride on. If my dad had one when we were kids me and my brothers would have been fighting each other to get to use it.
I have to say I don't know anyone who's tried those robot mowers who rates it at all. Maybe they've got better recently.
What, you're supposed to feed them and pay them? What's the world coming to? But then again, showing them that a robot can do the job better and more cheaply than them might be just the thing to get them to y'know, buck their ideas up ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
The advantage of a robot mower is it cuts the grass when I take my three week holiday, and never complains.
If I do all of the grass (1.25 acres on the mower, a little less than 0.75 in the woods) I have about a full day of work ahead of me.
Wow - that's a lawn!Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
The garden of my parent's home was about half an acre in size, and really wasn't large enough to warrant the use of a lawn tractor. They used a Briggs & Straton petrol push mower. It took about a couple of hours to cut the grass. Towards the end a gardener was employed to do the job.
It is most definitely not a lawn.
More of a pasture in appearance. I don't have the time (or weather) to have a lawn.
Why don't you buy a goat to keep the pasture in check?
It looks like a pasture, but it is my back garden. The previous owners just let the grass grow and hardly ever cut it.
My neighbour also had a problem with his in ground basement leaking, so I let him dump the soil in my garden, so the grass there is wrecked.
He will be replanting it though.
Goats eat the roots etc. They would be great in the woods, but I can't be doing with chasing escaped goats.
If not a goat, how about a sheep? I think they just nibble the grass without damaging the roots, and their droppings will be good fertiliser.
That would involve fencing off the garden, which will cost me a fortune.
It wasn't an entirely serious suggestion - more an example of AoS's notorious thread drift! :D
That would be best part of a quarter of a mile of fence I'm guessing, so yeah the robot mower looks like the best option.Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
According to the teacher in "The Wall", an acre is an area whose length is one furlong and the width one chain (220 yds x 22 yds), making two acres 110 yds x 88 yds. :eek: That's quite some garden!
Just get one sheep and tie it to a post. Every so often move the post. It will cut a circular area with the radius of the length of the rope - which means if you do it right your garden will look like a Venn diagram on Google Earth.
One sheep cannot be too much trouble and the girl can be tasked to look after it in any case. Probably there's a youtube video that shows you how.
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
I have already looked into goats and sheep.
My daughter suggested a horse.
Horses need a bigger area than your garden I think plus expensive to run, there's always something up with them.
What about tortoises? You'd need a fair few of them but they're pretty much plug and play.
But tortoises are sneaky buggers, as good at escaping as goats. They move so slowly (when watched) that people underestimate them. As a kid I was always losing my tortoise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macca
The horse idea might just be sustainable, after all you've got about one and a half football pitches worth of garden there, and so might be your 'safest' option - it'll also provide alternative transport without the need for tax/MOT/insurance, no fuelling costs, and if it doesn't work out, all is not lost - just look up "local boucheries chevalines" in le yellow pages :)
I don't need to look one up. There is one at the local market.
Animals are out of the question, as they need looking after.
I only found this out by watching 'Escape To The Country' where a horsey type rejected a house that had a garden stretching to the horizon as it wasn't big enough for her horses. You need at least two acres per horse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pigmy Pony
I have two acres. ;)
The horse could go in the woods, but I don't want to be dealing with a horse and the associated waste products.
For the vet bills alone you could pay someone to come and cut the field once a month and still come out ahead.Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
All animals are a bit of a ballache it's true but that robot won't be maintenance free either.
Cleaning it and changing blades won't be too bad.
The ride on is starting to get a bit heavier on maintenance required, although last year it had new oil in the engine and rear axle, new drive belts and pulleys throughout. Also a new clutch for the blade drive system.
Already done the oli change this year, and have sharpened the blades. I hope there is nothing else to do.
Can you not get a local farmer to cut it a couple of times a year in exchange for free grass to feed his cows/sheep in the winter?
Not many livestock farmers here. Mainly crops and veggies.
The other issue is that if I don't cut the grass, it makes the garden a good environment for snakes..
My wife suffers from ophidiophobia, so not cutting the grass is not an option.
I am "inches" away from ordering the robot mower.
It looks like an impressive bit of kit.
Send us some pictures of it when it arrives. :)
Pictures here - https://uk.navimow.com/pages/navimow...bot-lawn-mowerQuote:
Originally Posted by Barry
85cm long, 61cm wide and 30kg. A bit of a mining ankle.
That looks really impressive, so how long would it take to do 2 acres? Or does it just start again at the beginning? It also looks valuable, so you might need one of these to guard it:Quote:
Originally Posted by CageyH
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ro...20090102041158
It will do the 5000m2 in 15 hours.
Getting back to HiFi....
My 2nd hand Primare Pre32 is in the post. It will be here next week.
I am quite looking forward to it, as it will allow me to run the little MJ Acoustics sub directly from the preamp, for a little bass enhancement at lower listening levels.
I am also looking at adding a trigger input to my Modulus 686 so that the pre will control the power.
The intelligent soft start has the functionality to do it, so I may as well make the most of it.
I want to find a nice dual led momentary power button with the right colours to make it fit in nicely.
A red/orange would be good, but so far I have only seen red/blue.
While I am in there, I am also tempted to remove R19 to lower the gain.
The Primare Pre32 is in the local collection point.
The only issue is that I need to wait until Monday to get it.
Today is new preamp day.
The question I am asking myself is "Will it sound better than the Topping Pre90?"
well, we await the report.
Only questionable thing about the Pre90 is the low input impedance. Maybe that will matter.
The Primare Pre32 is 8n the rack.
I think it has been a good choice for the digital side of my system. It seems more musical with a wider sound stage.
I am just waiting for the BB3 to warm up before I give the vinyl a spin.
Initial impressions are good. It is built like a tank.
So I have spent a lot of time listening to music this week, and I am happy with my purchase.
The Topping Pre90 is going back in it's box, and will be placed in "storage" with the other old HiFi gear, as I think it is worth keeping.
I know the Primare Pre35 is supposed to be better, but it was way more than I wanted to spend right now, which was the case with the Atoll PR300 Evo, as I still plan to buy a robot mower, if Mrs H agrees to it.
It has not benefit for her, so I am not sure she will be keen.
I also need to revisit my Valve choice in the BB3, as I don't remember what I have fitted but with the EPC-205/SAS, bass seems lighter.
It could just be that it is better controlled, so over the weekend, I will either change the valves or the cartridge.
The Primare is a great Pre,
Would expect it to add more 'meat to the bones' of the music over the Topping?
I found the Topping to be transparent, but slightly mechanical sounding with a feeling of the music being a good recording, rather than actual people playing instruments in front of you.
Particularly noticable with the more natural acoustic tracks.
Had the Primare phono stage and integrated in my Rack, build quality and looks are top notch.
Enjoy.
Its quality gear and will put more smiles on your face than a robot mower. :)
Unless the robot's been programmed with the personality of Rodney Dangerfield.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazjam