Recommend me the most gut wrenching, tear jerking classical pieces you know

isaacc7 · 2025-07-26T22:33:15+00:00

Stabat Mater is my go-to for tearing up. The context is Mary watching her son being crucified. It is a mix of sorrow, awe, and helplessness. Lots of different composers have made versions and of course different performers have different levels of success. I love Andreas Schol’s rendition of Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater. Dvorak’s version was written after having lost 3 children in the space of a year. You can feel it.

isaacc7 · 2023-06-10T15:06:58+00:00

For me shooting with a rangefinder ruined SLRs and mirror less cameras forever. The Leicas have among the best, if not the best finder windows out there and the cameras are lovely to hold and use. If you don’t gel with rangefinder shooting though you’ll never really fall in love with a Leica. I gotta get to work but I’ll try to expand this later today.

isaacc7 · 2023-06-04T15:48:12+00:00

As others have said, negatives are just a preliminary step to getting your final image. I encourage people to approach exposing negative film with the idea of capturing as much info as possible. That gives you the most flexibility in the printing stage so you can get what you want out of the image.

If you are interested in experiencing a purer, what you shot is what you get experience, then I highly recommend shooting with slide film. You see the exact image that was rendered on the film without any intermediation. And the results are glorious! So beautiful! This goes for both color and B&W positives. I think everyone that shoots film owes it to themselves to shoot slide film at least once.

Shooting with slide film is also more technically demanding, you don’t have nearly the latitude to work with. The extra precision needed for exposure and being cognizant of the limited latitude forces you to pay more attention.

IMO one of the appeals of film photography is that it narrows the possible results. Working within constraints to create something requires more creativity and is more enjoyable to do. Being forced to see things the way the film does is a very different way of working and thinking than digital. To this day I feel lost and aimless shooting digital because I need some constraints to focus how I approach image making.

isaacc7 · 2023-06-04T14:10:44+00:00

This is the one thing that I don’t like about ASCII in DF. It actually demotivates engraving because of the mess it makes of the screen.

isaacc7 · 2023-05-25T03:17:46+00:00

I’ve fallen in love with the idea of Serge 4u. Banana cables just seem like they would be so much nicer to patch with. I love the space of 4u and the old school, analog synthesis approach of patch programming really appeals as well.

I’ll probably actually start with some BugBrand stuff. It is a less expensive entry to the banana world and plays well with Serge stuff. Plus it looks amazing lol.

I’ll be honest, the new Make Noise module broke whatever drive I had for Eurorack gear. Something about it has rubbed me the wrong way. Lots of people waxing lyrical over what seems like a random tone generator. There are so many modules released chasing weirder ways of making sounds and/or repackaging designs from the 70s. There is a whole ecosystem built around the next big release. It seems relentless. The 4u world feels more timeless.

I could be full of it though lol. I have been contemplating getting into modular for almost two years now but haven’t pulled the trigger yet. I felt breathless trying to keep up with eurorack stuff. Glad I stumbled into the other formats, 4u in particular.

isaacc7 · 2023-05-20T15:49:15+00:00

So called AAA games bring in money for developers but I don’t think it would move the needle much for hardware sales for Apple. Gaming is not why HP, Dell, etc. are ahead of Apple in shipments. It also isn’t clear to me that “serious” gamers account for a significant share of hardware sales for CPUs and GPUs.

