Modula Xtreme follow up

[Juhazi]

Thank You Jon
for clarifying the aspects I was concerned of. I like many others here also ride a bike (me Yamaha SRX-6 '86) and do lots of hazardous things like fixing the roof or satellite antenna every now and then... We love this hobby and live full every day, who knows 'bout tomorrow!

Let the sun shine in!
Juha

[JonMarsh]

just consider the disruption...

Ouch! I think us East Coast readers just got slammed! :W

if you were asked to move to the opposite coast from where you live? Friends? Family? Community?

That's happened to me before working for this company- once, three months after I joined it in Colorado, when it appeared I would either be moving to New Jersey or CA within six months (it ended up being CA), and again, a few years ago, my previous manager wanted me to move to the RDU area (as nice a place as I think you're like to find on the East Coast, but it's not Northern CA or Colorado, and it's several thousand miles away from my daughter). What if someone told you you needed to move to Utah or Nevada in the next couple of months? Might not be your cuppa joe, either... :W

[evilskillit]

if you were asked to move to the opposite coast from where you live? Friends? Family? Community?

Awww, come on John, you know we're with you wherever you go. :W

Nah, that would suck, having to move from somewhere else to where your boss lives would be bad enough, then add all that other stuff on top. If the hear attack didn't get me I might just commit seppuku and be done with it. Hehe

[Evil Twin]

Easter thoughts,
Jon, thank you for your contributions to the art of speaker diy. But I'm a bit worrid about how do you feel about your disciples? Some are already buying parts for XE versions when even you haven't heard more than tone bursts and pink noise coming from them! Hope that you can manage with that better than the guy 'bout 2k years ago...

Juha
(Not meant to offend anyone)

You may consider it a minor distinction, but here we do not have disciples...

There are Jedi, and Padawan learners, and other skill levels- even the occasional Sith apprentice or Sith lord- but no disciples. No worship of any kind...

[JonMarsh]

This should be obvious, but if it isn't...

The posted LspCAD crossover is undergoing some fairly fast evolution, nothing I'd call radical, but certainly developmental. By the end of the week it may be in a fairly stable form (actually, it may be right now!) but for now, making crossovers and making measurements is more important than making posts! So far the junk box sourcing is working better than I expected, but then I suppose I don't have the average junk box!

In retrospect I wish I'd started with gloss black enclosures instead of maple, but I'd had the maple " head units" on hand for some time. The lacquer finish on LBL looks great against gloss black.

[savage25xtreme]

Jon,
How do you feel about sonic quality of the PE enclosures? I know from a financial standpoint there isn't much benefit in building your own enclosures, in fact when I did my BAMTM's I had about 20% more into building my own enclosure to the PE spec than just buying them. I guess my question is, given you had more time, would you have built your own enclosures for a design this Xtreme. I know in the Ardents, you went all out, do you feel it was worth it? From a strength of enclosure standpoint, if there were no facets?

[JonMarsh]

I'm hardly leaving the enclosures "stock", though the idea behind using the PE enclosures is to make things more accessible. In this case, it is "Xtreme", and have rather gotten carried away as you can see from the CAD model in the start of the thread. One thing that I've been finding/believe is very important is the front panel rigidity and how it couples to the rest of the cabinet. Though I'm not building enclosures this time around like an Ardent, (which I find works very well and gets the most definition out of the drivers, especially considering the other resonance control efforts implemented, and the improved polar dispersion as a function of the facets), you wouldn't call 1-1/2" LBL + MDF panels wimpy now, would you? :W Or 1-1/2" LBL? Even the back panels and top/bottom have extra reinforcement. Think of it as like the guy who's driving what looks like a bone stock Pontiac Lemans from the mid 60's, but he's got a roller tappet cam big bore GM V8 and a four speed on the floor slipped into it... except this is easier to do!

This is one aspect distinguishing a number of speakers introduced over the last years that work very well- quite stiff front panels. So, we're hardly state of the art, but it's a matter of degree- how much is better, how much is enough?

No comments on the audible qualities until things are further dialed in, but so far I'd say it's pretty promising, considering all the different ideas being tried out in this system. Tom's buliding his Whisper II's as new rock and roll speakers; I've thought of these a little bit the same way, but as I'm planning on demoing them with people like Harry James, Jacque Loussier, and Hiromi Uhera, it seems like I'm off on a different tangent.

