Goodbye

[Paul Barker]

Good decision Steve, both the one to slow down the pace of building, and the one to stay tuned in.

I have made both decisions more than once.

While you were madly building 13e1 Amos and suchlike I was still on my break which may have been 5 years, not sure. Other things in life are sometimes more important. It is healthy to sit back and think to yourself "hang on a minute is this an obsessive behaviour?Does out really matter this much? is it really worth this much time money and effort? Whatami actually trying to achieve, and for whom?

When you find the answer, let me know.

[Paul Barker]

Android.

[Mike H]

Anyway I'll keep a lowish profile for now rather than vanish altogether from the day to day activity of the forum.Cheers
Steve

That is progressive good news!

Sounds reasonable to me

[Cressy Snr]

Other things in life are sometimes more important. It is healthy to sit back and think to yourself "hang on a minute is this an obsessive behaviour?Does out really matter this much? is it really worth this much time money and effort? What am I actually trying to achieve, and for whom?

My thoughts exactly Paul.
It was when I decided to make that list of builds that the full horror hit home and I have since remembered a 12B4A preamp, a DHT phono stage using DCC90s and of course the infamous exploding Transcendent OTL to add to that list.

Then there were the Metronomes, the open baffles with active bass, I shudder to think what this little lot has done to my wallet over the years.

I think the wife's motivation for having Colin build the Mets for me was to get such a pair of beautiful pieces of furniture into the living room, so that it would put the brakes on the ever more worrying obsessiveness I was beginning to display. They did the trick as far as I am concerned as I only built one further project, the ACP/1 amps that eventually became a stereo chassis after the Mets arrived.

That and the fact that seven years on SSRI anti-depressants had, in the end turned me into a crazed obsessive, at home thank God rather than at work it has to be said. But it is no good having a good working life if life at home ends up compromised by something that started out as a harmless interest in WAD kit building, turning into something that takes over your being.

I remember Phil posting something a while back that questioned whether I was being taken over by the whole thing and that I ought to get some other interests. Trouble is the addict cannot see what others see and gets all defensive when confronted by people concerned about their well-being.

The first step, which I embarked upon four months ago was to get myself clean by getting off the SSRIs with a medically supervised withdrawal programme. It was dog rough and there were occasions when I could have just crawled under a stone and given up, but with the help of wife and family, the addiction was beaten, first the drugs and then finally the amp-building demons.

The time out, short though it was has been a good thing and has refocused the hobby into being about interest in hi-fi and good music, not a destructive, obsessive, compulsive disorder.

After nearly eight years of being a prisoner of SSRIs the peace inside is palpable. The mind is clear of the disabling numbness and obsessiveness and one can actually begin to live.

If I had my time over, I would never have gone within a hundred miles of SSRI anti-depressants.

[Cressy Snr]

Oh and BTW, the longer digital interconnects clear the spaces between the images on the soundstage and generally make the music more palpable and believable.
I do not think, in fact I know it has nothing to do with jitter reduction. The majority of DACs these days reclock everything to an internal master clock anyway. It is more to do with a substantial reduction in high frequency reflection interference caused by the inevitable impedance mismatch at each end of the interconnect, which is why BT specified minimum lengths of coax on transmission frames and MUX racks. At least they did twenty years ago, it will all have changed now no doubt. They probably use fibre-optics for everything transmission related these days.

You have to use good quality double screened and foil barriered cable though as things can easily be undone if EM or RFI is allowed to get into the longer cables. BT had that covered though as the standard of construction of their 50 ohm coax was twin copper braids followed by aluminium foil wrapping. The centre conductor was 0.9mm solid copper surrounded by a nitrogen filled foam poly insulation to prevent oxidisation.

One can sometimes forget that transmission of digital data down a cable is still an analogue process when all is said and done.

[david C]

The first step, which I embarked upon four months ago was to get myself clean by getting off the SSRIs with a medically supervised withdrawal programme. It was dog rough and there were occasions when I could have just crawled under a stone and given up, but with the help of wife and family, the addiction was beaten, first the drugs and then finally the amp-building demons.

If I had my time over, I would never have gone within a hundred miles of SSRI anti-depressants.

as someone who has been on anti depressants of one type or another and anti anxiety medication for 10 years I can only admire what you have done, I don't think people realise just how difficult it is to come off them
well done Steve

[colin.hepburn]

The first step, which I embarked upon four months ago was to get myself clean by getting off the SSRIs with a medically supervised withdrawal programme. It was dog rough and there were occasions when I could have just crawled under a stone and given up, but with the help of wife and family, the addiction was beaten, first the drugs and then finally the amp-building demons.

