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HomeAudio Gear ReviewsCables & PowerReview: (updated) darTZeel CTH-8550 integrated amplifier (with Siltech)
Review: (updated) darTZeel CTH-8550 integrated amplifier (with Siltech)
May 14, 2016 Rafe Arnott Cables & Power, Components, Review 9
The $25,000 USD gold, and Ferrari-red, solid-state integrated amplifier from Switzerland exuded raw sex appeal as it sat in my listening room oozing quality. With it's staggeringly addictive color scheme (a point of opinion, and contention I know), muscular casework and that rubbery, nubby-feeling volume Pleasure Control for tactile feedback, the darTZeel CTH-8550 could be a bit much for some people at times, but oh baby was it posh. Edward Ku at Element Acoustics had made the amp available to me for review, and I was looking forward to having a few drinks, and letting it take advantage of me.
Blurring the lines between valves, and solid state?
The state of solid state
I've developed a preference for tubes in my sonic wanderings over the last several years, and my reference system is comprised of said valves: those glowing glass, bulbous knobs that inhabit amplifiers, and pre-amps of a certain bent. But regardless of that, I'm becoming unabashedly brazen at inviting amplifiers like the darTZeel home.
I don't think anyone would disagree that high-end audio manufacturers are making huge strides in solid state Class-A, and Class-D amplification, and Hervé Delétraz, the wunderkind amplification engineer behind the design of the CTH-8550, has shoehorned not only some massive, overbuilt components into this gold, and red behemoth's chassis, but a delectable potpourri of audiophile-grade caps, resistors, and transistors too.
All guts, all glory.
Tonally, I found the 8550 to be beautifully voiced, with a real effortlessness, power, and breath/space imbued into playback. Trying to find fault with any one area of amplification of the signal proved pretty much pointless regardless of what type of music I threw at the 8550. If I had to nitpick, maybe not as much bass extension as I'm used to with tubes? But, the reality is that it drove through everything. Like a Cadillac on a backwoods dirt road, it just soaked up every signal imperfection or flaw, and made it smooth, glorious, and stately. I caught up with darTZeel head honcho Delétraz in late April to talk about the design process he embarked on when tackling the 8550, and here are his responses:
RA: What were the main circuit design/performance goals when you sat down to build the 8550?
HD: "The CTH-8550 was a little more powerful than the NHB-108 stereo power amp.
The goal was to retain the sonic virtues of the NHB-108 yet with providing more output power. This new design eventually led to the big NHB-458 flagship mono blocks."
RA: Did you approach this project in a different way from your previous work at all?
HD: "The answer is almost entirely in the code name of the CTH-8550: CTH stands for Close To Heaven, 8550 stand for 85% of the quality brought by separates (NHB-108 + NHB-18NS) at 50% of the price.
So yes, the approach was a little bit different than for previous designs, which were more 'no compromise' designs."
RA: How much influence does the critical listening tests you, and your engineers engage in while designing, and building your amps impact the overall circuit design?
HD: "As for any piece of equipment, what you can see at the end, is if the customer is satisfied by the experience; the bigger the smile on a customer's face, the better we know we succeeded in the design process. Listening sessions are of paramount importance for us, and if we can't get this smile, we return to our design, and look for what is wrong.
However, do not believe we only design by ear. Performance is a key parameter in order to obtain that kind of smile; the way we differ is we do not necessarily measure the same things that our competitors do. After 40 years of experience, I have some ideas about which kind of measurements actually affects the perceived sound, or not."
RA: I've heard some tremendously musical solid-state amplifiers of late, in both Class-A, Class-A/B, and Class-D. What is your take on the current state of solid-state amplification now, and moving forward?
HD: "As I like to say, I think we may be able to design an amplifier where the sound would be independent from being Class-A, A/B, D, or even transistor or tube. The main reason these designs have particular sonic signatures depends more on the designers themselves than the operating class or technology used. I said "the main reason", since there are some basic differences you can't escape. If I will have some time one day, I will try to build different classes of amps that sound the same… just half kidding!"
RA: Do you have any thoughts on what high-end audiophiles could expect to see from solid-state amplifier designers in the years to come?
HD: "Well, solid-state electronics proved to be more compact, more efficient (read "less power hungry in idle mode"), more reliable, more convenient to use and less expensive than their tube counterparts.
Do they sound better than tubed gear? I think audiophiles, or, if you allow me to use this term, rather music lovers, will always look for a sound reproduction which will bring them closer to the emotional event; closer to the music itself. Tubes are known to offer those attributes. We at darTZeel aim to bring such emotional experience through solid-state audio equipment, without the troubles that tubes are also known for.
"If I could answer in a very few words, I would say that audiophiles would love to buy an amp that they will still love ten years later."
The guts of this fully, dual-mono integrated amplifier are a neatly tidied mass of carefully matched, resistors, transistors, caps, circuit boards, and cabling dominated by two separate toroidal power transformers, the huge one handling the 8550's output stages, the other, mini-one pulling duty for the pre-amp stage. There's technical, and specification information available for what darTZeel did to wrest the most from their circuit designs, and they have made it available, here.
This amp has a rated output of 220 watts into 8 Ohms, and 350 watts into 4 Ohms, and a frequency response of 10 Hz to 100 KHz of +/- 0.5 dB.
A look that instantly appealed to some, and was off-putting to a few.
Listening sessions
For vinyl listening sessions, I used a modded Rega RP6 with a Denon 103 running into an Auditorium 23 Standard SUT (Step-up Transformer) plugged directly into the darTZeel's MM phono section. Transducers for this review were silver-wired, and silver-voice coil equipped Audio Note UK AN-E/SPe HE two-ways.
I started with a Japanese pressing of The Greatest! Count Basie Plays… Joe Williams sings Standards, a 1981 reissue of the 1957 big-band session which I had rescued from the used jazz bin of a local record store. It still had its obi, and I snagged it on the cheap. This is a gutsy LP with big dynamics, and played dead quiet after being run through my RCM.
Thou Swell, off of Standards, has an incredible 3D sound stage, with startling clarity, depth, and separation to each instrument in Basie's orchestra. The musicians were placed well behind the speakers' focal plane, with Williams voice well out in front, and into the room.
On Another You, the sax, and trumpet possessed an almost poignant timbral accuracy to my ears, with fantastic, organic tone, and real grit to the sax's reedy parts. Very stable sound stage, I never got the impression of any drift in placement of the players, and the drum kit… the attack speed on the snare's leading transients was beautifully pronounced, and clearly separated in 3D-space from the rest of the kit.
On Our Love is Here to Stay, the amp was giving up mid-range to die for; the liquidity of Williams voice, and the notes of the flute just flows through the mixture of instruments without ever getting smeared or bunched. Bass is taught, and the body of the instrument is beautifully fleshed out, if a tad rounded off, and while it seemed to lack the last bottom octave I'm used to on this cut, it still sounded sublime. Basie's piano has the organic rendition of soft bone on wire I need to hear for true piano reproduction.
S'wonderful features these sweet sections where the interplay between saxophones, and trumpets could easily get mashed together, and lose the wonderful brassy color, and blat that separates the two instruments, and while the darTZeel nailed the tone of every instrument, and kept them clearly delineated, there wasn't the big, bloomy decay that I'm used to from valves following a percussive smash on cymbals or high hat; that spectral space around the notes as they dissipate into the ether wasn't lasting quite as long as I like.
