All Smalls @ 11 Mile ~ Where've The Pigs Gone? 18Apr23

I spied a bald eagle exiting as I entered the canyon at 9:15am this day ~ so cool. There were 13 cars on the way in (and 25 on the way out). I went to the head of 11 Mile Canyon section of the SPlatte River as typical here; I parked just upstream of the last bridge, as usual here. Flows have been reduced to ~80cfs, so not good. Weather was cooler ~55° and windy, especially after noon, I caught a gaggle of cutbows consistently. But WTF, no bigs visible or in my net. The longest fish was just 18+" skinny cutbow at the fence. Midges did the work today... choose Pop Top, Awesome, Top Secret, Money, Blue Oyster Cult in #22 and you get them ~ but they'll be small (<+17")... I did best at the top section. I do really wonder where the bigger fish have gone this season ~ I bet it's pressure combined with lower flows. Grrr...

I did like a targeted and landed Snake River cutthroat, again from the top most section.

As always, it is completely sublime in 11 Mile Canyon... I just wish we'd had a real shot a pigs. I was wielding the RFDB, my go to 4wt power wagon these days, so I could handle the weight.

Scorching, Soaring, Searing Screaming Females @ Marquis 15Apr23

Jim wisely chose to come to the Screaming Females concert at the Marquis with me last night. Unfortunately Matt had to bail. The feature act was awesome despite the sound just being OK and our vantage point in the back of the mosh pit being weak and mostly blocking our view. We opened by meeting for dinner downtown nearby at Kachina Cantina, a fine Mexican restaurant nearby. I drove up from COS and parked right next to the Marquis and walked down to Kachina. I was fortunate to meet Marisa milling about outside the venue at which she'd play this night ~ I welcomed her to Denver and thanked her for her music. I didn't take a selfie; dumb move.

Kachina really screwed us a bit on service time. While they did comp us drinks, it put us behind our normal schedule of arriving before doors open in order to score position A to hear & see the show. Hence the weaker "seat."

The lineup included LA punk bands Smirk, who played 1st, and Generacion Suicida. Skimp was less well known and with less published but played some very hooky punk pop tunes for us from their four man lineup.

Generation Suicida was a more hard core Latin punk act. Their leader played melodies and vocals ~ often angrily yelling. Most of the songs were in Spanish so couldn't land on me easily but the band was good... the LP cover is for their latest, Regneracion.

They all were fine but we came to see Screaming Females with Marisa Paternoster on lead guitar and lead vocals. She completely owned her guitar as expected, with not so much lead lines but lead licks dotted with tiny outrageous solos throughout the night... she's righteously one of the top rock guitarists of all time IMO. And with now 8 albums released from the same trio, they are tight and consistent. Marisa has also refined her vocals over time ~ incredibly, I like her newer stuff more. The growl is under control and the screams are right on key. It's all a freewheeling punk vibe but it's even better now IMO.

Given our tough spot in the house I recorded only one song ~ Mourning Dove, the first single from the latest album Desire Pathway. Strong song but imperfect recording by me... surely better in person and on the web in several spots but still enjoyable. Anyway, I was very excited to catch Screaming Females in Denver and they did not disappoint; they were GR8.

Plenty Of 'Bows On The PT ~ Including Another Broken RFCO2 Rod CutBow 13Apr23

Another very nice 80° day compelled me to fish... I'd intended 11 Mile but I headed to the PT again because my BC20X camper rear window, broken by vandals, was repaired and ready for pickup @ Windish in Fountain. I could grab it on the way back home. Here's the issue... all up $1200 directly out of my retirement assets... dammit.

Also in camper news... I was able to sell the venerable Coleman E1 popup toyhauler for nearly asking price... we lost only 20% of its value over 12 years of ownership and use! Great fun but the new BC20X is so much nicer.

