Memorial Day Weekend In Summit 27May22-30May22

Kala & I headed to Summit to celebrate Memorial Day, visit with friends and do some hiking and sailing. Friday we hosted Kathleen & John at the Nest and enjoyed heavy apps, great tunes, and a gorgeous evening hot tub soak under the stars. Ignorantly I neglected to pictorially document; nonetheless it was a great visit.

Saturday I watched the two rain-delayed and lopsided semi-finals of the NCAA D1 men's lacrosse final 4. Steve & Donna and Kala & I all caught dinner out at 5th Avenue and then hit the Nest for some Lemoncello drinks from the Italy-crazed Browns, along with chocolates and a game of Joker/Jumpers (or whatever it should be called). By the end of the night we'd adjudicated every possible poorly understood rule in the game. They liked it; it was fun. Again no pics.

Sunday "allowed us" a hike in the White River NF with Steve & Donna. I say "allowed" as we did have rapidly changing conditions and timed our outing just right, though did suffer a smidge of rain and sleet. That night we dined at Browns' lodge and enjoyed their chix & fries with our salad & Edgar's '16 E2 vino. Again we played the game but Steve and I were thumped this time by the ladies.

Monday we awoke to 3" of new fallen snow on the forest and our deck ~ yeah, we aren't gonna sail or ride. NP, I was staying in for a bit at least to catch the finals of lax. The snow didn't stop or melt till late in the day. Maryland won decisively to finish 18-0 and be acknowledged as one of the best D1 lax teams to ever compete.

Tonight we celebrated our 42nd anniversary at Aurum with the Browns, whose 41st is next week! Good food as typical and great friends as always. ORB Tex did the driving.

Plus, in low light Summit Co, Kala & I were able to see a number of meteors from the Tau Herculids shower in the hot tub ~ it's caused as earth passes through that comet's debris field. Rare occurrence; very cool.

Nothin' On The Blue In Town 27May22

I had an hour before errands today so I wet-waded the Blue in town, just on the portion upstream of the outlet stores. I caught nothing but cast to two nice fish and spooked another. No hatch news but the flows are still very low @ 67cfs; we are filling Dillon Rez. I did learn something though - I felt like I needed to find the right setup for the Rodfather Colorado - it is such a cool rod and I was disappointed with the WF5F and Hardy reel on it. I spun off the SA Amp Redfish 8# from the Aoka XS reel and spun on some 161 grain WF6F Orvis Hydros Trout. Magic happened... this ERN 6.1 weight balanced perfectly and came alive with the 6 wt line. So at least here is that.

Tree Disasters & Recoveries 20May22-24May22

The Front Range drought took a significant toll on our backyard evergreens. Unfortunately we lost two big trees we planted 20 years ago this spring. I had to remove a nice 12" diameter fir and a larger spruce. I cut them down with my "Barbie" chain saw (works awesome) in time for the "chipping program" in Peregrine and made some substantial slash piles out front.

Unfortunately, more trees were trashed when a big spring storm brought 15" of wet snow down on us.

 

So there was no rest for the weary as Kala & I got back out to clear more trees using "Barbie" and a 20 ft long tree saw. The slash piles got so much bigger but we were done in time for chipping, and the property is recovered.

Fortunately after such expenditures I was able to score some of the best tasting east coast IPAs I've had. My local retailer just had a few 4 pks ~ and it only happens once a year. Both are from The Alchemist in Vermont: Focal Banger & Heady Topper ~ delicious.

Lucky & Good ~ Perfect Fit & Finally Available ~ Highly Sought LG OLED Evo C2 23May22

Our Blodgett family room has built-ins for entertainment stuff... yeah, built for 4:3 20 years ago. I was wildly lucky to find a perfect fit for the TV/monitor using the Sharp Aquos LC-37 when we moved in years ago. It was getting flaky though and I have been searching for a replacement. With careful measuring, basically nothing of quality would fit well for the last couple of years. Then at CES '21 LG announced a 2nd gen to their vaunted OLED lineup ~ and it was to include a 42" version targeted as a desktop monitor for gamers. Huzzah, would it fit? Yes, perhaps, but barely. I waited for 15 months with alerts from a number of spots for availability - nothing. Last week Amazon alerted me and I jumped on the buy. It arrived today and I decommissioned the Sharp and installed the LG. I had to rejigger some stuff and even debug a failed fiber optic connection to the AV receiver through a wall (pita). I also had to reprogram the universal remote we use, obviously. All done. This TV is completely awesome ~ 2nd gen 4K/HDR OLED from LG is the bomb. I didn't let it go on the network (webOS) and we don't use it's apps, we use Roku ~ the screen itself is worth the price ($1500) of admission. I am so lucky, and so good; it fits perfectly and we scored 5" additional diagonal due to current "no bezel" panels ~ that's almost 30% additional screen area! Highly recommended.