On Tosca's lushly-produced 2xLP Suzuki, the instruments again were exquisitely spatially separated on the sound stage, with some of the best 3D-placement I've heard from this album (no small feat considering the complexity of the interplay among the myriad instruments, and vocals used in the production of this album). Hallmarks of playback on this LP were incredible pace, and timing with a real drive to the track's beat that added a propulsive stride to the sound.
Flipping sides, Orozoco is a cut that possess a positively Stygian bassline, and despite a lack of bottom-end ooomph on certain tracks, there was tons of colorful texture to vocals, keyboards, and percussion. The amp was able to render a level of resolution, and micro-detail that a number of other amplifiers around this price point that I've heard (for power, and pre separates), are unable to match.
Despite my nitpicking, the 8550 has the ability to reveal sonic secrets writ large, it doesn't want to just translate the signal with technical perfection, it wants to make music out of the sine wave, beautiful music. Think of a cellist whose technique is perfect, but who is unable to translate that technical prowess to emotional connection; the 8550 can play back music flawlessly, transparently, but it can also leave you a bit spent with its ability to provoke emotional responses in that playback. Quite a trick for solid state, in my opinion, and to my ears.
The Great Reunion with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington is an abashed jazz masterpiece to me. This Classic Records remaster, and pressing is flawless, dead quiet in the groove, and as close to perfection in a jazz album as one could hope for on many levels.
Here the darTZeel shows its ability to wrest greater image density from the music; Armstrong's horn is all brassy-sheened blat conveyed like art with complex brush strokes on the aural canvas he paints with Ellington. The percussion, and drumming in particular, is rich with timbral shadings, and intoxicating syncopation, and polyrythms. You can hear every subtle inflection of Mort Herbert's fingers on the strings of his bass from the moment of contact on Just Squeeze Me.
Hawaii high-hat
There's a level of detail available from this LP that the 8550 seems made for. Armstrong's lips moving against the trumpet embouchure as he belts out his solos in I Got it Bad, could almost be labeled distracting if you were not gripped by the exquisite tone of the horn as I was; the note's extension, the portrayal of air pressure variance, and pitch changes as his fingers fly over the valves is mesmerizing, and here the darTZeel presents such a lifelike size to Armstrong's sonic image that your brain can't help but clearly see him well out in front of Ellington's piano, with the other band members spread out behind him.
It's little Danny Barcelona's drumming on Azalea that really shines a light on how well the amp can translate complex textures. Barcelona has such a delicate brush stroke on this cut, and every subtle whisk of the brush's filaments on the snare is fleshed out with a conviction that it defies your imagination to not picture them drifting over the drum's skin.
Cable Change
Siltech Royal Signature Prince brings noticeable refinement to an already regally-voiced amplifier.
Darker black.
Edward decided to drop off some Siltech Royal Signature Prince speaker cables, and a Royal Signature Ruby Hill II mains cable to use with the 8550. These cables are massive, and I have to say, as with pretty much every set of well-researched, science-based designed, and built cables, they made a noticeable difference to what I was hearing from the amp. The cables didn't add any sonic flavoring, rather they peeled back another layer of haze from the recordings, a haze you wouldn't know was there until suddenly it's gone.
There's a TV show on Netflix called Archer. I love it. Watch it. You'll laugh. There's an episode where he buys 10 black turtlenecks, except there's five dark black turtlenecks, and five darker black turtlenecks. That's this amp with the Siltech cables. It's already the dark black turtleneck, so when I say the already black background gained considerable void, allowing further explorations into low-level detail, that's really something special.
Yes, these cables are expensive, but they're completely in-line, price-wise, with the 8550, and for the extra performance they wring out of the darTZeel, I'd say pairing them together produces very synergistic results. A big bump to the bass weight didn't hurt either, neither did increased instrument separation, dynamics, tonal saturation, and added speed to transients, which helped further refine an already great sound from the amp.
Like a coiled Python.
Beautifully built.
Heavy duty, yet reasonably flexible.
Gold-plated spades.
Digital listening
I utilized the somewhat lush-sounding Audio Note UK CD 2.1x/II that I had in for long-term review courtesy of Soundhounds for listening to CD.
Interstellar is one of my favorite films, and I still remember – very clearly – how much impact the soundtrack had that was accompanying the film. In several instances it was literally drowning out all else, including dialog, and I recall at the time thinking "Holy shit, Christopher Nolan really wants this music to be considered a living part of this film." There's some excellent short films, interviews, and writing that discusses the making of the Interstellar soundtrack, and exactly what Nolan, and composer Hans Zimmer had in mind as they developed the music for it.
The disc, to me, is fantastic. Loaded with thundering, emotional organ playing layered with complex harmonic structures that captivates, and pulls one into its orbit. I've played it for several people, and invariably they all start to become more quiet as the music progresses because they are listening so intently to the pieces that Zimmer has wrought, and the notes of the massive massive church organ employed is capable of are so unique, it's difficult not to be focused on the music by the sheer gravity of the sound.
Much like the plot of Interstellar revolves around the interminable pull of a black hole, and its displacement of the storyline, so too does the soundtrack act like a black hole, inexorably drawing you into it. This is a disc that will show you very quickly what type of bass your system is capable of reproducing, and sustaining. The depth, and sheer scale of the organ notes seems to plummet ever further, and if your getting clean bottom-end reproduction out of this CD, then you have chosen your system wisely.
I first played this disc through the darTZeel without the Siltech cables in place, and then swapped them in, and immediately noticed enhanced tightness, and muscle – real grunt, if you will – to the bottom end. Sound stage punched out much further side-to-side, front-to-back, as well as in height. My level of engagement also increased as I was drawn further into the music. Listening to Ann Marie Simpson's violin shimmer holographically in space between the speakers on S.T.A.Y. portrayed a convincing sense of the orchestra's recorded space, and a true 3D experience to playback from the mix. Roger Sayer's organ playing took on an unabashed passion, bristling with power, it seemed to be trying to muscle past my listening room walls, all the while Zimmer's tentative piano explorations (well forward in the sound stage) was laid bare in stark tonal contrast.
This is a disc that crept up on me courtesy of a friend who brought it over for me to hear. Previously I'd never heard it, and it had been many years since I'd seen American Beauty, so I had completely forgotten what an amazing job Thomas Newman had done to capture the tension, uncertainty, loss, and heartbreak that permeates much of this film. After hearing it, I promptly ordered it from my local record store.
A week later I had it, and listened to it in heavy rotation for the next few days through the darTZeel. I then swapped in the Siltech cables. Right away, with the Signature cables in place feeding the 8550, I noticed a vastly improved image weight, and depth to the bottom end throughout the CD, and the top end had more extended highs; banishing a hint of a glare that I had previously associated on Newman's upper piano registers with stock cables. Sound stage, and 3D depth to instrument placement also greatly benefited from running the darTZeel with the Siltech cabling.
A slight smearing/sluggishness in the lower-mids primarily affecting the tablas, and kim-kim drums also disappeared, they sounded far more crisp, and delineated from one another now. Instrument texture was more resolved, and finger movement on strings was easily palpable, with Rick Cox's fret work on the banjo, and bass in particular, benefiting from the lower noise floor the 8550 was enjoying. Attack, and decay on the pedal, and lap steel guitar had far more transient speed, and blossom to them. Cohesion of the music improved greatly too, allowing more individual nuances to break through between the performers, particularly the subtle flute work of Michael Fisher.