On to the fishing though ~ 115cfs and only one guide with 2 clients rolled out of Nature Center @ 10am or so. I don't know why there was river vacancy, but I'll take it. I caught dozens of cutbows in just several hours on the NC section. That said, still, no 20+" fish, and that is very unusual for me in spring. I don't think it is me ~ I think the fisheries, or at least the PT has declined in production of larger fish. Frankly I am not surprised with the pressure and treatment I've encountered. I saw an older guy land a nice fish after a 10 minute fight. The fish was exhausted and lactic no doubt. He then proceeded to walk it in net through the air for 40 feet and still leave him out of the water further for pics for another 10min or so. Sad. Another shift observed on this outing was that mayflies (black ice perdigon, MHFBPT, and grey RS2) took 65% of the fish ~ the shift from midges has occurred and I even caught a number of fish moving into the riffles for the mayflies. Nice. Action on the redds is declining on the PT, but it's not "over:" Great fish are still very visible near the spawning beds.

Yet the real story of the fishing day for me is that I initially chose to weaponize the Rodfather Colorado Series 2 (based on the CTS Affinity X blank) to shoot as the PM winds were forecast to rage. I never got the chance to cheat winds as AGAIN, on an initial outing, on one of its 1st decent fish, the RFCO2.2 snapped on landing the fish. And, it broke exactly where it did in Nov '22 initially. After 4 months (and some pricing and fulfillment drama) I had received a matching  2nd section and rebuilt it (I didn't get to take it to NZ as planned but it was beautiful). Here are the break, the fish, the break... I've written the company imploring that the product manager and product development understand that their process or specs for grinding ferrules (CTS has not done this previously on the Affinity X line) SUCKS or at a bare minimum, they need to re-think stuff... reliability is currently very suspect. This is my objective opinion; once the broken section is replaced and rebuilt I will perform appropriate stress tests before loading the RFCOS2.3 into the rod vault again. WTF.

Shit happens. As the initial fishing pics show ~ I hiked back out and reloaded with the ever-true Rodfather True Five, based on a reliable New Zealand blank from Swift/Epic. The RFT5 cast brilliantly and landed everything hooked. C'mon man. But my fails did not end there this day. I summoned master fisherman Matt D_B to Windish to grab a Euro rod he coveted for a float of the upper Ark. Yet, I'd not loaded it in the Crusher; so yeah, more work for him, Dammit.

Nest Theater Part Twenty Two ~ Pro ADC For Final 'Final Vinyl' 05Apr23

Whoa. I started simply with a new turntable & pre-amp but wasn't satisfied. I dove on pro analog to digital (A2D, ADC, A>D) converters used in studios to digitize  analog from mics, etc. to replace my $15 gizmo currently in service in the NestT to send phono to the miniDSP EQ. I found I could mostly only afford "vintage" gear like the venerable Apogee SD-500E (48KHz/16bit), lauded for "that Apogee sound," or similar, as the modern versions cost ~$2.5K or more. I almost pulled the trigger on eBay for vintage but kept diving and found a German team, RME, with a much less expensive but modern system, their ADI-2 FS, seemingly equally lauded, though much more recently. It's probably a lot less expensive (but not cheap) due to the rudimentary UI of just LED lights. They had higher end stuff with LCD panel UIs. I didn't care about that as it does what I want at up to quad sampling: 192Khz/24bit and is electrically ultra-quiet. I'm just gonna "set it and forget it" and hide it anyway. I did also care that pro reviews of this half rack converter were strong, as were its tech specs. I'd say it's a prosumer/small studio ADC. I pulled the trigger on Amazon and it arrived from a 3rd party quickly. The fact that it is somewhat small is good as I don't have much rack space. More importantly, my testing shows it is excellent ~ displaying something I will now call "that RME sound." Grrr... it did not come in black; that is, per se; a Pro version with LCD did come in black with the same A>D function & quality, but was $2K more!

