Can You Hear Me Now?

When I was a freshman in college, I decided to build a pair of stereo speakers from scratch. With help from a book I bought, I learned the basic theory behind acoustics and drew up a checklist of parts required. While they were all available at the Radio Shack, I knew I wanted something made with more quality.

Looking through some audio magazines at the bookstore, I copied the addresses of the most local showrooms I could find, and then took the train down to New York City to visit every car audio shop on Canal Street to find a pair of 12″ bass speakers. With the spec sheet in hand, I did all the required calculations (yes, the guy who failed math in his junior year figured out algebra, proof that if one is motivated enough, miracles can happen) to get the correct dimensions for a speaker enclosure, and I cut the particle board by hand in my parents’ garage. Finding the correct tweeters was difficult, but not as difficult as finding the crossovers, little electrical capacitors that send the right frequency to the right speaker: this was before the internets, when we had to do shit like go to the library to look stuff up.

With a $8 soldering iron, several feet of dampening foam, and a cordless drill, I assembled the cabinets, sealed them up and plugged them into my amplifier. And to my surprise, they sounded good. Really good. It got so that I could crank them up to half my amp’s volume and they’d shake the windows without distorting—but, then, the speakers were built to lift the wheels of a car off the road. They came in handy for parties that way.

The only downside was that they are butt-ugly; unfinished particleboard is as aesthetically pleasing as wet cement. My hand-held circular sawing job now just looks like I hired a drunk to build them. So they sit in the basement, where Geneva has been using them as a scratching post (thankfully I have guards over the speaker cones). During the Great Flood, they got their toes wet and a permanent stain set in.

I saw this article on Toolmonger today about DIY speaker cabinets, and it made me think about my project again. I’ve wanted to buy some quality poplar and put my carpentry skills to use rebuilding the cabinets for some time now, but I’ve put it on the back burner. Perhaps after Thanksgiving, when I get the cabinet finished, I’ll take a weekend or two and show my speakers some love.

Pizza delivery

Campaign logos

Ward Sutton takes on the deisgn of campaign logos in the New York Times. (via)

Have a Coke

This evening I stopped into the Forest Diner for a burger and a cup of coffee. There are fewer things I enjoy more than sitting at a counter and reading a paper with my dinner.

Lego Yamato

Jesus Christmas, I would have sold my everloving soul to Satan for this model when I was a kid. Some kook in Japan is building a model of the battleship Yamato in his living room, the ship that inspired my favorite show, Star Blazers. (via)

Curiosity Satisfied.

This afternoon, I decided to check out the Vespa I was threatening to buy a couple of weeks ago. In the time since I first saw it, it had been listed on eBay and failed to meet the reserve—which should have been the first hint.

The sales guy was helping some other folks outside, so I got some quality time alone with the scooter. It was quickly apparent that the photos on Craigslist did not really describe the condition that well. The chrome is all there, but the deck is bent on either side from several accidents. The “paint job” looks even worse in person than in the photos, and the previous owner decided to slap some dumb stickers over top of that. The seat only had a few rips, but there was a lot of rust evident in the bodylines and underneath the deck, and I’m not interested in battling rust again.

It was a nice dream, but I’m passing on this particular scooter. I’ll have to spend more money for a fixer-upper that’s got fewer fundamental problems, which is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way.

Desoto Teeth

While I was out yesterday, I spied an older DeSoto sedan on the side of the road that I’ve been meaning to shoot for months now. Pulling a highly illegal U-turn, I stopped in and took pictures until the battery on my Canon died.

This particular model is a Fireflite, first released in 1955 as the flagship model, and cost $3,544 new. It’s a huge four-door sedan featuring a V-8 engine with a lever-controlled automatic transmission. With styling featuring a grille full of chrome and a beautiful hood ornament suggesting a pair of wings bent back in flight, DeSoto sold 114,765 of the model in 1955.

Unfortunately, the DeSoto name did not last beyond the 1960 model year, a victim of Chrysler’s machinations (it competed directly with the Dodge and Plymouth brands as a mid-priced offering) and the recession of 1958.

Tuck and Roll, Baby

This afternoon I went out to take a look at a Kustom bass cabinet for sale down the street. Kustom was a company making musical amplifiers from the 60′s until the early 80′s, and their gear was known for its distinctive tuck-and-roll covering, as well as its powerful sound.