I understand that the darTZeel CTH-8550 integrated amplifier could be considered a divisive product, perhaps because of its flashy casework, or the not insignificant price.
I hate to touch on price when it comes to the gear I review, because everyone's economic circumstances are different, as is our disposable income spending habits, and preferences. I know people I spoke with regarding the CTH-8550 always mentioned cost, but whenever I got someone to dismiss sticker-shock from the equation, and talk to me about the amplifier's merits based solely on performance after hearing it in my system, they spoke of musicality, and how right it sounded regardless of the genre it was tasked with playing.
While it didn't necessarily present the deep, blossoming bass that I typically gravitate towards (as from EL84, 300B in particular, and some 6L6 tube-based amplifiers), this racy-red Swiss powerhouse sounded far closer to the type of sound I associate with valves than just about any other transistor-based integrated amp I've heard has.
With the darTZeel, I find myself presented with yet another expectation-breaking anomaly; I'm finding more and more amplifiers with Class-A, and Class-A/B, and Class-D topologies that completely defy my preconceptions of what different operating classes are supposed to sound like. Delétraz is right. I think the day is coming where Class-D and Class-A will no longer be distinguishable, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Personally, I'd prefer to think of the 8550 as something that brings people together – as it did in my home – to enjoy the experience of fantastic music playback, rather than argue over it.
But musically, the 8550 is a sonic knockout, full stop.
Manufacturer's Response:
Some remarks about your comparison versus tubes I think readers should know:
The delay propagation time in the CTH-8550 is uniform across the entire audio frequency spectrum and way beyond.
It means that harmonics and time decay duration are the closest possible to the real event.
As tube equipment exhibit unavoidable phase shift at extremes (due to transformers and internal tube-to-tube cap coupling), it lead to some modified harmonic response, giving this most wanted warmth all music lovers like so much.
For the same reason, bass seems a little bit leaner on the CTH-8550 because simply faster. If you would reproduce a square wave form at 40 or even 20 Hz, you would see that the plateaus on the CTH-8550 are quite flat still, while on tube equipment they will look closer to a triangle wave form, indicating massive phase shift, translating into much slower and boomier bass because energy spread over a longer time. After some time, the bass precision and detail exhibited by the CTH-8550 become obvious, and returning back to tube is not always easy.
The CTH-8550 has extended response in low frequency down to about 1 Hz at -3dB, I doubt any tubed gear can do the same. So if they seem to have "more bass" it is just because they are slower.
Thank you for reading it.
– Hervé Delétraz
siltech
About Rafe Arnott	389 Articles
Editor of InnerFidelity and AudioStream
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Most of what you say is contradicted by the fact that an amplifier with low distortion, linear response, high input impedance and low output impedance, driven within its limits, will have no sound of its own. Perfection in amplification isn't fantasy, it's routine, unless you have to draw a ton of current. Speak to any electrical or electronic engineer. In that context, I find the analogy with a cellist who needs to interpret, inject personality into a musical piece, a bit out of left field.
With all due respect, maybe you wouldn't feel so much exasperated if you had some references other than entertainment magazines like Stereophile or TAS.
Amps, unconnected, have no sound <– this is very true. Boring, but true.
But connected, we have a system, and one that can have quite a bit of sound. It's the system — the interaction between speaker and amp — that is the issue. The problem is in taking anything in isolation.
Gabriel, don't know if you're a designer or not, but you're welcome to survey some other designers — speaker designers, specifically. Have yet to meet one that says the amp doesn't matter, or won't have the opportunity to "color" the speaker's sound.
It's not a matter of "wanting this" or "choosing it" — it's a matter of compromises. There is a reason why every "cost no object" speaker sounds different — and this is quite odd, when you think about it.
"Think of a cellist whose technique is perfect, but who is unable to translate that technical prowess to emotional connection" That is called interpretation, and that's the reason why we go to a concert and listen to an artist instead of a computer program reading the score. What an amplifier does is called reproduction. There is no reason why a playback system should interpret the music, it's already interpreted. Why this desire to modify the sound if it's ok to start with? If music already has a "soul" before it reach the amplifier, why want something other than "technical perfection"? My take: this fuzz about electronics "personality" distract the reader (and the reviewer) from the fact that technical perfection in electronics, at least in relation with the human threshold of audibility, is available at Best-Buy at low cost. And the high end aristocracy don't like that.
You're wrestling with an analogy as if it were factual — that's a Category Mistake.
And while I have no idea who the "aristocracy"are, if someone does, I want a knighthood!
What is factual is this belief that technical perfection is not enough, that a designer should optimize some unknown, artistic, parameter. Am I wrong?
Then I think we're both using words at cross purposes.
The issue isn't perfect reproduction. That's a fantasy. There is, factually, no such thing. You have approximation at every single stage. Every single one. At the very end, what you hope for is verisimilitude. But unless you've miked a stereo PA system, that's going to be very difficult to reproduce without significant and dramatic interpretation — both at the input stage, and the output stage. Lets assume all of this as axiomatic.
What you have on the output stage is … whatever you have. Single drivers. Planar drivers. Complex horn arrays. Multi-driver/multi-way dynamic drivers. Doesn't really matter — all of them are going to massively compromise the output from the original. And they're going to do it, in large part, because they're not broadcasting into a vacuum, but into real space. Not just any space. Or rather, any space at all. It's complicated.
Each driver in each speaker, regardless of type, can and probably will respond sub-optimally. It's just a fact. Interestingly, each sound-producing mechanism also responds differently to different kinds of amplification — some need so much voltage and current, some need not so much current and more voltage (and vice versa), some demand more than others across the audible band, some demand more at specific points in the band. Again, whatever. The point — each driver, fed with a specific kind of amplifier, can and probably will respond differently.
Now, and here's the kicker, it turns out that that voltage and current aren't the only things that effect the performance of the driver. As far as I know, there's no such thing as a perfect amplifier — one that does infinite voltage on demand, with infinite current also on demand, with perfect damping. That amp + transducer pairing has yet to hit Earth, as far as I know.
So, why wouldn't a designer, with knowledge that perfection is impossible — and that "close to it" is probably prohibitively expensive and physically inconvenient in terms of size, heat, and power draw — make choices that are well within the possible? And why is it a stretch to assume that those compromises have sonic impact? And that designing is, at root, simply being able to engineer toward sonically pleasing compromises?
Anyway, I think we're done here.
Ive got a CTH-8550 and Id agree with this review.
I love it 🙂
Would really really love to know how it compare to the LHC-208 musically/sonically…
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text:
Q: Decimal number in text field I'm trying to get a decimal number from a text field. It only can be a decimal number but if I enter something like 'o,5', than the bullets will spawn a lot faster than every 0.5 second.
My code:
@IBAction func enemyBulletDelayClick(_ sender: AnyObject) {
    dismissKeyboard()