 

The Rodfather Lineup & Fly Rod Swing Weight 22May22

Many know I'm interested in objective measurements of things to aide performance prediction. For fly rods this includes measuring in order to assemble optimal systems of rods, reels and lines. Plus, a friend has asked that I review the entire Rodfather line of custom fly rods in order that he needn't read about each one - and to get some comparisons. This post is about both of these things. Here are my 15 Rodfather rods, organized largely by line weight from lowest on the left to highest going right. The last two on far right are specialty weapons, a Euro nymphing rod and a two-handed micro-spey.

My entire Rodfather lineup (some rods have been sold or given as gifts) are shown below with their key attributes. This lineup includes rods for line weights from #1 to #9 as well as the two specialty rods. The measures I've found most useful for understanding a rod's application and performance are its Effective Rod Number (ERN), its Action Angle (AA), its Weight, and its Swing Weight. The ERN is the true weight of line which the rod can most effectively throw (given a strong, properly loaded, cast). The Action Angle is the angle struck by the rod tip top at 1/3 (of length) deflection and is indicative of its "action" such as Med Fast, Fast, Very Fast, etc.. Weight is as simple as that (shown below without fighting butt if that's removable).

Mostly new to this blog, but vital, is (in this case) a relative measure called Swing Weight... by this I mean I measure the "swing weights" of my rods using a repeatable process, but can only use the measure in comparing them, as it means little in an absolute sense. To measure this I simply place the rod on my scale on top of a small fulcrum, exactly in the middle of the handle, and carefully hold the rod at its very end, leveling it ~ I then read the scale in ounces. This measurement is representative of what we'd feel as the swing weight of a rod when casting it. The higher the swing weight the "heavier" it will feel in one's hand and the more energy it will take to make an optimal cast. I also like to "normalize" this measure by dividing Swing Weight by ERN; I find rods with Swing Weight Normalized values above 2.2 to require extra effort to cast and those below 1.8 to be more comfortable. This is all a bit relative to the weight of line being cast, heavier weight lines & rods will naturally require more power. I noticed this most on full days of casting on the water.

I also "normalize" other values to build another measure I call the Power To Weight ratio ~ this is the ERN of the rod divided by its true weight. It is kind of a "bang for your buck" measure. I find rods with P/W ratio lower than 1 a bit hard to deliver the line and ones with over 1.5 are stout and very powerful for their weight. Finally as to my impressions of my quiver of numbers, There is Fast rod action I prefer, it is in the middle ~ I can deal better with my Med Fast rods more easily than the purer tip action Very Fast rods. These things are color coded in the chart. Therefore, my "best" rod is the RFT5 based on an Epic 590 Graphene blank ~ I can "feel" it is so. The SB1, Brookie, and All Blacks have swing weights a smidge high for what they deliver. The others are great but some have an aspect for which I make an accommodation.

If you are wondering how the manufactured rods I own stack up in these measures, here it is. I still have a 1wt Sage, a 3wt GLoomis, a 4wt Winston, and a 5wt Sage. Compared to Rodfather rods they are generally lighter, with smaller handles (my hands are a bit bigger), no fighting butts, fine hardware, righteous line weight matching, hover around a 1.5 power/weight ratio and a 2 on normalized swing weight. They are very competent, much more expensive, not nearly as cool looking, and don't feel as sweet in my hand.