Built in Chanute, Kansas, The Bass 250 was available in black, blue, white, red, green, and silver flecked naugahyde, and put out 250 earth-shattering watts through two separate channels and a matching reflex ported cabinet (where a hole with a specially tuned tube increases the low-range frequency response). Unusual for their day, Kustom amplifiers all used solid state transistors when their competitors were still using tubes.

The seller fired the amp up after plugging in a keyboard, and he noodled around a bit while I tested out the controls. The amp shook my teeth at a volume of 2, so it’s a fair bet these go to eleven. The naugahyde is in fair shape, if not dirty, and the grille cloth is stained and has several small tears; the face of the amp head is suffering from some rust or water damage. And last but most importantly, while standing in front of the cabinet, I caught the distinct odor of cat pee. Further olifactory investigation was inconclusive—I couldn’t tell if the smell was from the big puffy amp or some of the other vintage gear laying around.

Am I considering this? You bet your ass. Do I know his asking price? yes, and it might be a little high. Some cash and a smile might change his mind…

Imran Khan Arrested

Cricket legend seized in Pakistan. Listen to this NPR interview with Imran Khan from Monday—it’s the most damning description of our country’s misguided foreign policy I’ve heard in a long time. The more the US meddles with foreign countries, the more destabilized they become.

The Replacements.

I like to watch the Home & Garden channel to see house porn and get ideas for our place. It’s kind of a spectator sport sometimes, because the people featured on all of those shows have absolutely no taste. Here’s the setup: an otherwise normal looking couple has their house on the market for eight months, and they can’t understand why it’s not moving—could it be the fact that they’ve decorated it in Early American Frat House? Young couples who would ordinarily throw judgemental looks at me in the Starbucks live in condos that look like the bed of a municipal waste truck.

Then, some expert blows in, forces them to dispose of their stuffed animals and model train periodicals in a humiliating yard sale. Afterward, they throw the remaining furniture out, buy some window treatments, paint the place in colors other than white, and Voila! the house sells. Miraculous!

There are other shows, like the ones that feature flipping (how’s that working out for you this year?) and renovation, and I like to see what people have done with basket cases like ours. I steer clear of This Old House, which is made for WASP-y hedge fund millionaires who can afford to hire The Largest Crane In Connecticut to lift a barn over a pond, or install enough solar panels to light a municipality. I also avoid While You Were Out: even if you have the hottest carpenter on TV, a $1,000 budget will only get you cheap-looking custom furniture painted in one ugly color.

Mainly, I like to watch so that I can find solutions to problems that only this house presents. What do I do if I have no heat in my kitchen? How can I replace a slate roof without declaring bankruptcy? Where can I find replacement valves for my radiators?

Usually I’m disappointed because these programs are only interested in answering easy questions, like which end of the hammer hits the nail? But once, I saw something that got me excited.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been back and forth as to whether I should start replacing all the windows here at the Estate with vinyl, or find some way of making the existing windows better. A few weeks ago we had a guy come and quote on new basement windows, and on a lark had him quote separately on the dining room windows (which are long past saving). Surprisingly, the price was reasonable—much less than I’d guestimated.

As it suddenly got cold outside, I kicked around the idea of going room by room with vinyl. This place seems to have gotten draftier with each passing year, even in the rooms where I’ve scraped, repainted, and recaulked the storm windows. Where we’re losing the heat is in the weight pockets on either side—a 6″ deep cavity covered by two bare pieces of ¾” thick wood, hardly an energy efficient solution.

Vinyl sucks, though. It’s ugly. I like the warble in our existing windows, which were built in the days when glass was still imperfect and contained lines and bubbles. I like the look of wood. And the two vinyl windows that predated our arrival are cheaply made and already discolored. Plus, some botoxed “realty expert” on one of the house programs said that buyers don’t like vinyl, and are looking for natural wood windows wherever possible. This statement got me to thinking, but I took it with a grain of salt, only because the program was filmed in Southern California, where their idea of cold weather attire is long pants and a warm macchiato.

A couple of years ago I saw something on one of those programs, and dug around to find it online: the Pullman Manufacturing Company, who make a product called window balances. Essentially, it’s a spring-loaded cord that fits into the pulley pocket used by sash weights. Cut the weight cord, pull out the pulley roller, and replace it with the window balance, then attach the end of the cord to the bottom side of the window, and there’s no need for weights anymore—which means the void can be filled with insulation (somehow).

I missed the sales rep this afternoon, but I’m calling tomorrow to buy four. I’m going to test it out in the living room to see how much of a difference there is, before I make a final decision on vinyl.