    let correctNumber = enemyBulletDelayText.text?.replacingOccurrences(of: ",", with: ".")
    enemyBulletDelay = Double(correctNumber!)!
    enemyBulletDelayText.text = ""
}

(I'm converting each ',' to a '.' for the decimal numbers.)
Otherwise it would give me an error.

A: If you have a ? you need to unwrap, not put !
There are a bunch of ways to remove . afterwards. Pick whatever you want. This is more focused on the process of what you're doing and then you can decide on using NSNumberFormatter or whatever you want to do.
guard let enemyBulletDelayString = enemyBulletDelayText.text? else {
    //put whatever you want to do here if this check doesn't pass
    return
}

let numberFormatter = NumberFormatter()
formatter.numberStyle = numberFormatter.Style.decimal

if let formattedNumber = numberFormatter.number(from: enemyBulletDelayString) {
  enemySpawnDelay = formattedNumber.doubleValue
} else {
  numberFormatter.decimalSeparator = ","
  if let formattedNumber = numberFormatter.number(from: enemyBulletDelayString) {
  enemySpawnDelay = formattedNumber.doubleValue
  }
}

This should work with what you want to do.

A: I tried to use this code and it worked!
Code:
let formatter = NumberFormatter()
formatter.numberStyle = NumberFormatter.Style.decimal

enemySpawnDelay = (formatter.number(from: enemySpawnDelayText.text!)?.doubleValue)!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


events, so they just fill up his socket and cause a performance problem.
properly saved before you reloaded?  That's all I can think of.
some tracing that will be helpful.
what he thinks he is running, whether or not it is what you intended.