Maybe I better throw in some Bruce Hornsby, and Santanna, Dire Straits and Elton John from SACD! Maybe even some KT Tunstall (Acoustic Extravaganza). :W

[savage25xtreme]

I figured you wouldn't be leaving these even close to "stock" great to hear you say it. :T

I bet blonde LBL and gloss black cabinets would be :jawdrop:

sorry to bother you during vacation, ENJOY your time off.

[BeerParty]

Sorry Jon

if you were asked to move to the opposite coast from where you live? Friends? Family? Community?

Just joking there Jon, I thought that was obvious. Sorry if I hit a raw nerve. :cry: Moving away from friends and family sucks, I agree. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. :rant:

I was just making a joke (well, trying to make a joke ops: ) about you saying "East Coast" like it was the location rather than the move that had you upset.

[JonMarsh]

Just joking there Jon, I thought that was obvious. Sorry if I hit a raw nerve. :cry: Moving away from friends and family sucks, I agree. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. :rant:

I was just making a joke (well, trying to make a joke ops: ) about you saying "East Coast" like it was the location rather than the move that had you upset.

I understand Chris, no problem at all from my side. :B

Let's face it, there's Right Coast folks, and there's Left Coast folks, through truthfully, I still feel more like a Continental Divide kind of folks (Colorado), California is so weird, because it seems to be so polarized- you've got a lot of really hard core liberals (well, beyond liberal, I'd say), and you've got the "Orange County Republicans", and sometimes it does't seem like much in the middle!

Fortunatley our office is in RDU, and if I were to move to the East Coast, that's probably my favorite spot- splits the difference between New Jersey and Miami, eh?

Let's face it, for all of us, there's no place like home, is there? :lol:

[JonMarsh]

This is a "plug" for Hank... and 3M

3M Pro Grade Sanding Sponge...

They definitely have improved these, and I'm really liking the results I'm getting, using the Medium and find, works great around the curvy stuff I'm doing, and as they claim, doesn't load up.



:T

Official Sanding Sponge of the Modula Xtreme
======================================

(my kick back for this endorsement and $3.75 will get me a latte at just about any Starbucks... )


BTW, I'm back at work this week, just working on speakers either very early in the morning or after getting home- was up at 2 AM today, working on crossover stuff.

[Johnloudb]

BTW, I'm back at work this week, just working on speakers either very early in the morning or after getting home- was up at 2 AM today, working on crossover stuff.

Well, you'll never be accused of being a slacker. Looking good! :T

What if someone told you you needed to move to Utah or Nevada in the next couple of months? Might not be your cuppa joe, either...

Unfortunate choice of words Jon. Utah is a wonderful state! How's the skiing out there in California? It's has snowed over a foot this April on the benches, but overall it has snowed a bit less this year.

Image not available

Utah is also the home of quite a number of high end audio manufacturers like Soundlab Loudspeakers, Wilson Audio, Kimber Kable, and Zu Audio. The Rolls Bellari Phono Preamp is also built here, across the Valley, in Murray Utah.

Very nice people here. Conservative for the most part but there is a solid pocket of democrats in Salt Lake City, always electing a democratic mayor. Salt lake also got a new beautiful and modern city library about 10 years ago. It's south side is all glass.

All the best films (creative and independant films) show up at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

And Utah has many very beautiful national parks and monuments, like Zions, Capital Reef, Arches, Brice Canyon, Flaming Gorge (that may be a state park), Grand Staircase, Monument Valley, and more.

Brice Canyon



I know you weren't being malicious, and meant the moving to a different place. But, you mentioned Utah and I had to defend house and home. :B

Okay, back on topic ...

[JonMarsh]

Brice Canyon



I know you weren't being malicious, and meant the moving to a different place. But, you mentioned Utah and I had to defend house and home. :B

Okay, back on topic ...

Exactly! House and home... that's really the point. I've been to Utah quite a few times, I was just picking it as an example of somewhere quite the opposite of living on the East Coast (I'd generally pick Utah over most of the East Coast- it's not Colorado, but it's close- literally).

Newark New Jersey, on the other hand....

[Juhazi]

>Newark New Jersey, on the other hand....<
Guys, I just can't help loving these random slips off the topic! Jon, I love how you let your personality and spirit come visible (Evil Twin knows the ST expression for this). Now I must remind you of princess Leia's necklace, which is a commercially successful design "Planetary Valleys" of the Finn prof. Björn Weckström. Sorry but I don't know if he is a relative to the speaker designer mr. Anders Weckström, one of the gurus of controlled directivity of speakers in Finland.
Please check www.gradient.fi (history), www. weckstromspeakers.fi

Juha

[Johnloudb]

Exactly! House and home... that's really the point. I've been to Utah quite a few times, I was just picking it as an example of somewhere quite the opposite of living on the East Coast (I'd generally pick Utah over most of the East Coast- it's not Colorado, but it's close- literally).

