Jtc Share Discussion Threads

[blusteradjuster] 27/6/2018 12:08

LONDON--The Bank of England sounded an alarm Wednesday over global debt markets, saying it sees pockets of risk to the stability of the financial system in places ranging from U.S. corporate borrowing to risky loans in Britain to foreign-currency lending to emerging markets.

The BOE's warning comes as the global economy faces multiple challenges, as major central banks led by the U.S. Federal Reserve step back from the easy-money policies of the past decade and as trade tensions escalate.

The U.K. central bank said in its twice-yearly financial stability report that the risks to financial stability world-wide have increased in the past six months. Officials cited a range of threats, including renewed unease over Italy's ability to pay its debts and perennial worries about borrowing in China.

They also voiced particular concern about the U.S., where corporate borrowing has ballooned to 290% of first-quarter earnings, according to BOE calculations. Rising indebtedness has been accompanied by looser lending standards, leading to a surge in high-risk lending, the central bank said, a large share of which is being parceled into securitized assets sold to investors world-wide.

[jtcod] 27/6/2018 08:35

I see the CEO of SIV has just announced he is stepping down. I wonder if his retirement was hastened by the seemingly ludicrous 2x earnings print business sale a few days ago.

[jtcod] 27/6/2018 08:19

I did have tubes myself for a number of years CFC and I like their speed and natural musicality. Then I realised how much they excite the music with vibration. I tried all sorts of things to address it. I had a HIFI distributor friend at the time and he loaned me countless tube products to find improved performance in this area but in the end I gave up as they all seemed to vibrate or shimmer to a greater or lesser extent. I found the best were in sealed boxes rather than exposed tubes. Tubes are fluid and I like that but the flaw is a susceptibility to minute vibration, at least to my ears.Dave Dac and headphone amp will probably seem a stark contrast for tube lovers. Probably a bit disconcerting at first and some long term tube fans may not even like it but it has absolute purity of sound, is fast, dynamic and very musical too. It's worth a listen but I would also recommend it is teamed up with the Chord Blu MkII which is a revelation imo CFC. It's a product that must have the competition scratching their heads and some formerly leading Dac designers realising they have been following the wrong path all along.

[captainfatcat] 27/6/2018 00:18

$50k is a lot of cash, more normal reference level *headphone* amps on the whole tend to normally trend around the $3.5 - $7k level which is quiet low when compared to what might be considered their speaker amp equivalents.

Many of these are tube based and highly regarded with long waiting lists, for the most part they are essentially low volume semi custom affairs that are tweaked to get the very best synergy out of a particular headphone combination and are normally stuffed with boutique components like Nickle transformers, stepped attenuators, exotic resistors, capacitors etc the sort of components that are rarely seen on production line orientated solid state headphone amps at similar price points.

Well implemented tube designs can be highly resolving, Tube vibration oscillation control is a matter of design implementation dependant on the type of tube being used its generally not a problem if the designer knows his/her stuff.

By all accounts the Chord Dave is said to be a bit special.

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 17:01

It’s a metallic alloy CFC in the form of an electrostatic speaker. $50k with the headphone amp. Woah!

Why on earth they would go to all that trouble and then match it to a tube headphone amp I do not know. Tubes sound nice but the vibration alone will lose the majority of extra detail from the headphone design imo. I would expect the SQ to be significantly clearer and detailed through a Chord Blu MkII - Dave Dac combo using Dave’s internal headphone amp.

[captainfatcat] 26/6/2018 16:30

JTC I have no idea what material they use in their Shangri-La headphones.

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 16:19

Evidently since January the Shanghai composite has lost more value than the total annual GDP of Canada

[the stigologist] 26/6/2018 14:10

If AorTech AOR succeed with their Heart Valve project the sky is the limit

£100 per share is the all-time high (i.e. would be a £1.4bn market cap)

For anyone who thinks that is 'absurd'

MDT Medtronic Mkt Cap $115bn
ABT Abbot Labs (St Judes Medical) Mkt Cap $106bn
BSX Boston Scientific Mkt Cap $41bn
EW Edwards Lifesciences Mkt Cap $29bn

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 13:19

Wow CFC Hifiman have an excellent reputation. Do you know the membrane material they use? Is it beryllium?

