Winter Wonders Around Summit 16Jan24-30Jan24

Winter is always a blast at the Nest ~ Skiing, Hiking, Guests & More. I headed up for some ski-days and to meet up with the Minnesota Mafia. Of course as part of it we hit Outer Range for Jan 4 pack pickup and some trials of the French Alps imports ~ it was around their 7th anniversary of opening; what a great add to Summit Co. And yes, this was all during the double dumper over MLK weekend when Silverthorne became snarled and I had to dig out of 20" snowfalls TWICE on the driveway and deck. Phew.

The boys returned to Den, the "O," and MN and left me to fend with the weather and such. But soon after I was able to get out again with Yoho and Dave. It was surprisingly sunny on day 1 with Jim; I even got a decent pan of the 10 Mile range. We were fine skiing the Key again on day 2 with Dave as the opening of Bergman lift gets us some keen new terrain. Shallow Bergman Bowl was better with the added snow but we also dropped into Ericson Bowl on our way to Outback ~ that was minimally tracked, steeper, and excellent. As part of it all Jim & I had some good vittles at Bistro North and a good couple days of visiting... we hit Locals for a beer run and were pleased to find a nice Mex Lager from ORB and a DDH from another fav, Cerebral Brewing.

Then fortunately Kala took a break from work and joined me and our special guests Matt & Eline for some fun in the snow and such. M&E got a full introduction to the Nest Music Theater with surround sound as well as my salad bowl DIY audio project. Eline proved well up to the dueling YouTube video queuing so we even heard some Dutch musicians and throwbacks. We dined at the Nest on my tasty Korean meatballs and had some nice totties and beers. They brought Kees (Case) with them and he is a great dog ~ a musher for E when she ski-jors, fat bikes, or dog sleds but also a well behaved friend even in new environs at the Nest. After a breakfast at Matt's fav Mtn Lion we headed out around the tarn along Salt Lick for a solid 4.5mi hike. At times we were dubious on the choice to not bring snow shoes but all considered we chose wisely as we had fairly good pack on the trail and the new snow was only several inches. We clearly observed Kees readiness to mush any time the word "go" was uttered... fast doggie.

After resting and allowing M&E to hit the spa for a refreshing soak we headed out to grab a beer and food. We were fortunate to hit the 6th anniversary celebration @ Angry James (though crowded) where we enjoyed some more tasty hazies, though E quickly thought less of the bitterness, and (though loud) a keen string band from Summit named Moonstone Quill. We dined at the excellent Cove & Craft on Last Chance 'za and wished our great guests off as they headed back to the Front Range. Just really fun.

Next @ the Nest were our gr8 friends the Brantleys. We had a hoot of days, though more brief than initially hoped. Kala's mad skills were immediately recognized and consumed on Sun night's fine dining on habenero short ribs and accoutrement, enjoyed with Brantley's fine 13 yr old cabs ~ you can't match this. We caught Dead Reckoning Pt 1 on the NestMT before retiring, and then popped up in the morning for some Dave's mcmuffins. We ventured to Breck for the Intl Ice Sculpture Championships; Mexico's entry was awesome, as was 2nd place finisher of native American stuff. We did think the descriptions of the carvings were a bit over-the-top... they are very cool ice carvings, not Nobel Prizes.

We hit ORB for some tasty hazies on the way back (and escaped with a 4 pk) and then hiked the Dillon Rez lake loops in stellar weather (sorry for the chin chop on the team selfie my love); those are Buffalo and Red mtns in the distance... so cool.

Back at the Nest we laid domino tiles where the normal game denier Scott thumped us. We killed some shrimp in Dave's devil dish and had some more 13 yr old spectacular vino from the master's cellar... so good. We capped the night with a Dave fav dark-bending Coen Bros film, Burn After Reading, only after Dave's offered tunes were sampled. Another day rose and we hiked the Blue River before sampling AJ's brews and Last Chance Pizza. We kicked them back to the Front Range.

On with life in the mtns; K&D enjoyed a soak in the shadow of Buffalo Mtn and then I scored happy hour with DD.

Didn't Wet The Line ~ PT Packed In Winter 22Jan24

Wow. I didn't wet the line today on the PT, though I did try 3 spots. It wasn't worth driving down or dressing up obviously. I stopped 1st at the stadium with no cars in the lot; I suited up kindof excited for the 1st outing of '24. One can't really see the holes or the river from the lot but once down to the river I quickly noted a huge backhoe doing work mid-river; downstream murk and noise closed off that direction.

I headed upstream around the corner toward the reliable bridge show hole. It was occupied with another guy spotting from the bridge. I watched him not catch the fish we saw for a few minutes. I also noted that the next 3 holes behind weirs upstream were also occupied. I went back to the car and headed to the Valco Ponds area.

There were 25 cars between the old building lot and the larger upstream lot. I parked but quickly decided to just head to the Nature Center. Passing through the NC reception area I counted ~5 cars that looked fishy and then arriving at the upstream dirt lot I counted 10 cars with mine ~ WTF, it's a winter weekday. I hopped out to fish but quickly found the best spots occupied again here, often with lots of folks. I hiked upstream in the river and along the bank but this section too was packed. I called it off.

No more images for this entry ~ too depressing.

January Music Appreciation ~ Wagging 11Jan23

While auditing the new Blanda kit, and wandering Bandcamp and YouTube, I came across an awesome new band, Wagging. Asheville, NC trio fronted by signer/songwriter Alison Antaramian. I was instantly drawn to the sounds and vibes and so, I'm devoting this month's Music Appreciation to them and their brand new self-published debut EP (05Jan24), My Own Private Rodeo.