text:
A City United: Prose and Manchester Survivors Choir team up for new charity single
Nick Reilly May 22, 2018 9:34 am BST
Prose Credit: Getty
"It is a tough song for us to sing, the lyrics are so moving and take us back to that night."
Manchester band Prose have teamed up with the Manchester Survivors Choir for a new charity single to mark the first anniversary of last year's devastating attack.
The track, titled A City United, is a powerful offering and the first official release from the choir, which was initially formed after survivors of the Manchester Arena attack came together in the defiant aftermath of the tragedy.
As well as being recorded by Prose's Mike Murray and Lee Royle, the track also boasts a mix from Elbow's Craig Potter.
"Like everyone, we felt devastated after the Manchester bomb attack. The following day we were in our studio and there were still a lot of people searching for missing family members and we were talking about how awful it must be for the families of the victims", Murray said of the track.
A City United
A City United, an album by PROSE on Spotify
"The whole city was in complete shock that something like this had happened here and at a music concert with so many innocent people just trying to have a good time. We both felt very emotional and just started expressing how we felt. Lee started playing the piano, I started singing and without realising it we had the basis of a song, but we didn't know what to do with it!"
After initially performing the song in Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens last year, Prose were asked to record it by Manchester mayor Andy Burnham – before it later caught the attention of the Manchester Survivor's Choir.
"When we saw Andy Burnham's tweet about the single, we knew we had to get in touch with Prose. We loved the song, the lyrics and everything it stood for and really hoped we could be part of it. They were singing about us, so it just felt right", the choir said.
"It has been an amazing experience for the choir to collaborate with the lads from Prose. The young people in the choir were so excited to get the opportunity to go to a professional recording studio. It was wonderful to see them all smiling, laughing and having the confidence to sing and be recorded. It is a tough song for us to sing, the lyrics are so moving and take us back to that night."
However, we are determined to show the world that with a bit of northern spirit and resilience we can create something that people can enjoy listening to and hopefully raise some money for the charities who helped us and others affected. It is a positive end to a very difficult year.
The two acts will also perform the track at Manchester's Parklife Festival next month, with all proceeds going to the Manchester Emergency Fund and Peace Foundation.
Andy Burnham added: "I am so proud of the band and the respectful way they have dealt with everything and also their generous commitment to use the proceeds to support those most affected and I hope people will get behind this song."
Johnny Marr Credit: Andy Hughes/NME
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Miles Kane at Mad Cool 2019 Credit: Andy Hughes/NME
Miles Kane on his "camp and frantic" next album and jamming with "bunch of pyschos" The Jaded Hearts Club Band

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Apollo and Marsyas is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian artist Luca Giordano, crated c. 1665. It is held at the collection of the Pushkin Museum, in Moscow. A variant of the work is in the Bardini Museum, in Florence.

Its early history is unknown. It was already in Nikolay Yusupov's collection by the start of the 19th century with its correct attribution, but was misattributed to Pierre Subleyras in an 1831 inventory of the Yusupov collection. In 1837 it was moved from Yusupov's Moscow palace to the Tiepolo gallery of the Arkhangelskoye Palace, before being sent to the Moika Palace in Saint Petersburg.

After the Russian Revolution all the Yusupov princes' goods were seized by the state and a museum was set up in the palace. In the 1924 inventory it was misattributed again, this time to José de Ribera, but later that year the Yusupov Museum was closed and it was transferred to its present home, where it resumed its correct attribution.

References

1665 paintings
Paintings by Luca Giordano
Paintings in the collection of the Pushkin Museum
Paintings in the collection of the Museo Bardini
Paintings of Apollo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


caption2nd Canneseries Festival Opening Ceremony in Cannes, southern France. Miriam Leone.
caption2nd Canneseries Festival 4th day Pink Carpet in Cannes. Miriam Leone.
caption2nd Canneseries Festival Pink Carpet. Day 5. Italian actress Miriam Leone.
caption2nd Canneseries Festival Closing ceremony Pink Carpet. Miriam Leone.


text:
andersonwallace
Ethical Inquiry, Independent Voice
www.patientstories.org.uk
Mental Health Support for General Practitioners…
June 5, 2019 by Murray Anderson-Wallace
As part of a programme supported by the NHS Practitioner Health Programme and the Institute of Group Analysis, Murray Anderson-Wallace is now registered to support any GP practice or group of practices who wish to become involved.
Please contact us by email for further details or an informal discussion.
Murray Anderson-Wallace has a clinical background in mental health services and psychological therapy, but has spent most of his career specialising in the social psychology of organisation and applied communications research.
His consulting practice is focussed on supporting organisations, networks and campaigns to tackle significant professional, ethical and social issues in more sensitive, humane and effective ways. Increasingly, he also supports people during serious incident investigations and represents families as an advocate in coronial proceedings.
Murray is Visiting Professor at the Health Systems Innovation Lab at London South Bank University, where he co-leads the Darzi Clinical Leadership Programme, the MA in Social Change.
His practice also includes work as an independent journalist and editor, producing media to stimulate debate about socio-cultural issues in complex human systems.
Murray has been recommended for appointment as a Specialist Magistrate sitting in the Family Courts and – pending approval from the Lord Chancellor's Office – will begin his judicial role in 2021.
© 2021 Anderson Wallace · Site by Skyewebsites