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 13:16

Serratia If any company succeeds in creating a graphene tweeter, which I am sure they will, It will be interesting to hear how it sounds. I don't mean the music sound but the sound of the tweeter because they all have a sound character that is analogous to their properties/material I think. Here are some examples which I have experienced over the years.1) Raidho ribbon tweeter+ being a ribbon it emulates vocal cords very well. Nothing does choirs and voices like this tweeter. + Smooth due to speed and good high frequency breakup figures+ weighs less than 0.02g so detail is unmatched- tweeter is so fast they cannot yet match the tweeter for top quality coherence imo even when using small/fast 5" woofer/mids- The same problem exists for cabinet resonance. The speed of the transducer lays bear all natural failings that other manufacturers do not need to contend with because their transducers are slower2)Magico diamond tweeter+ very smooth with frequency breakup way up in the 45khz range+ very flat frequency response+ mates well with their mid range cone and woofers- none that I have noticed yet3)Revel beryllium tweeter+ being metal this replicates blues guitar, brass and piano brilliantly+ very flat frequency response + very coherent sound+ smooth due to good high frequency breakup figures but not as smooth as ribbon and diamond (slightly dryer in sound character)+ this tweeter is also set in an aluminium elliptical wave-guide saucer (aluminium may be the source of slight dryness. I find aluminium sound reproduction dry. Listen to a Vivid speaker which uses aluminium for all transducers and you will instantly know what I mean) this saucer corrects off axis frequency distortion to the point of being SOTA. Revel/Harman Kardon have found through extensive testing that only 14% of what we hear as flat frequency on-axis sound actually goes to making up our brains amalgamation of the frequency signature. The rest comes from off axis firing and early and late room reflections. As 95% of all speakers in the world have woeful off-axis frequency response we invariably hear a severely distorted frequency signature from most speakers - unless the room has extensive acoustic room treatment on all walls floor and ceiling. If you do not have a dedicated HIFI room with acoustic treatment this is a great choice for a main lounge. It would hardly require room treatment.- none that I can discern yet, other than it won't produce vocals as believably as a decent ribbon tweeter4)Sonus Faber silk-dome tweeter+ I like these tweeters and they are very popular because they are easy on the ear+ they produce nylon strung classical guitar like no other tweeter+ they produce stringed orchestral instruments very believably because they are similar in material texture to violin strings.+ SF have a stringed grill on the front of the speaker which doubly helps emulate stringed instruments where sound emanates from a sound box through strings. It is spooky how this works so well.+ the sound shimmers like strings too because the silk-dome tweeter is not a rigid material like diamond or metal + Slow reaction times allow more coherent mating to mid cone and woofers. - This is why so many manufacturers stick to a silk dome tweeter I think.- The sound shimmers because it is not rigid and it is slow. Imaging will be inferior. (People often confuse good imaging with weight of image I think and that does play a part but shimmering can fool us too (as with tubes). It is not a true representation of 80% of natural sound)- Sound is slightly soft with this tweeter but not as smooth as the others because frequency breakup occurs around 20khz and that hurts frequency reproduction further down the frequency band.- Slower material = Lower detail contentThere is no real right or wrong imo. Just attributes which lend to ones musical preferences. They all have weaknesses, if in some cases like the ribbon tweeter their strength becomes a weakness

[captainfatcat] 26/6/2018 12:06

Headphones have been pushing the way in ultra thin driver membranes for a while the Shangri-La headphones from Hifiman (founder Dr. Fang Bian has a PhD in Nanotechnology) its driver membrane is only 0.001 mm. Its said when viewed side on not to be visible by the human eye!