If I had my time over, I would never have gone within a hundred miles of SSRI anti-depressants.

as someone who has been on anti depressants of one type or another and anti anxiety medication for 10 years I can only admire what you have done, I don't think people realise just how difficult it is to come off them
well done Steve

Yes I have to agree with you David I also share this anti depressants anti anxiety now for about seven years now myself and every time my GP has taken me off this stuff I became a jackal and hide person with the mood swings I would have
So needless to say I am still take the stuff

[Cressy Snr]

Cheers David/ Colin,

It remains for me one of the biggest scandals of the last century that these things were ever allowed to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

I honestly don't know how I managed to get off them. The symptoms I exhibited in the latter stages of my addiction, before I decided enough was enough are well documented in the literature, eg obsessive compulsive behaviour, paranoia, brain fog and mood swings, which become magnified considerably during the early withdrawal stage.

I am lucky to have had a change of Doctor, who understood the problems patients have to go through when tapering off these drugs. That and a good dose of CBT and counselling was the key to releasing me from the clutches of this stuff.

Given my experience, I don't think that it is possible to get away from these drugs unless patients are given a well supervised withdrawal programme, supplemented by CBT/counselling of some kind. Attempting withdrawal with anything less than these basic things in place, is certain to end in failure and is foolhardy in the extreme.

[Paul Barker]

If I had my time over, I would never have gone within a hundred miles of SSRI anti-depressants.

Fortunately when I got "reactional depression" I had the benefit of experience as a nurse. With my knowledge NO WAY WAS i GOING ON DRUGS!

They made me talk to a CPN, she said "I think we can agree you don't need me" She was more ill than I was that was for sure.

I said to my GP, "if it's alright with you I'll stay off the drugs" he was quite happy with that.

Not saying this to rub your nose in it Steve, but it is an important perspective which may help someone.

But evetrything has to be done under the correct supervision.

As for this dissorder which our meeting here represents. There is no hope for me. But to control it I just come up with loads of plans but never get the soldering iron out. that works.

[Paul Barker]

By the way if you want to know a cruel story about medical controlled drug withdrawel. When I worked in a Cystic Fibrosis Children's unit in Leeds we had to ween them off opiates. Opiates help people with breathing difficulties but when they no longer need them they are adictive.

It was very cruel, they were given their normal opiates, and at the same time a drug which bocks the receptors so that the opiates have no effect.

You didn't think you could trust a medic did you?

[Cressy Snr]

As for this dissorder which our meeting here represents. There is no hope for me. But to control it I just come up with loads of plans but never get the soldering iron out. that works.

Now that's a good idea Stanley
If I can be arsed to come up with any more plans I will certainly follow your lead.

[Cressy Snr]

You didn't think you could trust a medic did you?

Well to be fair my GP has been excellent throughout.

[david C]

They made me talk to a CPN, she said "I think we can agree you don't need me" She was more ill than I was that was for sure.

.

that is so true of CPNs, I have a lovely one who over the years has taught me CBT and used NLP but we seem to spend most of our time sorting out her problems, why are the always mixed up

[Cressy Snr]

As for this dissorder which our meeting here represents. There is no hope for me. But to control it I just come up with loads of plans but never get the soldering iron out. that works.

Now that's a good idea Stanley
If I can be arsed to come up with any more plans I will certainly follow your lead.

Maybe something like this:

[Greg]

They made me talk to a CPN, she said "I think we can agree you don't need me" She was more ill than I was that was for sure.

.

that is so true of CPNs, I have a lovely one who over the years has taught me CBT and used NLP but we seem to spend most of our time sorting out her problems, why are the always mixed up

Before I joined the Police, I trained and qualified as a State Registered Nurse in general medicine. I had designs on moving on into Psychiatry. In those days in the mid 70's, we could do attachments into other fields during our training and I did three months in a Psychiatric hospital.

I observed the behaviour of permanent staff, particularly at social events and in more intimate situations and concluded that most of them were equally as disturbed as the patients they were treating. That observation was disturbingly emphasised when I went through the discharge prossess with patients. Such patients were not as such 'cured' but rather treated in order to make them fit back into society. So many of these discharge patients would say something along the lines of, 'When I'm completely better, I'd like to get a job and come back here to work'.

In consequence, I decided not to go down the Psychiatric nursing route. My Police career, thankfully turned out to be a much more fulfilling and fruitful choice.