Lady Elanore

Blimey, I thought he was staying in America partly because his wife was settled there?

A studio I worked in replaced its speaker tie lines in the roof grid from 'EP' standard sockets, for the 100V line speakers (before speakons), to standard XLR 3 pin. Unfortunately these 100V XLR tie lines were adjacent to the Mic tie lines and neither was labelled as to its purpose. So several people plugged mics into the wrong tie line....ooops!

They were designed for OB use originally, hence the LS3/ part of their designation and the handles (you probably knew this), but found their way into many editing channels indoors as LS5/8s were considered a bit expensive and overkill for the task of 1/4" editing.

I edited many radio shows on LS3/7s and Quad amps Did yours still have the handles on? They were useful to hang things off

Crikey, I just looked up the Kef 103s! They seem to be a beast of a bookshelf! I doubt many bookshelves would take the weight Very unusual shape. I wish I'd heard them. Having spent decades listening and working with reference monitors and such like, I prefer a simpler mechanical approach to speaker design, careful matching of compnents and extreme quality control can give so much.But a lot of the newer innovations in manufacturing and design, seem to be producing speakers that appear to outperform their dimensions and shapes. I still think I'll end up with a 3 way floorstander at some point (obviously I already own a pair with the M22s, but they aren't quite clinical enough for my ageing ears :D), just because I like the bass extension and although I run a decent active sub, it's never quite the same as a one box solution that has been designed by experts. Were the Crestas a bit like the BBC LS3/5s ?

It was meant tongue in cheek

I'm very disappointed in you

Kef are on a little bit of a roll at the moment. Making some nice speakers, especially the K3 You can keep well-built speakers going for years in the crossover components are still in good order. My M22s are still structurally solid as the day I bought them and now I've given them new tweeters they sound pretty good once more

Hamilton has called them out for getting the mandatory 2 laps minimum to avoid fan refunds (he might have sung a different tune if he had 'won' of course?).

Ah, it was Discovery. I have it as part of a SKY package. I've been watching Any build his Alfa single-seater project car too. Very interesting and it gives him lots of chances to fabricate and fettle things. He is doing a lot of it by eye, rather than cam/cad design. I like... a lot

I still can't fathom how Suzuki didn't have the mechanical capability to plan ahead and stick a modern small petrol engine that was compliant with emissions regs. Obviously it wouldn't have been totally straight forward as most of the engines they would be able to lay their hands one, where probably designed for transverse layouts, but even so... They would have been able to sell plenty of front wheel drive version I'm confident, even that defeated the cars true raison d'être. Maybe electric or hydrogen will revive it, but they absolutely must not tinker with the external design.

I've heard the K3s and thought they were quite excellent. In fact the first proper speakers I ever bought where the Kef Coda IIIs. I was working in London and went to Tottenham Court Road and bought them without thinking how I was going to get them home to Manchester along with my suitcase (I was spending 2 months in London, so I had a very big suitcase with me). At one point I dragged the huge cardboard box along to the train with a bit of sting (like walking a recalcitrant dog). Total nightmare, but worth it when I eventually got home. Upset a lot of people on the bus too as I recall I gave them to a colleague when I got my first Epos pair and he still has them in daily use To my ears, it seems to be so much easier to build a good bookshelf speaker than a good floorstander. I miss true LF from my MA 100s, but everything else sounds very sweet. The tweeters really are remarkable for what is more or less a mid-range budget speaker. Having been an Epos fan for many years (hence my M22s. M5s and Epos M Sub), I felt disappointed by their slow drift into anonymity and slow move downhill in performance 😞 They have been bought by a German company which is currently developing a new range though. Monitor Audio seem to be a British company that has a similar ethos to the one Epos once had, plus I like British speakers (and amps).

So the new Wheeler Dealers with Elvis has hit our shores, or perhaps more accurately, never left our shores, but then the saying wouldn't make sense, so... The show has changed a little. It's a bit more sterile imho and Elvis, being probably the most qualified mechanic the show has ever had, is not so good at explaining stuff to laypeople like me. I loved the way Ant would take a white pen and show with a simple drawing what he was trying to achieve, or perhaps explain a process that was germane to the rebuild. He also isn't as enthusiastic as Any, at least to my eyes, but I'm sure he will grow on me. I don't doubt his mechanical chops, that's for sure. I hope he does a spot of fabricating, as I found the body stuff that Ant did to be utterly fascinating. I struggle to roll a bit of pastry, let alone take on the challenge of the English wheel.

