Random possibly useful fact

[odeon]

I'm doing some open source code. It's on github.

[QuéOnda]

In 1927, Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs, more than any other team in the league!

[Parts]

You can sometimes put larger windshield wiper blades on your car for better visibility.  My van call for 22 inch blades on both sides which had me looking out right at the top of their coverage,  I have replaced them with a 28 on the driver side and a 24 on the passenger. You just have to check the clearances.

[odeon]

That wouldn't work on the Jag. There's no clearance to speak of.

You can upgrade a 2004 XJ Jag's built-in phone system to Bluetooth simply by buying a Bluetooth module on eBay and connecting it to the telephone's socket in the centre console. Everything else is pre-wired and ready. Make sure that the serial of the module ends with "ab", "ac" or later.

I'm sure you'll all find this little tip immensely useful.

['andersom']

I will print and frame that tip of yours.

[odeon]

The 2004 and onwards XJs have an aluminium chassis. Interestingly, the early MY2004- cars were subject to corrosion, even though the switch was made partly to avoid that very problem. Apparently the paint processes reacted with the metal, somehow.

[DirtDawg]

I found an old Motorola console stereo system and I bought this huge thing for twenty bucks after inspecting it, despite my wife's multiple objections. I bought it for the drivers inside; two old Altec model 421-8H.

What I also have is an ancient BSR turntable (I will recycle it), a beautiful stereo console cabinet in excellent shape for its age (junk it, probably), a really wild looking enormous, ancient tube type tuner (huge old school, hand operated via a long braided cord wrapped around the tuner knob a couple of other "wheels and direction changers" and finally to the actual multi-finned, foot long, five inches in diameter, adjustable, dusty, but working capacitive device) which picks up FM, AM and some of the Shortwave Freqs (assuming it matches the indications on the dial in the section of the cabinet where the "hood" lifts up with all the knobs - reserve judgement for now), a huge set of rugged looking iron X-formers and miscellaneous tubes, maybe just the power supply (probably need to keep this until I can figure out what all this other shit does), a huge separate chassis sporting what seems to be a very large Motorola stereo tube amplifier - about twenty tubes - that seems to work enough to make the radio come in (reserving judgement on this component as well).

The drivers had a covering of thick fiberglass protecting them all these years. Can not be the original drivers - more likely someone upgraded this old console at some point. Probably not the best driver for the application, to say the least! It is an open back cabinet, yet with Altecs - definitely NOT original!

I had made my decision and I did not care about the price up to a point. I was not walking away without these drivers, even if I had to fight with my wife that day and heft this huge thing into my truck by myself. Even with the back seats out and center seats down, I had to leave the back gate of my Escalade open, LOL.
 Very curious about the old tube gear, but it was the Altecs that made me bite and I did not care if they worked or not, but THEY DO!

[odeon]

I like Altecs. We used to have Altec speakers at the cinema. Not the most linear response I have seen but surprisingly easy to drive in a large auditorium. The amps we used had no output at all, with today's standards, but the results were great. Awesome, in fact.

Lost touch with the brand after we switched to big-ass JBLs and THX-approved amps, I'm sorry to say.

[DirtDawg]

Once spring comes, I will dig into these old treasures a bit.

As far as flat response and stuff, remember, these old things were made for what counted as efficiency in their day. Understand that theater amplifiers were in the twenty and thirty watt range in the sixties, using hi-tech at the time, push-pull tube amps. It literally took dozens of them and more dozens of speaker systems to fill a huge theater, all of which was horn loaded.

The flat response thing which we all have come to covet (as in seventies and eighties JBLs had managed, not to mention as close to zero distortion in a radiating unit ever created and yet to be approached by modern standards) was yet to be explored.

Used within a reasonable pass band these drivers are as flat as many modern drivers. Learning to use them will be the key.

Though, it is the nostalgia that I am more interested in exploring.

I own four Altec 511B horns and six 808-8A drivers from the old days as well.  That sounds like an A7 or a Model 19 (home version of an A7  style speaker system without the mid bass horn) in my future.

 

[DirtDawg]

Oh and as you may already know, THX shit is another era.

I want to use these fifteens with my ancient McIntosh power and proprietary horns and drivers, creating a crossover using modern teflon/foil caps and airwound flatwire coils.

In the old days, two-way was the rule!  It worked, mostly. It has been too long since I heard one that was truly powerful. Forget both opposite extremes of the spectrum; I want to experience the dynamics of a high res, high efficiency, horn loaded system again.

[odeon]

Once spring comes, I will dig into these old treasures a bit.

As far as flat response and stuff, remember, these old things were made for what counted as efficiency in their day. Understand that theater amplifiers were in the twenty and thirty watt range in the sixties, using hi-tech at the time, push-pull tube amps. It literally took dozens of them and more dozens of speaker systems to fill a huge theater, all of which was horn loaded.

The flat response thing which we all have come to covet (as in seventies and eighties JBLs had managed, not to mention as close to zero distortion in a radiating unit ever created and yet to be approached by modern standards) was yet to be explored.

Used within a reasonable pass band these drivers are as flat as many modern drivers. Learning to use them will be the key.

Though, it is the nostalgia that I am more interested in exploring.

I own four Altec 511B horns and six 808-8A drivers from the old days as well.  That sounds like an A7 or a Model 19 (home version of an A7  style speaker system without the mid bass horn) in my future.

 

I still have a few 808 repair kits with diaphragms left. We used to blow the screen centre every now and then at the cinema when we replaced magnetic sound heads. The new ones would sometimes have too low impedances and start oscillating.

I remember the crossovers were annoyingly difficult to match if you needed five of them for the screen channels.

[odeon]

Oh and as you may already know, THX shit is another era.

I want to use these fifteens with my ancient McIntosh power and proprietary horns and drivers, creating a crossover using modern teflon/foil caps and airwound flatwire coils.

In the old days, two-way was the rule!  It worked, mostly. It has been too long since I heard one that was truly powerful. Forget both opposite extremes of the spectrum; I want to experience the dynamics of a high res, high efficiency, horn loaded system again.

Oh, I never really trusted THX in the cinema. Lucasfilm's intentions were good and Holman knew his stuff, but their approval process was wonky. They'd sometimes approve auditoriums that had the most awful sound characteristics. There's this cinema in town with a balcony that got approved by them. I could never understand how it happened.

[Queen Victoria]

The late mother of Queen Elizabeth II is rumored to have consumed a bottle of gin a day, but that did not stop her from performing public duties until the ripe old age of 101. Once, while growing impatient for a gin and tonic, she is reported to have asked the members of her largely gay personal staff, "When one of you old queens has finished, can you bring this old queen a drink?"

[Queen Victoria]

From the Mayo Clinic On Managing Incontinence book -

"Another common problem is called key-in-the-lock syndrome or garage door syndrome.  Because you associate arriving home with being able to urinate, you may feel an overwhelming urge to urinate and leak urine -- literally as you put your key in the lock or open the garage door." 

Now you know.

[odeon]

Thank you for sharing this important information.