Building The Rodfather Diamond Blaze [drc #18 - 8'6" 4pc 4wt] 25Apr22-21May22

A guy's gotta keep busy with a foot of snow on the ground but the ski resorts and trails closed. While I have an awesome Winston 8'6" boron 4wt for dries (and really anything) and a Rodfather 9' 4wt w/ fighting butt, based on CTS Affinity X, again for anything ~ my go to at the PT, Jurassic, and 11 Mile, I will compliment these with a Rodfather 8'6" 4wt for closer quarters & stellar accuracy as out at Rainbow Falls or in 11 Mile Canyon. Do I need it, no; it will give me flexibility among my primary Colorado weapons, the 4 weights, and I get to build a keen new rod. I call it the Diamond Blaze 'cause of the custom handle and it's speed. The RFDB is a serious contender for the 4 weight "always ready" slot in the rod vault (versus the RFCT there now); it casts great, balances well and feels dreamy smooth with a perfect of ERN 4.6, and it is righteously fast with an AA 69°. It weighs 4.1oz due to the heavier handle but delivers a sweet 9.3 swing weight. The rod mates perfectly to either the Ross Evolution LT 1.5 or the Redington Rise loaded with 4 weight SA Mastery Amplitude Smooth WF4F (effectively weighing in at 4.75). The dark green Evo reel is a bit off the color scheme of the RFDB, but a nicer reel than the orange Rise. It's complete butter either way, not unlike the Winston boron rod really, but  sports a fighting butt, which I do now tend to favor.

The parts came from MudHole and I fashioned a keen "18 diamonds" handle for this rod (1.4oz), one of my nicest yet (but a bit heavier than others). I selected my favorite REC nickel-silver ultralight NBS uplocking reel seat with curly koa wooden insert and a matching removable fighting butt hardware. I then mounted all that  to the butt section of the blank.

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Here's wrapping the the RFDB on the MHX high modulus blank weighing just 1.25oz and colored slate grey... I've never tried this Chinese manufactured blank. The guides are the classic ECO coated silver Snake brand guides with a Fuji stripper guide. I wrapped out the rod with brownish variegated thread offset by maroon. Stunning IMO.

White Caps On The SPlatte In 11Mike Canyon 19May22

With a substantial pending snow storm inbound to SoCO Fri, the leading low front amassed big winds in 11Mile Canyon. I fished there today despite flows having double over this past week to ~220cfs, and untangled plenty of rigs, but caught a number of fish, none big, on the RFCT. This SageBuster 2020 4 weight is still my goto for many CO rivers. Flows were going up as I waded! Saw some smallish #20 BWO mayflies in the wind, RS2s and Black Ice worked, and some midge larvae and emergers took a couple of browns (!) and many cutbows like those shown… otherwise the flows are way up across the board across CO as snowmelt has begun (but for the Blue & Pan) in earnest.

Comparing Tracks: Vinyl, YouTube & Digital Audio 16May22

On the Nest Theater and on my headphone setups I use three primary schemes to play music: streaming YouTube music videos, playing digital .flac files, and spinning vinyl LPs. Most of my HiFi setups are geared to replay digital material; only the Nest Theater has a turntable for phono LP playback. In this entry I am going to describe the process by which I directly and objectively measured and compared the "fidelity" delivered by each of these schemes as well as provide subjective listening observations. First a description of each:

Streaming YouTube Music Videos - 1st off, I am only concerned with the audio track and its fidelity within YouTube videos. YouTube uses the Opus codec to transform the audio portion of any video uploaded to it. Opus is very good, with very low latency ~ YouTube maxes out at 192kbps (44,1Khz/24bit) for audio in an HD720p or 1080p .m4a video. YouTube typically carries multiple formats behind each video (or audio only) and offers one or another format (with differing fidelity) depending on the capability of the target playback device ~ the best audio (highest bitrate) comes with the best quality video download (so know to choose best video when you can), though an audio only version is often present @ 160kbps with 48KHz/16bit encoding. A Linux program named youtube-dl allows one to get information on formats available and to download specific versions of a video.

Streaming of lower bitrate material, often using the MP3 or AAC codec as used on Pandora, Spotify and Soundcloud is not included in this comparison as I don't use them, and they've been shown to have lower fidelity many times. High bit rate streams (like 320Kbps) are much better and largely audibly indistinguishable from FLAC by humans.