I strapped up a test setup in Blodgett to assure I did not need to immediately return it for some reason. I drove the analog out from my Onkyo DP X1 mobile system into the ADC and set the ADI-2FS to resolve to 192KHz/24bit in real time, and sent that digital signal over SPDIF to my Schitt Gungnir Multibit DAC /Mjolnir AMP stack, then balanced to my ears via Mr Speakers planar magnetic headphones. I was listening to the latest Screaming Females. Holy crap ~ no latency or loss of fidelity! One should not even attempt to play a high rez digital file through a DAC and analog out through an AMP (in this case both internal to the DP X1) to a different ADC to a DAC to an AMP... unless it is really good gear. This audio path is insane ~ but it is what I need to pump up the vinyl on the NestT. The test cleanly showed that this ADC upgrade will improve the "Final Vinyl" system of the NestT to Final "Final Vinyl." Woohoo... I will integrate it and measure results soon ~ after all, closing day at Keystone is next week.

It was a smooth integration into the NestT, except for some placement hassles (the new ADC is larger) and the fact that I needed to convert digital COAX to fiber as I could not get the fiber out of the ADC directly to work well enough for me; vinyl playback is now complete liquid butter. Here's the install and the modified connection diagram. Again, using an ADC on vinyl is NOT a classic audiophile move, but getting the miniDSP module in the mix on phono playback as well is simply much better for these speakers and this room - plus, I can always defeat it to hear LPs unadulterated.

This may raise the price of an LP to $20-$30 or so (to include vinyl) from my current $10 digital files only buys. But I buy so few it'll be worth it for some visceral feel and handling fun; I'll always get the digital version with the vinyl anyway. I've always loved the album covers & liner notes, and one gets a certain feeling hearing the scritch scritch meaning side A is over and then spinning the 180gram album to play side B... now the sound is very worthy as well. I did acquire some new vinyl to try.

Measuring 20Hz-20KHz sound pressure levels on the NestT before (with Mosou A2D) and after (the new RME A2D) did not show significant differences, as shown in the 1st graph; I expected this as the speakers, tubes and room dominate the frequency response of the system. But the Mosou introduces >2X higher distortion (THD) of 3.6% than the RME at 1.6%, as show in the next graph. Finally, the measured latency or processing delay in the Mosou was 3X the .1 msec of the RME ~ not a huge deal but longer. Further, to my ear, I noticed improvement in dynamics and clarity, especially on the low & high ends, and on the full range delivered, as I played real vinyl. I'll take it ~ audiophile mods are often nuanced.

UPDATE 05May23 ~ Elimination Of Two Media Converters... Today I updated the NestT along the vinyl audio path. I built my own cable for converting COAX/SPDIF to AES, which is compatible with my new REM A2D, to get it's digital output to my DAC's AES input. It's a weird cable but I rewired the ends of an existing RCA to XLR cable to make it. Using it allows a direct connection where I previously had to convert COAX to fiber and then fiber to AES via lots of cabling and 2 boxes powered by wall warts. The best news is that it works! I replaced this mess with a single custom cable because I found s setting on the A2D that enabled electrically higher signal output (required for AES use) on the COAX/SPDIF. There is no measurable difference in the sound from this change ~ it's just digital.

Of course I like less active stuff, and less cabling, in an audio path. The updated new NestT connection diagram is now as below.

Lots Of PT CutBows On Spring Midges 07Apr23

IT was a beautiful day following some cold ones ~ I headed to the PT to fish, loaded with my new Pop Tops and Blue Oyster Cults. I arrived late and hit the water ~11:45am at the Nature Center; it was pretty full but I moved up to the area across from the farm and quickly was into fish. Flows were up decently to 110cfs and it'd kicked up some silt but my midge rig slayed and for ~3 hours I was landing 4-5/hr, including a number of 19"ers, all cutbows. The other bugs I used worked as well, an #18 olive perdigon weight and a #18 MHFBPT. Perdigons work best for me in faster water when a fish may have FOMO. I rested about 3pm and drove up to Valco for a quick pass there ~ my "luck" continued, though I had to jump around plenty of occupied spots and move up to the head of my range near the hatchery flow-in, and I caught more before departing ~5pm. Great day on the PT but just one >20"er (see the release; he did not want to be shown); maybe there are fewer here now.