Newark New Jersey, on the other hand....

My Dad and I used to take short trips to Boulder to visit the Audiophile shops there. We would take the I-40 route and then I-34 through Rocky Mountain National Park. That trip is one of the most scenic I can think of.

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, that's a beautiful drive all right! It's a great motorcycle ride...

[cbark]

Yeah, that's a beautiful drive all right! It's a great motorcycle ride...

I'm jealous of you guys. The only reason you don't go straight on the roads around here are to avouid the potholes. Motorcycle wheels don't like them so much.

....back on topic, when in Brice Canyon in Utah, where do you place the Modula Extremes for optimal performance? :P

[JonMarsh]

I'm jealous of you guys. The only reason you don't go straight on the roads around here are to avouid the potholes. Motorcycle wheels don't like them so much.

....back on topic, when in Brice Canyon in Utah, where do you place the Modula Extremes for optimal performance? :P

Uh, I'll have to research that and get back to you on that one. In general, the Cardas setup is a good starting point....



Just substitute the canyon walls for the room walls to work out the dimension ratios... :W

[Paul W]

Jon,
What brand/model are you contemplating for the Flux Capacitors?

[JonMarsh]

Dayton 100 uF MPP (it's what's in the junk box! - this is a "junk box crossover" due to lack of time and some budgetary constraints). Had more than a few of these on hands, due to past projects. For example, each 26W/12867 will get 4 x 100 uF in series.

[Paul W]

Between you and I alone, PE must go though a lot of those. A very handy value.

[JonMarsh]

Between you and I alone, PE must go though a lot of those. A very handy value.

Ain't that the truth- definitely a value leader, too, if you need large values. Not too hard to work with physically, and dissipation factor (measured) is reasonably low- unlike NP electrolytics.

[JonMarsh]

Getting closer to the final crossover

For those curious....



This is still the "junk box" crossover, and final component recommendations may change as I tune it up after the Northern CA DIY. Just have to see how that goes. Probably will upgrade the tweeter cap, for example, possibly the midrange caps.

It always seems so straight forward in the concept phase, but getting all the work done in a rather finite amount of time makes it more like a job than a hobby!

[JonMarsh]

Saturday's Product Plug: Mirka Abranet

These are definitely my favorite sanding disks- an elegant solution to the problem of how to suck up all the dust- don't put holes in the sanding pad, make the pad porous instead, with a very good abrasive structure.



Available from coarse to super fine. Highly recommended.

That they're made in Finland is just icing on the cake.... :W

[JonMarsh]

Evolution continues

May be ready to button it up, soon.

[augerpro]

Jon have you looked at the Jantzen Silver caps? Similar price range to the Clarities (which I use too).

[JonMarsh]

I have used a few, but then many of them at PE turned up with "not available" notices, I thought maybe they were a bit too pricey for PE's target markets. My impression is lots of detail, maybe a skosh forward and not quite as neutral as the Clarity MR, which is a bit more forward and "imaging" than the Duelund VSF's. I like imaging, so I like the Clarities... :W

[JonMarsh]

Speaking of the Modula Xtremes...

Not forgotten, just not posted.

They've been done for a while (late April, natch) except for swapping out some higher grade caps in the next month or so if things go as planned. No time to work on the documentation, but here's a teaser. I'm pretty dang happy with them- relatively compact, great midrange (I may have owned the T6-C90 longer than Jed, but he's been working and listening to them longer- this is a great midrange driver!), and lots of dynamic detail all up and down the range, due to the low driver distortion (those W26 are super once you get them tamed!) Nice clean bottom end to a bit below 40 Hz, high 30's. They will play loud for the size... think of them as miniature Wilson's. The flux capacitors seem to work nicely- no hint of boom or hangover.





The network has evolved a bit, I've got a piece of paper with all kinds of scribbling to prove it, but no computer docs yet.. :W ...soon

[numberoneoppa]

Holy smokes, those look awesome. Looking forward to a distortion plot.

Oh, and nice to see you alive. <3

[Jed]

Not forgotten, just not posted.