text:
Tampa Bay's sports owners talk about challenges of keeping fans
Published on February 29, 2016 in Sports/Top Headlines by Gary Shelton
Jeff Vinik was talking about even ice. He was saying how good it was that a team like the Tampa Bay Lightning can compete with a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs even though the revenues are so far apart. He was talking about a salary cap. He was talking about how 60 percent of hockey games are within one goal in the third period.
And Stu Sternberg, the owner without a cap, was starting to breath heavily. Sternberg, the Rays' owner, sat between Vinik and Bryan Glazer, the Bucs' owner, and maybe between his new stadium and his old one, and he tried to make sense of it all.
"One of the reasons we bought the Rays is we were going to be able to try some crazy stuff," Sternberg said. 'We had nowhere to go but up. You don't have to do as much. Still, it gets a tough when other teams are spending $200 million, $300 million and we're losing money at 70. You know, 100 million dollars buys you five all stars. If I had five all-stars, I'd feel pretty good."
Around Sternberg, the crowd laughed, and Glazer laughed, and Vinik laughed. So was the surroundings Monday night at the Poynter Institute when the three principal owners of Tampa Bay's three biggest sports shared an evening with a normal conversation about sports in the area.
They sat at the front of the room, all in blue blazers, all talking about this subject and that one. They were not asked about Jameis Winston or Chris Archer or Steven Stamkos for once. Instead, they talked about challenges, and women in the the front office, and gay people in the locker room. They talked about making the experience better for the fans. Sternberg, in particular, talked about a new stadium.
As far as the biggest challenge is keeping people coming to the stadiums while the view at home gets to be so much easier.
"The biggest challenge we're facing is people sitting at home vs. the going-to-the-game experience," Glazer said. "It's very comfortable to be there on your couch with your high-definition television, the refrigerator a couple of feet away, the bathroom a couple of feet way. We want to be sure the in-game experience is better than that. There's nothing like watching a professional sporting event in person, the feel of the game, the smell of the game."
All three owners said that women in the front office would come, although Sternberg said baseball "was about a decade behind." Vinik said his locker room was to be "all-inclusive" as far as possible gay players.
The owners talked about playing in other countries. The Rays are awaiting approval about a trip to Cuba, and the Bucs have played in three countries.
The owners were loose. Vinik talked about the early days of ownership when the crowds weren't nearly as big. One night, he and his wife drove by a scalper. Vinik's wife exclaimed "You've got a scalper!"
Glazer said he watched the Lightning in Italian while on his honeymoon. "Was anyone with you?" Vinik asked.
Glazer said he would like to see the NFL return to more games against former rivals, such as Green Bay, Detroit and Minnesota in the Bucs' case. Sternberg said he would like to see a draft not based just on results but on revenues so his team didn't have to draft behind richer teams it had outsmarted.
Vinik seemed to take up the new-stadium argument from Sternberg, referring to companies he tries to recruit.
"If we lose baseball, I can't recruit a company," he said. "He'll say you couldn't even keep baseball."
Tags: GlazerPoynterSternbergTampa BayVinik
Joe Henderson: Two cities, one big push for Amazon
The news that Tampa and St. Petersburg will work together to attract the much-sought new Amazon
Governor appoints three new Tampa Bay judges
Gov. Rick Scott on Monday announced the appointment of Gregory G. Groger to the 6th Judicial Circuit Court in
Tampa Bay region marked for $33M in Florida TaxWatch 'turkeys'
Florida TaxWatch, the nonpartisan government watchdog organization, served up its annual list of "Budget Turkeys," naming
Gary Shelton
Gary Shelton is one of the most recognized and honored sportswriters in the history of the state. He has won the APSE's national columnist of the year twice and finished in the top 10 eight times. He was named the Florida Sportswriter of the Year six times. Gary joined SaintPetersBlog in the spring, helping to bring a sports presence to the website. Over his time in sports writing, Gary has covered 29 Super Bowls, 10 Olympics, Final Fours, Masters, Wimbledons and college national championships. He was there when the Bucs won a Super Bowl, when the Lightning won a Stanley Cup and when the Rays went to a World Series. He has seen Florida, FSU and Miami all win national championships, and he covered Bear Bryant, Bobby Bowden and Don Shula along the way. He and his wife Janet have four children: Eric, Kevin, K.C. and Tori. To contact, visit garysheltonsports@gmail.com.
Bucs have prime-time games against Patriots, Falcons in 2017
Erasmo Ramirez gives the Tampa Bay Rays a reason to keep smiling
Rays capture strange victory over Tigers on misplayed grounder
Rowdies get a point with 1-1 draw against Cincinnati on the road
Previous Story Previous post: Senate, House TED proposals inch closer, bump unresolved items to budget chiefs
Next Story Next post: Lightning gets two goals from Tyler Johnson to win eighth straight
AP Top 25 Takeaways: Oklahoma upset; Miami over FSU, finally
Four of the top five teams in the country kicked off their
Panthers score 3 in third to edge Lightning
Jared McCann scored the tiebreaking goal in the third period after a
Miami snaps 7-game losing streak vs. FSU with last-second victory
Coming into Saturday's game between 13th-ranked Miami and Florida State, both teams
Missed extra point costly as Florida falls to LSU 17-16
Danny Etling threw a short touchdown pass in the second half and
Miami, Florida State look to get ground games going
The running game has been an important factor in the Miami-Florida State
The news that Tampa and St. Petersburg will work together
Gov. Rick Scott on Monday announced the appointment of Gregory G.


text:
Live updates: Russia's war in Ukraine – Share Market Daily
A Russian serviceman patrols the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Energodar on May 1, 2022. (Andrey Borodulin/AFP/Getty Images)
Today, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that one of the main power lines in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was repaired and is once again supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid.
Ukraine relies heavily on nuclear power – about half of its electricity comes from 15 nuclear reactors at four plants across the country, according to the World Nuclear Association.
The Russian-controlled plant, with six reactors, is the largest nuclear power station in Europe. It was mostly built in the Soviet era and became Ukrainian property after its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Zaporizhzhia plant is located on the eastern bank of the Dnipro river in Ukraine. The area, and the nuclear complex, has been under Russian control since the beginning of the war, but the plant is still mostly operated by Ukrainian workers.
Each of Zaporizhzhia's reactors would cost $7 billion to replace, making the plant a target for Russians to capture undamaged, with hopes of serving its own electricity market, according to analysis by defense and security intelligence firm Janes. Should Russia keep it, Ukraine would lose 20% of its domestic electricity generating capacity.
What does its position on the front line mean?
Shelling in the surrounding towns as well as near the power plant has been common, according to local reports.
Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the site. CNN cannot independently verify either government's claims.
The international community has been on high alert about nuclear safety, yet experts believe a Chernobyl-style disaster is unlikely. Yet risks remain, one of which is potential damage to nuclear waste stored openly on site – in ponds of water and in casks, according to Petro Kotin, president of Energoatom, which runs nuclear power plants in Ukraine.
IAEA visit
On Sept. 1, a team from the IAEA visited the plant for the first time since Russia's invasion on Feb. 24. The team saw damage to the roofs of various buildings, to the special building that houses fresh nuclear fuel and solid radioactive waste storage facility. They also witnessed shelling during the visit and called on both sides to cease hostilities in the area.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi has since called for a nuclear safety zone around the plant and surrounding area. Two IAEA members remain at the site.
Local politicians team up to challenge Russian President Vladimir Putin – Share Market Daily
Russia's war in Ukraine – Share Market Daily
The conditions are perfect for a populist resurgence in Europe – Share Market Daily
Izium mass burial site: Signs of torture, mutilation on bodies – Share Market Daily
Mahsa Amini death: Iranians are risking it all to protest. Their families say some of them aren't coming home – Share Market Daily