Actually thinking about this I noticed the room correction was poor on my last Onkyo as they had gone from Audyssey to their own system. My Denon uses Audyssey which is reasonably good, but it helps that I have the phone app which lets you see and tweak the room's curve manually to some degree. It seems to be reasonably accurate for a cheap system as you can see the crossover peak (very slight on my front pair), although they annoying like to put a few dbs of reduction as a default whether you can see the crossover peaks or not

3 x receivers ago I had an Onkyo NR906 that weighed around 24kg. A lot of that was the lovely big Transformer that gently warmed my room. Huge amount of grunt from a Japanese receiver at the time. My current Denon doesn't quite have the same 'manly' output (SwMoPs), but I run a separate poweramp for the front pair (Roksan K3) which not only heats the room but is also satisfyingly heavy. Hence, I have my grunt back and we all like a bit of grunt don't we? I missed the chance recently to buy a Cambridge Azur 851 for £850 at Richer Sounds (I was a bit skint) and that not only has HUGE power but weighed 19kg, so it must have been good Still kicking myself over missing that one. It's one of the main things about power amps, they never go out of fashion, a good one is always a good one and will last decades with a bit of luck I've seem some ex-demo Monitor Audio Gold 300s for around £2,500 and I thought if I could only persuade my accountants to let me get them for my business they would be a nice addition to my furniture unfortunately I don't think I could lift them into position anyway as they weigh around 30kg-the speakers, not my accountants "Damm you lifetime's obsession with heavy hifi!!"

We still have that bet

Well, Mr Russell may have just put pen to paper in a virtual sense. Astonishing result in qually 3

You see, weight fixes everything. That's why cottage pie makes you feel better, where as a green leaf salad doesn't.

I think you should have taken the elbow photo and run a poll as to which body part it was. I honestly couldn't tell from the shot Glad your ok. I've had a few road rash moments over the years ( and a few ambulance rides too ) so I sympathise with you, especially at the mickey taking you may receive from loved ones...well I always seem to get some sort of stick

I haven't noticed the phenomenon of receivers with unusual gain structures. Maybe I've been lucky with my receivers? Although I’ve owned 4 different models, Onkyo and Denon and have auditioned a few through the years. Of course, the speakers that are being driven are a big factor and low impedance speakers can cause lesser amps a big problem. The thing with receivers that is always misleading, is the quoted power figures. They say things like 120W per channel and as you have a perhaps 9.2 receiver you think "wow that's a lot of power". What the small print says is its only 120W as a single channel or perhaps 2 channels driven, so if you have full surround system going you won't see anything like the power you think you should have. Usually the first give away is the power supply isn't up to the job. That's why I like heavy amps with big room heating toroidal transformers

Well I finally managed to source a new set of tweeters for my ageing Epos M22s (floorstanders) and replaced them both as one of them had died a bit - nothing to do with biscuit rationing in case you were wondering Mr Monkhai ^^^^. I wondered how they would compare with my newer stand mounted MA 100 Golds. I have to say they weren't bad. Even though they must be getting on for 17-18 years old (or more, as I can't remember when I bought them) they sounded so lovely. Very polite and they have a lovely mid-range, in fact they made my newer speakers sound a bit boxy if I am honest. So I swapped back and forth between them, listening to different genres of music. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that the new speakers are just so clear and concise if every thing they do, that the older Epos do sound a little tired in comparison. I put this down to the MA's pleated tweeter, which is a much more modern design and also the mid/bass cone which although not having the benefit of a 3 way design like the Epos, is a very modern cone design and provides surprising bass from a small box. The Epos is still a wonderful thing to listen to, so it shows that proper British engineering ( there is 1" MDF involved ) still has its place, but I think in this case, my 'HIFI of Yesteryear' has lost this particular battle, although it was a worthy second place. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with them, at least after my back recovers from lumping them around the living room

I'm enjoying watching the process. It's a right hodgepodge of a car, but it should look stunning and after all he built it with his own hands. I know a lot of people don't care for Ant, but his enthusiasm and skills are hard to dispute, I reckon. He also isn't afraid to get 'stuck in' something that was levelled at Ed China before he left Wheeler Dealers. I agree, the USA style of dragging the thing out is a little annoying, but we seem to be pretty good at doing that over on these shores these days. Overall, I'm enjoying the show. I like a man who is good with his hands

I love this sunset. I've given up on trying to capture them and so just stare and enjoy them 'in the moment'. But I like the colours above

I like Mike Brewer. He really is a car guy and works really hard for the show (I've worked with a couple of guys who did the original British show, they reckoned he was OK). I admit he over acts something rotten, but then again, thats something of a British staple for Presenters on UK motor shows.

My telly box is ready and waiting...as am I