 

Playing FLAC Files -  FLAC is a lossless codec often used for audio. Just as with Opus, FLAC can have a variety of levels of "quality" depending on the original material. I have FLAC files with PCM (pulse code modulation) material of 192KHz/32bit, 96Khz/24bit and 44.1KHz/16bit (CD quality) but even "higher quality" exists. I also have DSF/SACD, WAV and MP3 files but they are less relevant for this comparison... WAVs can always be made into equal quality FLAC files, DSF files are pretty rare and expensive, and MP3, a lossy scheme, will almost certainly be lower fidelity than CD or better FLAC of the same material.

Spinning Vinyl LPs - LPs have been around for a long time; they were first released in 1948 by Columbia Records. Sound is produced from them by a needle tracking in and vibrating from grooves as they are spun passed it at 33 1/3 or 45rpm. The grooves are recorded from master tapes and "pressed" into the surface of the vinyl. In recent years, vinyl LP sales have re-surged and now eclipse CD sales (but of course streaming is outstripping all other forms of music playback, as to volume "sold"). Vinyl has physical limits which make its maximum dynamic range, frequency response, channel separation, and other attributes "less" than that available from digital renderings, even CDs. Yet, many aficionados, prefer the "warmth" available from vinyl playback.

Mastering - Today it is rare for the master for a digital download, a CD, or an LP to differ, though occasionally it is true, but many think it is more widely true ~ all these types of recording/playback schemes are built from the same masters these days. This means the same master fidelity and attributes are available to creating each of these three types of playback sources. In fact, the "quality" of sound by any well delivered playback is most dependent on the initial recording and production - not the final delivery scheme (at least among these three I am comparing, and all other things being equal). Nonetheless, there are differences we hear, feel and measure between these three... the vinylphiles and the digiphiles are already lining up.

Constraints...  Physical constraints limit LPs in a number of ways: the best dynamic range is ~70dB whereas CD can exceed 90dB. Dust and/scratches on an LP's surface create noise, often audible. Even the friction of dragging the needle through the groove ultimately destroys the groove. Mechanical turntables themselves might introduce rumble or speed variations which distort their signal out. Channel separation for vinyl is about 30dB (vs 90dB for CD) and that narrow band often limits recording engineers to center bass between the channels so as to assure needle tracking. It is worth noting that the "loudness war" was being waged largely on CDs and in other digital schemes of music reproduction... there's not enough range for dynamic compression on most vinyl tracks.

Objective Measurements - Ok, here is some secret sauce. I compared the "equivalent" tracks from a YouTube Music video, a digital download, and a vinyl track by recording each in decently high resolution (96KHz/24bit) on a MacBook Pro using Audacity.

Connections & Interface Gear...

• For YouTube I extracted the 2CH PCM digital audio from Roku HDMI out (up to 192KHz/24bit) via a J-Tech Audio Extractor (which supports audio pass-through). Fiber optic SPDIF out was converted to USB for input to the Mac/Audacity by HiFiMe converter for recording.
  
• For digital download I just needed to load whatever 2CH PCM FLAC file was "equivalent" into Audacity directly.
• For Vinyl I took RCA line out directly from my Tube Box DS2 phono pre-amp into a Musou A>D sending 48KHz/16bit PCM (again through HiFiMe converter) via USB to the Mac;  Audacity did the recording.

The J-Tech Audio Extractor ~$35 (pass through audio ~ expect 96Khz/20bit or better)...

The Musou A>D Converter ~$17 (48Khz/16bit)...

The HiFiMe SPDIF fiber to USB converter ~$25 (pass through up to 96KHz/24bit)...

Material - Getting "equivalent" tracks from different sources will allow a lot of comparative analytics ~ will we really objectively see which is better: vinyl or CD, and how does YouTube hold up against these? I have acquired recent LPs of some favorite singers/songwriters that I'll use in this analysis, including Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher, Jade Bird's Different Kinds of Light, and Molly Tuttle's When You Are Ready. I have these same albums in 96KHz/24bit PCM or 44.1KHz/16bit downloads. And, all of these albums' tracks are also found on YouTube Music as pure audio (they will come down as Opus 160kbps and 48KHz). This later audio only track listening on YouTube is not exactly my practice, which usually hunts for live versions of artists' materials, but I need "equivalent" tracks for this analysis. The Opus/160Kbps/48KHz is very close to the m4a/192Kbps/44.1KHz audio I typically listen to in music videos on YT. Interesting side notes... the Jade Bird DKOL LP is a Limited Edition red 2 disc 45rpm set; Phoebe/Dead Oceans included full 96/24 digital download license with the vinyl while the others did not include digital access at all.