text:
Cutting it all, from beach sand to opera
One of the incumbents' perks in a legislative election year, bragging on state funds won for pet projects in the district, is getting turned on its head this year.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell is asking legislators not only to hold off on new earmarks, but also to cancel projects that they have touted–but not yet delivered–to their communities.
A $50,000 study of expanding the Manchester Superior Court building is one of 330 projects facing possible elimination
The nearly $390 million in targeted projects largely avoids the highest priorities of Rell and the legislature, such as school construction, building programs at public colleges and universities, and highway and bridge repairs.
What is threatened are projects that get less attention in legislative debates, but are featured in many campaign fliers: historic building renovations, athletic fields, downtown redevelopment and everything else from beach sand in West Haven to an animal shelter in South Windsor.
Connecticut's private, nonprofit social service agencies, and not just its cities and towns, also stand to lose millions of dollars as state officials grapple with projected deficits of historic proportions.
"There are things that are critical to the future prosperity and development of the state, and there are some things that are not," Office of Policy and Management Secretary Robert L. Genuario, Rell's budget director, said Monday.
The administration targeted 330 earmarks totaling $388.7 million in bonding given preliminary approval by the legislature – most between 2004 and 2009 — but that never received the final green light from the State Bond Commission. That panel, which is chaired by the governor, has sole authority to determine when, if ever, state government actually will finance most capital projects.
The reason for developing this fiscal hit list, the administration says, is driven by the numbers. The governor's budget office estimates that total bonding – including projects that have received funding and those only given preliminary approval – would surpass state government's allowable limit next fiscal year by $242 million. That limit, set by law, reduces the state's capacity to borrow as tax revenues shrink.
And both Rell's budget staff and the legislature's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis have downgraded their expectations for tax receipts in 2010-11 by more than $340 million.
The governor could have proposed a smaller cancelation list and still hit the $242 million mark. But Rell wants to carve out some additional space for new borrowing to support new job creation loan programs and to develop a new data center for the Department of Information Technology.
And though the Republican governor's proposed reductions are likely to spark an angry response from the Democrat-controlled legislature, Democratic leaders agree that many earmarks have to be canceled, said Sen. Eileen M. Daily, D-Westbrook. As co-chairwoman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, Daily will be on the front lines when it comes to deciding which projects will survive, and which will not.
"Some of us have known for a while this was coming, and we have been looking at this," Daily said Monday. "Some of these projects have been around for so long we know they aren't getting done."
She declined to identify specific projects that are likely to be targeted for cancelation by her committee, adding that the panel would be working on recommendations over the next several months.
But the Westbrook lawmaker added she's prepared to cancel all $12 million worth of targeted earmarks within her district, which covers 12 communities in south-central Connecticut. That includes $10 million for an expansion at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, and $1 million to replace water mains in Portland.
"If we don't have the money, we don't have the money," she said. "It's my job to help them understand we don't have the money."
Daily conceded that asking legislators to cancel funding already promoted back home could be a nightmare, but smart lawmakers know better than to make promises when it comes to state dollars. "I've always told the people in my towns not to treat this as a sure thing," she said "I've always said you do so at your peril. I hope people will understand what we have to do."
So would Rep. Patricia Dillon, D-New Haven, vote to cancel $2 million reserved to repair flood-damaged homes in the Beverly Hills section of the Elm City? "The answer is: Never," she said Tuesday, adding that Rell didn't fail to tout more than $19.7 million in bonding her office distributed for municipal and regional projects in 72 communities last March through the Small Towns Economic Assistance Program. "How come the governor got to pour state money into Republican towns last year? How else am I going to help my district if I vote to get rid of this?"
Most of the projects targeted by the Rell administration are in Democrats' districts. But Democrats control two-thirds of the House and Senate, and therefore reserve most bonding for their members.
Still, objections to the governor's proposal were not limited to Democrats. Sen. John A. Kissel, R-Enfield, said he wouldn't back Rell's call to cancel the final $1.6 million reserved to help his town pay for a 2006 pollution remediation project at an Enrico Fermi High School athletic field. Enfield, which had received $1.7 million in state funds for this project two years ago, undertook the work with the expectation that the full $3.3 million ultimately would be released, he said.
"I don't think it's healthy to have promises that funds will be provided if, at the end of the day, they will not," Kissel said Tuesday. "If this is what loyalty gets you — I'm very concerned about that."
The legislature could solve its borrowing quandary simply by exempting the targeting bonding from the capping system. But it already took that route twice in recent years, exempting $2.3 billion in borrowing in 2007 to shore up the statewide teachers' pension fund, and $1.05 billion bonded last summer to cover an operating deficit in the 2008-09 fiscal year, and Daily said state government needs to avoid carving out another exception.
A major Wall Street bond rating agency, Moody's Investor Services, warned Connecticut last October that its healthy rating was in jeopardy due to its overuse of the credit card. Connecticut has more than $19 billion in outstanding bonded debt, and a report last year from the legislature's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis ranked the state's debt burden per capita as second-highest in the nation.
Rep. Ryan P. Barry, D-Manchester, said not all earmarks are created equal, and that the $4 million reserved between 2008 and 2009 to upgrade the Broad Street commercial area in his community doesn't belong in the same category as soccer fields and beach upgrades.
'This is really a no-brainer from an economic development standpoint," Barry said Monday. "I'm fully prepared to defend these projects."
Rell praised the Broad Street project two years ago, and Barry said he believes many of the earmarks on the governor's chopping block could be valuable tools for growing jobs in a recession. "You can't just take a blanket approach to this and say cut everything," he said.
Similarly, Barry wants to retain $50,000 reserved three years ago to study a possible expansion of the Manchester courthouse. Given that Rell suggested closing that facility last year – a suggestion not adopted by the legislature – the Manchester Democrat said he won't abandon a study that could demonstrate the need for that courthouse.
Just under 40 of the earmarks included in the governor's proposal were reserved for private, nonprofit social service agencies, many of which contract with the state to serve the mentally ill, clients with developmental disabilities, abused children and others in need. These agencies appealed to the legislature two years ago to increase state financing for capital projects to help offset two decades of operating fund increases that haven't kept pace with inflation. Now they stand to watch bonding dwindle as well.
"It's like a double trap," said Terry Edelstein, president of the Connecticut Community Providers Association, whose group represents 115 nonprofits that contract with state agencies.
For many of these nonprofits, state bonding would cover the cost of needed roof, heating and other maintenance work that has been deferred to offset shrinking state operating support, she said.
State government is expected to spend approximately $1.3 billion out of an $18.64 billion total budget this fiscal year to hire private, nonprofit agencies to provide the majority of state-funded social services. Though the adopted budget maintains funding at last fiscal year's level, emergency cuts ordered by Rell in November could reduce funding for some agencies by as much as 2 percent.