They've been done for a while (late April, natch) except for swapping out some higher grade caps in the next month or so if things go as planned. No time to work on the documentation, but here's a teaser. I'm pretty dang happy with them- relatively compact, great midrange (I may have owned the T6-C90 longer than Jed, but he's been working and listening to them longer- this is a great midrange driver!), and lots of dynamic detail all up and down the range, due to the low driver distortion ........

Sweet build Jon!!! I concur on the Accuton Mid.... probably the best in the world. It is the only mid that I've heard that creates a holographic soundstage outside the speaker limits in space. That makes sense to those who have heard it.

Jed

[Bear]

Wow, Jon. It's hard to believe you started from off-the-shelf cabinets in that picture.

Sweet build Jon!!! I concur on the Accuton Mid.... probably the best in the world. It is the only mid that I've heard that creates a holographic soundstage outside the speaker limits in space. That makes sense to those who have heard it.

Jed

Jed - Not to pry too many tradecraft secrets out of you, but I'm curious what size enclosure you feel works best with the C90? Jon has it in ~20 liters, which seems enormous based upon the T/S parameters, but I suspect T/S modeling is probably largely irrelevant for a large, sensitive mid like this.

[gbegland]

Looks super!

I bought one of these same woofer cabs a few weeks ago to use as a test box. During listening tests of some mids, I kept noticing something wrong with any driver I put in there. Sounded like a resonance. Well, I walked around to the side of a cabinet while sweeping tones thru it and sure enough, there was a mean vibration @ around 240Hz! It was as loud as the sound coming out the front of the driver. I opened her up and the brace inside was not well glued into its slot. Todays lesson.......check these things and/or apply a liberal amount of glue to the brace area before using.

Greg

[JonMarsh]

You've got the right idea

Looks super!

I bought one of these same woofer cabs a few weeks ago to use as a test box. During listening tests of some mids, I kept noticing something wrong with any driver I put in there. Sounded like a resonance. Well, I walked around to the side of a cabinet while sweeping tones thru it and sure enough, there was a mean vibration @ around 240Hz! It was as loud as the sound coming out the front of the driver. I opened her up and the brace inside was not well glued into its slot. Todays lesson.......check these things and/or apply a liberal amount of glue to the brace area before using.

Greg

PE's quality control is not always what it should be. I bought an extra set of rear panels for these, as I knew I wanted to replace the ones used for the initial test measurements with different binding post arrangements, and the new ones were about 1/64" greater than 12", whereas to fit they have to be about 1/32" LESS than 12" on each side.

The braces in mine were glued OK, but I had to cut them out with a Japanese hand saw in order to install the crossovers- shortly I'll be putting new braces (scrap LBL) back in with epoxy. With the braces properly in place, the sidewalls are fairly stiff, and not doing much to speak of in the woofer range- the wall resonance is up higher. I think the very stiff front panel and reinforced back panels (I didn't mention the 5/8" LBL laminated on to them) help control things pretty well, plus the way they're connected top to bottom and the head cabinet mount pretty well take care of those sides.

Only regret is that I didn't do this set in the glossy black- would have looked great with the LBL. The SO build I'll use that color, see how it works.

~Jon

[Jed]

Wow, Jon. It's hard to believe you started from off-the-shelf cabinets in that picture.



Jed - Not to pry too many tradecraft secrets out of you, but I'm curious what size enclosure you feel works best with the C90? Jon has it in ~20 liters, which seems enormous based upon the T/S parameters, but I suspect T/S modeling is probably largely irrelevant for a large, sensitive mid like this.

My application is slightly different than Jon's-- a bit smaller.

I look at the following when deciding on the size of a mid chamber:
First, I look at the bandpass slopes and transfer function targets--that is, whether or not it can hit the target given the box tuning-- which is a matter of the selected Fc points of the bandpass, desired slope of the transfer function, distortion profile, excursion, and other factors. I prefer a larger closed midrange box if I can meet my objectives, because it allows me to use enough stuffing to absorb excess midrange energy inside the box. This, I've found, helps to clean things up in the mids without having to resort to a dipole or open back design which pose other issues when using monopole woofers. Which begs the question, if someone can place the C90 in an open baffle, which is an infinitely large box with added rolloff because of the open baffle format, is that box too big as well given the T/S parameters? Again, that too is determined by the optimum bandpass.

If you asked the same question for a woofer application where the low end is a higher priority, then that would obviously be much different.

[Nathan P]

Those things look gorgeous. I'm definitely going to use the LBL technique on my next set of speakers, I LOVE the bamboo look.