[serratia] 26/6/2018 11:11

Majico speakers don't seem right in the way they use Graphene. I wouldn't use them as an example of how Graphene speakers perform. I'll see if I can find out the frequency response question.

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 10:55

The Ora graphene headphones will need more work I think serratia. They are not going worry any of the leading players with a 14db frequency swing into the critical mid range frequencies.hTTps://www.fudzilla.com/news/42691-ora-sound-producing-graphene-speaker-technology

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 10:34

It would be interesting to see how wide and flat a frequency range above 1khz graphene units could produce. An all graphene full range speaker should bring a big improvement in coherence I would have thought. Equally it may be achievable with just two rather than 3-4 transducers.....though I might be dreaming there.

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 10:16

That's interesting serratia thanks. I may have mentioned Magico have been using graphene coated cones for more than a year now but I appreciate that's not the diaphragm and tbh I was more impressed by their diamond tweeter which was very smooth in sound with an impressively flat frequency range too.

[serratia] 26/6/2018 09:59

JTC,

I've heard Harbeth speakers twice, once they sounded good the other time poor. I guess it must have been the room or source.

On in ear speakers Graphene diaphragm units are just coming through. I'm told they're a significant advance.

Not sure if I mentioned it but the first proper use of Graphene composites has been demonstrated in full size speakers. The cone is 0.2mm thick.

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 05:22

I know, it’s a remarkable piece of kit for the price and size zangdook. I have been buying Chord Electronics stuff for 15 years now. I think Rob Watts the Dac designer is a genius and industry visionary. My house used to be less than a mile from their HQ in East Farleigh, Maidstone.
I don’t travel much btw in fact I am more of a hermit these days zangdook having retired to gardening. I even have my very own 111 year old Pulhamite grotto at the bottom of the garden. :-).....however I do have the Blu MkII + Dave Dac combo and to my mind they have been worth every penny.

[zangdook] 26/6/2018 04:46

If you travel, have you used a Chord Mojo? I travel so much my home system has crumbled into decay and I wound up listening to music on my laptop almost exclusively, which meant I was starting to lose interest in listening to music at all. The Mojo isn't perfect in design (big lights you can't turn off) but it's reawoken my desire to listen. It's also reawoken my need to find good portable headphones.

[jtcod] 26/6/2018 04:29

The Buffett valuation indicatorhTTps://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/06/22/market-cap-to-gdp-an-updated-look-at-the-buffett-valuation-indicator.pdfIt's a shame they overlaid a log version of the S&P500 in the final chart against the non-log Buffett valuation indicator but otherwise I found this article very interesting

[jtcod] 25/6/2018 14:12

Brexit's Big ShorthTTps://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-25/brexit-big-short-how-pollsters-helped-hedge-funds-beat-the-crash

[jtcod] 25/6/2018 13:42

Nice looking amp btw. Though I am a solid state man these days there is always something seductive about the look of a tube amp to my mind.

[jtcod] 25/6/2018 13:35

Haha, had to smile, what are the chances of the photo in the link you posted showing the Harbeth 40.2 speaker in the background?

[jtcod] 25/6/2018 13:33

Serratia have you heard any Harbeth speakers at all? Look like the old 70’s BBC monitors but I am intrigued by the reviews. I was quite surprised that a reviewer for instance who had for 25 years always used Quad electrostatics for personal use decided to buy the Harbeth review pair. The guy running Harbeth used to work for the BBC sound R&D department and bases his design voicing on replicating not instruments but the spoken voice. The construct is thin wall boxes where the design creates a cancellation of the vibrations via opposite vibrations. Much in the way dual concentric speaker setup cancels each other out. It seems to fly in the face of modern speaker design but reviewers seem to be changing their sceptical minds.
I have only listened to in-show recordings on YouTube so far but have to say their 40.1 and 40.2 sound is very natural particularly in the way it reproduces the weight of instrument or voice. I shall probably give them a home demo at some point.

[serratia] 25/6/2018 13:30

I think they were using this amp but they had valve amps that produce 160 watts on show.