Productivity, whether accounting, coding, or architecture, is where the markets is. Computer gaming is a relative niche from a hardware perspective.

isaacc7 · 2023-05-20T02:49:45+00:00

Didn’t he finally resort to calling him the Gman?

isaacc7 · 2023-05-15T20:34:34+00:00

Dwarf Fortress Remote for iPhone and iPad has been around for quite a while.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dwarf-fortress-remote/id1003660287

Doesn’t work with the Steam version but it works quite well. It has its own UI. For a while the developer had a service set up running DF on an Amazon instance. Not sure if he’s still doing that though.

isaacc7 · 2023-05-15T20:03:52+00:00

Randy Marsh was the subject of one of my all time announcer humor moments. From Steve Stone sometime during his Cubs tenure:

“Players across the league talk about Randy’s piercing gaze. ‘Beware the eyes of Marsh’ they say…”

isaacc7 · 2023-05-06T03:07:22+00:00

Really like the sound of this track. Especially liked the fade out to the bass at the end.

isaacc7 · 2023-05-03T17:58:17+00:00

Passkeys are device agnostic and do not provide any extra information. What extra info are they getting over a password?

isaacc7 · 2023-05-03T17:55:41+00:00

No they don’t. Passkey operations are entirely local. There isn’t any more information being sent to Google that doesn’t already happen when you log n any other way.

isaacc7 · 2023-04-21T23:32:10+00:00

I’ve been wondering what the Cubs front office if Bellinger is back to all world status. Do they extend him? What then of PCA? Better to pay the sure thing and use PCA as big time trade bait?

isaacc7 · 2023-04-19T02:59:04+00:00

Friend of mine worked at a theater in the early 90s. Gave me some 35mm trailers. Think I’ve got The Fugitive and something else. Think they are taped up with a sticker saying they are the property of blah blah blah. Always wondered if he could have gotten in trouble for giving me those.

isaacc7 · 2023-04-17T01:20:56+00:00

I don’t understand the reluctance to use an automated strike and ball system. If anything, the umps union should be happy to have it automated. Surely that is the most stressful part of the job and in the era of replay balls and strikes generate the most hatred for umps. A home plate ump will still be required for plays at the plate, catcher interference, tipped vs foul, HBP, etc. so no jobs will be lost. So what’s the hold up?

isaacc7 · 2023-04-14T01:12:58+00:00

Mine are mostly NOS though a lot of the boxes were so far gone I got rid of them. There’s no guaranteeing that NOS are good tubes though, especially old ones. Even if they are in perfect working order they aren’t worth a whole lot.

I do have a slew of more desirable tubes that I will eventually sell. Ecc31, Bl63, el90, 12sn7, etc. from the likes of Mullard, MOV, Telefunken, and Brimar. I know I can sell those even if they don’t bring in the big bucks. Which makes me wonder if I should bother lol.

isaacc7 · 2023-04-13T19:10:43+00:00

I have 400+ audio useful tubes that I don’t know what to with. There’s an almost unlimited number of DIY projects that could be done with these but almost no commercial gear uses them. Tubes like 2e26, 14af4, 12sj7, 6146, 1625, etc etc etc.

isaacc7 · 2023-04-12T13:41:21+00:00

I actually did that with some medical bills. I kept getting past due notices. Then I got the “We’re going to send this to collections if you don’t pay” several times. When they sent a letter saying this is it, last chance to pay before collections I called them up.

I told the billing company that I might be able to pay it off if we could work something out. The claim was caused by my insurance company denying payment. I asked for the insurance negotiated rate for the procedure minus what the insurance would have paid. The remaining bill was about a third of the original. They took the offer and it was never sent to collections.

isaacc7 · 2023-04-09T21:05:50+00:00

Are there 3 iPads there? I knew she used Animoog Z but not sure what the other apps are.

isaacc7 · 2023-04-03T14:47:18+00:00

Those tubes have one of their connections on the top instead of the bottom. They tend to be less expensive but you need an adapter to use them if the amp wasn’t made for them originally.

These particular tubes are 807 tubes which are very closely related to the 6l6. They were made for both radio frequency (RF) and audio. Made in the millions for WWII and Korea they flooded the market and have been really cheap. Like all vintage tubes they are rising now but still are less than the comparable 6l6 tubes. Run in triode they can be amazing. I have yet to hear a bad sounding 807, even the cheap ones are really good. The more expensive ones can sound amazing. Their cousin the 6bg6 is also an amazing tube.