Well done. Can't wait to see the Modula XE SO's

What's the target crossover point for the woofers and the mid? Are both woofers receiving the same signal or is the bottom one adjusted to account for it's proximity to the floor?

Nathan

[JonMarsh]

Those things look gorgeous. I'm definitely going to use the LBL technique on my next set of speakers, I LOVE the bamboo look.

Well done. Can't wait to see the Modula XE SO's

What's the target crossover point for the woofers and the mid? Are both woofers receiving the same signal or is the bottom one adjusted to account for it's proximity to the floor?

Nathan

This is a Duelund based three way with a center frequency of 900 Hz and aleph of 3.3. This defines the target function, which was met pretty well in practice. Translated into more conventional palaver, that's a lower crossover point of about 300 Hz and an upper of 2700 Hz.

Yes, the woofers have different loading due to differences in the boundary effects, but after considering a few options (and because of the relatively low crossover point) I went with a common filter. It's kind of like the new VFR1200F; yes, the front cylinders have longer exhausts (deliberately according to Honda) and those cylinders supply more torque down low- have something similar between the upper and lower woofers, but one thing to keep in mind is that with the crossover point and midrange operation, in the 150-450 Hz area you have a pretty tall source, which helps smoothing out floor bounce effects in that range. Having two woofers, IMO, is a definite advantage; otherwise you really need to pay attention to driver location in an Allison like sense, and might even need to move the crossover point up a little higher.

I plan to put a test article together for the SO version pretty quickly, with a simpler mechanical assembly; to save time getting it together, and to present a simpler alternative to the more "massive" construction I did here. Got to order another tweeter and a couple more woofer cabinets, should be doing that the end of the month when I'm done with some biz travel coming up. I'm pretty curious to see how the SO Vifa "full range" 7 driver does. Finessing the crossover will be a little more tricky due to the driver impedance, but I'm hoping it will work out. Otherwise you'll need to have some Aragons like I have to drive them!

[JonMarsh]

Sweet build Jon!!! I concur on the Accuton Mid.... probably the best in the world. It is the only mid that I've heard that creates a holographic soundstage outside the speaker limits in space. That makes sense to those who have heard it.

Jed

I haven't had nearly as much time to listen to these as I'd like, but most everything has been a treat due to the overall performance but especially the exceptional midrange. Some notable albums:


Sonny Landreth, Outward Bound



Rory Block, Last Fair Deal, 24/176 LPCM conversion of DSD


Sting, Fields of Gold



Elton John Tumbleweed Connection, 24/176 LPCM conversion of DSD


Obviously non of these are "audiophile" disks, but you've got something interesting when familiar disks become new and fresh, or even take your breath away a bit...

Of course, that's not my real achievement with these speakers, the real achievement was being able to get the woofers mounted in the rebate since they were so snug after finishing that I had to use some of those Foam 3M sanding blocks (plug for Hank) to take out lacquer on the inside edge, to get the woofers to sit in the holes (yes, I checked them before finishing- no problems then!!) I guess that's the best commercial grade rebate I've ever done... :rofl:

[---k---]

Jon,
Good to see you back. Please keep up the random posts of what you're listening to. I enjoy it.

I'm currently wearing this one out:



Sounds great in the living room, but even better while cruising with the top down.

[JonMarsh]

Hey Ryan, that MOFRO is pretty cool, listened to some tracks on Amazon then put it on my wish list so I won't forget it!

Maybe I'm into the Bayou sound and Zydeco a bit because of growing up in High School in East Texas and Louisiana ways... or maybe not! :W


UGHLY week, best thing I can say today is that most of it is done, but still some work to plow through this weekend. If I can get what I need to done in the next couple of weeks along with some travel out of the way, I may be able to enjoy Memorial Day weekend.

Seems like these days there's two kinds of people- those that can't get enough work, and those that always have too much, and for neither is it really of their own choice.

In my bid to chip away at posting info now and then when I have a little free time before crashing, here's the final (I know, never say never, never say final) crossover schematic for the Modula Xtreme; I expect the SO version will be equally complex, so don't say I didn't warn you! :E

This is higher resolution than I would usually do for a post, but it will print decently.




The woofer crossover goes in the lower woofer enclosure, the midrange and tweeter in the upper. I've got all kinds of pictures, and will start working on a PDF soon, I hope.