Great songs, great vocals & harmonies, whether Alison is recording herself multiple times or not, and subtle keen hooks are here aplenty. This is close to Beatles-like alt-pop and clearly reminds me of Essex Green, a solid favorite of mine, who rarely publish these days. The Wagging beat kids Newt Pat, drums & backup, and Mark Capon (bass) are great accompaniment to Alison and her songs. The band is tight in the recording from Mike Johnson; it is very solid and I love the sounds from around that town. I don't yet know to what Wagging refers here... probably the tertiary meaning (love that) when a bandleader, uh leads/conducts. Not a dog tail (despite the album cover), not a jump on the bandwagon, just leading. There are less than 100 hits this morning but it won't be long; my sense is this album and band will blow up... there's an official video for Marigold on YouTube, one of the songs, but the whole album is great.

Well above in the opening paragraph is the Bandcamp link to the EP and HERE's the playlist for My Own Private Rodeo on YT. Very much worth the time. Decent but not spectacular dynamic range on the recording.

Building The Blanda Sub ~ Big Bamboo Bowl Bass 02Jan24-10Jan24

The near-field 8" Blanda 108s, and even the Blanda Googly Eyes, are excellent but want for bass... they got it! I built a sealed 11" Blanda bowl subwoofer with a 6.5" driver powered by an external 100 watt plate amp which mates with the L/R main bowls well. I'm using a bamboo dog bowl stand to hold this speaker :). The amp is external so as to not take inordinate volume in the cabinet (which it would have). I'll build a box for the amp from leftover Baltic birch probably, rather than buying bamboo plywood... we'll see.

I hoped for a viable 11" sphere subwoofer design that'd get me down below 40Hz, but all those designs needed porting that was very large & long, which could not be done within the cabinet (stole too much volume), and therefore would just look weird ~ like Saturn if wrapped around, or an umbilical coming out of the sphere. Such a port would be about 3.25" in diameter and at least 18" long! Plus, bass ported woofers often sound flabby to me ~ I prefer tighter and more musical bass contributors ~ such as those capable of rendering acoustic bass (40Hz-400Hz)  music well. Therefore, I sacrificed some low end and focused on a sealed cabinet design. As with the L/R main Blandas before, the Blanda sub cabinet is completely fixed to an 11" sphere minus the section taken by the driver, and the driver itself. I looked at a number of round drivers with ~6.5" diameter and needed to find a solid one with an EBP (efficiency bandwidth product) 50-100. Small's rule of thumb is that drivers which yield EBPs above that are only suitable for vented designs, primarily due to their motor's ability to hold court in a completely sealed box. Anyway... from among a half dozen 6.5" drivers I chose the Tang Band W6-2253S with neodymium magnet for the perfect fit without taking too much volume from the cabinet, and it's solid match to task at the low end to 55Hz in a sealed cabinet (Vcab = Vtot - Vsec - Vdrv = 9.14 - 2.3 - .78 = 6.06 liters). It may be meant for walls & doors but it is a solid driver for sealed cabinets like a big Blanda bowl.

The parts arrived and the "the look" is fine and funky.

Fabrication for the sub was nearly equivalent to the original Blanda salad bowl speakers. Again the toughest aspect was cutting the driver hole the correct size with a flat lip to secure the driver nicely - back to the Japanese pull saw for handiwork and then sand clean with a palm sander.

The cut was much more challenging on the 11" bowl than the 8"ers as there was a lot more material to cut through at the bottom of the bowl this time. So much was left over on the flat lip that I needed to sand out a substantial amount to allow the driver to clear... I used a Dremel tool and lots of trial fits. Ultimately it fit like a glove.

I drilled for banana jacks in the "back" bowl, sanded the lips (for glue adhesion), and wired the jacks. I then glued the bowls together into somewhat of a sphere ("somewhat" because the Ikea Blanda bowls are not exactly hemispheres; bowl height is < d/2).

Once the bowls dried I ran a gasket around the driver, wired it, and installed it with wood screws in the "front" bowl. I also installed "feet" on the the dog bowl holder uprights to get some purchase on the speaker, eliminate any rattle, and increase isolation. No wool in the cabinet this time... at least to start. I fired it all up in a smoke test with some Flim & The BBs and got some lowish notes ~ the low rez rudimentary curve looks OK. Who knows if it's right yet, the Blanda 108s are in another town, as is my measurement rig; the setup seems to work well though... no smoke, all jazz. Ultimately I will only pass ~<200Hz to the sub's amp, which despite it having a variable filter maxing out at 180Hz, was still playing higher frequencies.

I listened and measured performance both down-firing and front-firing, mainly to assess whether the carpet absorption or the slot behavior in down firing would effect results. I'm running the sub high enough in the dog bowl holder (4") that I was not worried about compression, and didn't expect slot effects as the sub is a sphere without real slots effecting the driver output. The new Blanda Sub measured the same down-firing or front-firing. Nice thing too as I might well have booted a hole in the driver at my stand-up desk were I to need to run it front firing.

On with the measurements for "near" and "far" in the Nest study... yeah cathedral ceilings will help but there may be some undamped reflections in this room. Measurements show great integration between the new Blanda Sub and the Blanda 108s, whether listening near @ the desktop or far across the room @ the fly tying desk. Near shows a bit of shout at 460Hz, probably induced by the desktop; it's rarely good to have a horizontal surface right below your speakers ~ I'm not worried about it given how great the Blanda 108s sound overall... especially now that they have bass support. I refined the Blanda Sub integration with the mains... I adjusted crossover to about 125Hz with gain on the amp about 60% ~ sounds good and measures right.

I am completely stoked at excellent sound from "far;" I did not expect that. This is a very solid DIY audio showroom made of salad bowls.