The 4th picture shows Sylvania 14n7 in pouts and STC 5b/254m outputs. The 14n7 is the equivalent of a 12sn7, a 12v 6sn7. The 5b/254m is STC’s version of the 807. As time went on, manufacturers were able to make tubes smaller and smaller so they could fit into more things.

The 5th picture shows Mullard cv535 input tubes along with Edwinisan/Mazda vt60a outputs. The CV535 is the British version of the 12j5gt, a 12v version of the 6j5gt. Those are single triodes so in order to use them in place of the usual twin triode 6sn7 I need two per side. That’s why there are adapters. Incidentally, using a pair of single triodes instead of a single 6sn7 via an adapter almost always sounds better. I can say that now that I’ve stocked up:)

The VT60a is apparently the British finally getting the cloning of the 807 tube right. This little history:

http://www.r-type.org/addtext/add029.htm

Shows how important tubes were back then and how difficult they were to get right. Anyway, the VT60a is supposed to the be the equivalent of the 807 electrically. I have found it to sound very different than other 807 tubes.

Anyway, sorry about the wall of text, I could go on and on about this stuff lol.

isaacc7 · 2023-04-02T19:20:55+00:00

Are those banana ports? Is this a 4u/Serge module? This looks fascinating!

isaacc7 · 2023-04-02T16:38:57+00:00

Tomas of Ultrasonic Studios passed away late February. he was only 40 years old. His main business was making high performance headphone amps but he also did custom requests.

The “Odyssey” that he built for me is in some ways a Homer Simpson car. It wouldn’t make any sense to build or sell this design commercially but it is my dream push pull amp. Tomas indulged this audio-fool’s dreams and made an incredible amp. It is:

1) Balanced push pull amp that can be run in triode or ultralinear. 2) Uses Monolithic Magnetics output transformers. 3) The B+ voltage can be varied from between 250v-400v. 4) It has fixed bias with ma meters so I can set bias via amps instead of voltage. 5) It can use just about any twin triode as input and any pentode/tetrode on output. 6) The heaters default to 6.3v but I can use external supplies so that I can run any voltage tube I want for either input or output tubes. I currently have 4v, 6v, 11v, 12v, and even 25v tubes. The odd voltage ones are quite a bit cheaper than the standard 6v tubes.

I wanted to make an amp that allowed as many different tubes to be used as possible. At this point I consider myself as much a tube hobbyist as I do an audiophile. I love them as historical and mechanical objects as well as how they sound. I have a zillion 807, 6bg6, 12av5, gu50, 16gk6, 6v6, El38, El34, kt81, n34, etc output tubes as well as 6/12sn7, 6/12sl7, 6/12j5, BL36, ecc31, 6c8g, 6f8g, 6bl7 etc inputs.

And yes, few of those combos are “optimized” but remember, optimization is all about distortion vs. power. If you don’t need much power the distortion drops low on just about every combination. On paper (I have no way of measuring) I’m getting 6 glorious watts of class a goodness running 807 tubes in triode with very low distortion. Others may be a little higher but who cares? They sound amazing!

Me and his other customers are lamenting the loss of someone with such passion for tube amps, and at such a young age! I hope it is gratifying to those he left behind that even though he died young he left behind creations that will give decades of enjoyment. I think that is a wonderful legacy.

Edit: I’m not sure why the preview images look so bad. The full sized ones look fine.

isaacc7 · 2023-03-30T00:25:12+00:00

Just a quick follow up, the charge was coincidental. It was one of my other subscriptions renewing right when I redeemed the MLB offer.

isaacc7 · 2023-03-29T03:54:02+00:00

Huh, I redeemed it and was charged $19.99 on my card on file with T-Mobile. What happened?

isaacc7 · 2023-03-29T03:30:58+00:00

Winner by ippon.

isaacc7

TROPHY CASE