NOTE: This version is obsolete as of the end of May, a modified Tweeter crossover has been implemented which appears to be a keeper. More attenuation in the low range of the tweeter, and flatter response in the upper range.

Today's fun midrange indulgence was from Led Zep one, remastered version, of course, "Your Time is Gonna Come". Never heard the organs sound so good on this before, and the Ardents were pretty decent. :B

[JonMarsh]

Wow, Jon. It's hard to believe you started from off-the-shelf cabinets in that picture.

Jed - Not to pry too many tradecraft secrets out of you, but I'm curious what size enclosure you feel works best with the C90? Jon has it in ~20 liters, which seems enormous based upon the T/S parameters, but I suspect T/S modeling is probably largely irrelevant for a large, sensitive mid like this.

As Jed wrote, there are a variety of things that may go into the final decision about the enclosure size and volume. I'm using up a bit of the rear volume for the hardware related to the waveguide. Also, this is the smallest enclosure with adequate (Bearly!) front panel space.

In this case, the baffle step is actually part of the roll off to get the Duelund curve, and I do need the base cabinet response to be moderately extended. Because of the large deep LBL brace in the center of the baffle, the rear space for the C173N is almost like a short folded TL, as the brace goes back to the cabinet center brace, and the rear wave then folds around and through the top hole back to the area above the woofer. All of this area is stuffed with long fiber wool. Seems to work pretty nice.

This shows a nearfield plot of the midrange mid way through crossover updates; it highlights the response needed BEFORE the effect of baffle step below 1 kHz. With baffle step, the response at 200 Hz is about 6 dB lower farfield, as you'd expect.

Considering everything with the range the mid must cover (about 100 Hz to 6 kHz) I wouldn't change the rear volume based on my experience with this. I'd probably rather have a different shape enclosure, and get rid of the diffraction bump on axis at 2 kHz, but this is a Modula with prebuilt cabinets (well, sort of!), so that's one limitation. No way I'd have had the time to build a pair of Isis clones in the same time frame I did these!

[---k---]

Seems like these days there's two kinds of people- those that can't get enough work, and those that always have too much, and for neither is it really of their own choice.

If it makes you feel any better, Thursday me and my team left Chicago at 8:00 am headed to St. Louis. Got into town at 2:00. Worked till 6:00 pm, took off an hour for dinner and then worked until 11:00 pm. Started working on Friday at 9:00 and again worked until about 11:00 pm. Got back to the hotel and checked my email, and then shipped out drawings and specifications for another project. Will start tomorrow morning at 7:00 am... I'm really really hoping that we'll be finished around 2:00 - 3:00 pm and be able to get home before 8:00 pm.

Oh, Oh, Oh, but my boss says that I can take a comp. day off since we're working on Saturday. I'm just not sure when. I've worked like 50 - 60 hours the last four weeks and am looking at that for the next four weeks... grrr...

I thought I was going to stroke out on Tuesday when another client called up and asked what the schedule for his project was, because he sent me the PO two weeks ago. I hadn't seen it, and don't have time.... I took a couple aspirins not for the pounding headache, but as a precautionary measure in case I was going to have a heart attack right there from the stress....

[JonMarsh]

I can certainly empathize with you Ryan! It's not a whole lotta fun at all! Hope you do get to take that comp day sometime.

My schedule was getting so crowded now that my boss actually took a couple of weeks of business travel off of it, including one with him, because it was pushing other things that needed to be "worked on" way too far out in time (can't be in the lab and gallivanting around the central part of the country at the same time). That's the only benefit this month.

[JonMarsh]

Now spinning... Mike Garson's Jazz Hat

Reference Recordings CD. Shame on you if you buy the MP3 version from Amazon! :twisted:

"A jazz-loving audiophile's dream: great musicians, inspired playing, and jaw-dropping sound quality." -- Stereophile

[augerpro]

I took a couple aspirins not for the pounding headache, but as a precautionary measure in case I was going to have a heart attack right there from the stress....

Lately I've taken aspirin right after I walk in the door at work. This three weeks of vacation has been SO wonderful, I've not given work one single thought the whole time. I go back in Monday and I just know within one hour of being there I'll be reaching for the aspirin.

[JonMarsh]

Dang- you guys are too young to be under this much stress all the time and having to deal with it that way!!

But three weeks off? that would be hard to adjust to going back to work... I won't have that problem this year, we've been "advised" that due to work load and lack of available cross coverage, we shouldn't be out more than a week at a time. And no vacation near planned business travel, for similar reasons.