Measurements - What analytics and comparative measures make the most sense to determine which format might sound best? Dynamic range (the difference between the loudest and quietest bits), signal/noise ratio (comparison of what you want and noise present even when there's nothing playing), and noise floor are some of the key things I will measure to compare YT with CD with Vinyl. RMS (root mean square) is a simple measure of how loud, on average, the entire track is, in decibels. Noise Floor is a measure of all the unwanted stuff, in decibels. Peak is the loudest point (highest amplitude) on the track, in decibels. Contrast is my attempt at Signal/Noise ratio - done in Audacity by comparing two portions of the track - one before or after with "just" noise and another with most of the rest of the track, in decibels. Dynamic Range is measured in LUFSi (Loudness Units relative to Full Scale - Integrated), a fairly recent but widely used standard measure in TV, movies and music... it accounts for human "perception" of sound loudness by applying ISO standard equal loudness contours. Similar results were shown in other DR measures, with nuanced differences, so I chose just one.

I will make some general observations from the above objective measurements...

• Vinyl always has a higher noise floor and almost always a worse S/N ratio.
• I don't put much stock in the RMS as a comparison as these sources traveled through different audio chains to some extent before being measured - I could not guarantee the gain was set equally between playbacks.
• The dynamic range varied more than I expected, and not in a consistent way, especially with vinyl having a lower theoretical range. Oddly, the digital downloads often displayed the lowest dynamic range or loudest track and the vinyl DR was fine, sometimes even good.
• I did discover that YouTube does adjust for loudness ~ they may receive files that are -6dB but normalize them to -14dB or so before streaming.

While I double checked my measurements and methods perhaps the loudness anomalies have something to do with the fact that vinyl and YT streams are extractions that were recorded and the digital download was just an original FLAC file being loaded directly into Audacity. More research needed.

Subjective Listening Observations - Now this stuff is personal, no matter what any audiophile might tell you. The sound is so dependent on the system rendering the material ~ but in my case in this analysis I'll use the same system, the Nest Theater, set up equivalently for each form of playback "source." I disabled the subwoofer of the NestT for this listening analysis. I will also run two passes through the digital material - one with full Dirac equalization applied and one without any equalization. I'll do this because the LPs are not at all equalized before hitting the DRC BLHs + super-tweeters - so I wanna hear all sources rendered equally through the speakers with all their warts. I have some instant observations and I sat with some friends and we listened through the same material used to measure above and I captured our assessments. First some obvious but somewhat unexpected things:

• Not all vinyl discs are equal - there are some very bad ones with major warps and dirt and there are some better ones which are flat and clean. Standard vinyl weighs 150g and "audiophile grade" are heavier at 180g, but not all standard LPs seem this weight. These physical issues introduce noise and warble.
  
• Every LP came with the snap, crackle and pop that we all remember. Dirt in the groves, discharging static from the vinyl, etc. was typically present but only really audible before and after the track's music, even on quiet parts.
  

Now our impressions of the comparison of the source material.

• We all thought the digital material, whether streamed from YouTube or played from a .FLAC file, was more crisp sounding and clearer. Too often the vinyl mid-bass was muddled sounding. The voices sounded fine on all sources but highs were again finer on the digital.
• When YouTube streaming was done from the actual released audio track (like when I measured above), there was no appreciable difference between the YT stream and the downloaded FLAC playback. However, we all said that watching the videos attending the audio can distract from critical listening. Sometimes the FLAC files yielded a bigger sound stage than the streams and always these both were better than vinyl (L/R channel separation wasn't measured but known lower on vinyl).
  
• The vaunted visceral feel and warm sound claimed to differentiate vinyl was not apparent to us on the tracks we heard. This might be because I built the NestT on a 300B SET amp which already "warms & smooths" the sound, even on digital material.

More Action Required... I think the vinyl got a short shrift as it was playing unequalized and without a sub (as were the others for comparison) ~ but that's not how I listen most often. I have acquired an analog tone control that I will use to tame my speakers some and use to activate the subwoofer on phono playback too. Let's hope it's not good money after bad but I gotta try to improve vinyl's showing here.