Much more fun playing fuzzguitar......

[VacuumVoodoo]

Guys,
I'm sorry for being away and silent these past two weeks. There was a family emergency (my 84yr old mother drove her car into her garage but didn't open the door, well, she intended to stop in front of the garage but her right foot slipped onto accelerator), I got my right index finger slashed when unbending the metal door. Luckily that was the only injury besides my mother being shocked. Finger is healing ok, at least I can type now.

Now the big question: how to convince her she should not drive any more? She's a stubborn matriarchal type, add to it being Holocoust survivor and all of that trauma.... it's damn complicated.

I'll PM everyone on the list with prices and shipping costs asap.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

[cabo]

glad to hear everyone came out alright! good luck in getting her not to drive,,my parents never listen to me.
thanks for the updates.

[Donner]

Yikes I know this one too well..
My mother did the exact same thing about 2 years ago but didnt listen the first or second times , finally convinced her she was going to really hurt someone and she should give up her car before the police took it from her...
It helped alot when I showed her how much she was spending on keeping a car going with insurance etc, and how many cab rides a month that would buy as she only drove a couple times a week...

its more a pride thing and it helped at lot that she wasnt just giving something up but had something to 'switch to'.....

you can also tell your mother that my mother stopped at 70 so yours at 84 outlasted most people.... but its cab/shuttle time for her ...

find a good taxi company near her and have a talk with the cabbie before hand and go with her the first couple times and make t he switch comfortable and fun if possible.......

[VacuumVoodoo]

Guys,

while the heat wave is over Scandinavia it's not a smart thing to fire up a soldering iron. So, I'll take the time to answer some questions put to me regarding LouderAndMore amp in private communication.
The main concern seems to be how much personal hands on involvement by Bjorn and myself will there be if the amps will be assembled by a subcontractor. It is a valid and justified concern when a piece of art (or kitch if you prefer) is offered as an original signed limited edition.

To answer it extensively I need to digress and take you back to May 1st 1966. After all, I pop up on this forum, present myself as Bjorns friend but you may justifiably wonder who the heck I am and from where did I pop up.

Alright, in my profile I put my location as "A chimney on top of a building somewhere in EE 1966".
Strange as it may sound there's a wiggly line connecting this location and LouderAndMore amp.

The building and chimney in question is at Latitude 52°13'5.47"N, Longitude 20°58'56.51"E and it's marked on Google Earth.

At that time I was a high school student and every year on May 1st we were hoarded off to participate in a mass parade designed to demonstrate peoples devotion to the party and it's leaders as well as to the big brother in the East. Myself and some other guys skipped the parade and as the day was warm and sunny we decided to go somewhere were we couldn't be found by militia patrolling the streets in search of suspect individuals who weren't at the parade. We just needed a place to have some smokes and booze to wash down garlicky sausage in honor of the day. We chose the roof on the building where I lived. It was a flat roof some 7 storeys above ground. We had our picknick, sang a few dissident songs in both polish and russian for good measure. After some time, the booze, the smokes and the sausage did their work on my lower intestine. Of course, I couldn't go down to our apartment in case someone might see me. You never knew which one of your neighbors was the informant. So, without further ado, I dropped my pants, sat on THE CHIMNEY and dumped a healthy load all 7 storeys down to the central heating oven in the basement. In the process I was doing my rendition of "Sitting On Top Of The World" and in the distance I could see the TELAM vacuum tube factory.

Fast forward to present day. I have managed to acquire a stash of NOS ECL82/6M8B TELAM tubes for this first batch of LouderAndMore amps. There is a statistical probability, however small, that some of them were made within a day or two of this historical moment. (May 1st, 1966 was a Sunday) I promise you they don't smell and they definitely don't sound like crap.

So, will there be personal hands on involvement in manufacturing of the amps? Yes.

The subcontractor will only do manual assembly of the PCBs and amp chassis. I shall personally measure and select components critical to amps voicing, Bjorn shall do the same with the FET transistor used in the preamp. A second transistor used in the preamp is a NOS low noise type from 1979, no longer manufactured, that I used in some studio equipment I designed on my first real design job. I have enough of them for this batch. Oh, yes, that job was with the company who will do the amp chassis assembly, their current managing director used to crawl under my desk back then, he is the owners son.

I shall scrutinize and test each board comparatively to the master prototype for consistency on all electrical parameters, any deviation will be corrected.

I shall be taking a lot of photographs during manufacturing of the amps and will be posting them in this thread so you will be able to follow the amps through the process and meet everybody involved.

After burn in amps will be re-tested and played by Bjorn and A/B compared to master prototype.
Once we both are satisfied with amps performance both electrically and tone wise then and only then will we sign them. If that is not enough and a DNA sample is required as proof of genuity I'll pluck a hair from my mustache and attach an regular evidence bag containing it to the inner wall of chassis. You can then clone me if you wish but I beg you to not let me meet any of the clones, I'd be bored to death talking to myself.
Bjorn just told me on the phone he's growing a mustache for the same purpose.

Seriously, the main reason for subcontracting the most tedious part of manufacture is to keep the cost down. Building a batch of 25 amps is a different undertaking than building a Mad Professor or a Tubewonder to order one at a time.

PS. The way I see I didn't just pop up here. I came down from The Chimney and I'll gladly tell you more Mr.More stories, one at a time

[Donner]

ahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!

Yes please more mr. more stories !!!!

I cant imagine an amp getting more personal attention .....



hmmmm perhaps brown tinted glass tubes ???

[frankenstrat2]

How will we know it is mustache hair, and not something more, eh, intimate?

[VacuumVoodoo]

How will we know it is mustache hair, and not something more, eh, intimate?

Compare to your own since you don't wear a mustache, if inconclusive result send it to CSI NY for analysis

[frankenstrat2]

How will we know it is mustache hair, and not something more, eh, intimate?

Compare to your own since you don't wear a mustache, if inconclusive result send it to CSI NY for analysis

Its a little known fact that hair follicles do not contain DNA, but will show what you ate and if you were poisoned.
Don't ask how I know that.....

Anyway I was thinking that rather than a mustache hair or even a pubic relic, it would be more appropriate to supply one of those tiny hair follicles from the inner ear. You know, the ones that die when abused?

[VacuumVoodoo]

How will we know it is mustache hair, and not something more, eh, intimate?

Compare to your own since you don't wear a mustache, if inconclusive result send it to CSI NY for analysis

Its a little known fact that hair follicles do not contain DNA, but will show what you ate and if you were poisoned.
Don't ask how I know that.....

Anyway I was thinking that rather than a mustache hair or even a pubic relic, it would be more appropriate to supply one of those tiny hair follicles from the inner ear. You know, the ones that die when abused?

Let's not start splitting hairs...

[frankenstrat2]

Let's not start splitting hairs...

Oy vey.