On Saturday, February 13th, filmmaker Vincent Moon of La Blogotheque will be at UnionDocs (322 Union Ave) in Brooklyn to screen and discuss Take Away Shows and other shorts. Tickets to the event are on sale.
Uploaded by flyingclubcup. – Explore more music videos.
Uploaded by lablogotheque. – Independent web videos.


text:
package com.zhiji.phonemall.ui.category;

import com.zhiji.phonemall.R;
import com.zhiji.phonemall.base.BaseFragment;
import com.zhiji.phonemall.base.MvpPresenter;
import com.zhiji.phonemall.di.component.ActivityComponent;
import javax.inject.Inject;

/**
 * <pre>
 *     author : llj
 *     time   : 2017/08/03
 *     desc   :
 * </pre>
 */
public class CategoryFragment extends BaseFragment implements CategoryMvpView{

  @Inject
  CategoryMvpPresenter<CategoryMvpView> mPresenter;
  public static final String TAG_CATEGORY="CategoryFragment";

  @Override
  protected void initInject() {
    ActivityComponent activityComponent=getActivityComponent();
    if(activityComponent!=null){
      activityComponent.inject(this);
    }
  }

  @Override
  protected int provideLayoutId() {
    return R.layout.fragment_category;
  }

  @Override
  protected void initView() {
    mPresenter.attachView(this);
    mPresenter.requestCategoryData();

  }

  public static CategoryFragment newInstance() {
    CategoryFragment fragment = new CategoryFragment();
    return fragment;
  }
  @Override
  public void showLoading() {

  }

  @Override
  public void hideLoading() {

  }

  @Override
  public void showMessage(String msg) {

  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Road to the Stars DVD
In 1957 the Russian film director and SFX wizard Pavel Klushantsev made a visionary film called Road to the Stars. There has never been an English version – until now! David A. Hardy has replaced the sound-track with specially-written music by The Light Dreams, and the narration with captions.
The movie starts with the life of the rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, goes on to show the early rocketry experimenters, and ends with amazing scenes of space stations and a Moon-landing.
(Region 2: PAL) NB: because of its origins, this DVD is in 4:3 format; if watched in widescreen it will appear 'stretched'. Only £9.50 postpaid in UK.
*NTSC version now available; NB: Overseas addresses please add £3.50 shipping charge.


Evolve our brand & visual identity, constantly raising the bar on quality.
Develop new creative assets to support the marketing, growth, & people teams. These can include seasonal marketing campaigns such as ice cream packaging or Valentines Day cards, office design projects such as working with muralists, microsites, event design, & more.
Collaborate with the Product Design team on the visual design of the product to create a consistent brand experience across channels. Think icon styles, typography, onboarding flows, & more.
Execute projects from concept to completion. You can work autonomously to plan, iterate, & progress through projects with limited feedback loops.
Translate the visual identity to brand requirements. You understand not all work is glamorous & that balancing boundary-pushing work with banner ads & keynote templates comes with the job.
You have 3+ years of experience in brand systems & branded executions (print, web, product, packaging).
Youre tenacious & willing to put in the extra effort to find a solution or understand a system completely.
You design without ego & are comfortable with uncertainty & ambiguity.
You love design & you love the process. Youre always improving upon your skills but also your methodologies & tools.
You have a portfolio that youre dying to show us.
Vince Li, Head of Design. Vince has worked at a variety of agencies & startups both in Brand & Product design roles.
Lily Piyathaisere, Sr Brand Designer. She has experience working at Apple, Google, & has her own jewelry brand thats just spectacular.
Sarah Quirk, Director of Marketing. Sarah has worked in B2B marketing focused on brand marketing & communications. She is shockingly proficient in Photoshop.
Youll start out with a call with Vince, our Head of Design, so you can share what youre looking for & learn more about the role & the company. After that, youll come by the office to show us your portfolio. We want to see end results, but are most interested in how you solved problems & made your decisions. We want to get insight into your process.


text:
Q: Regress MediaWiki to Clean State? I just installed and configured MediaWiki on Ubuntu Server 10.04. I've now copied the instance in /usr/share/mediawiki/ to a different directory to run as a separate instance, and would like to reset it to a clean state so that it takes me through initial configuration again.
How can I do this without uninstalling and starting again?

A: This should be as simple as just adding a second database to your MySQL (or chosen SQL system) and then resetting your config file to allow you to start the installation from scratch.
cd /var/www/mediawiki
cp LocalSettings.php LocalSettings.php.old
nano LocalSettings.php

Place in the new details and then kickstart your install.

A: We're going to delete some files, so back them up first if you want a copy for later reference.

Short version:
cd/usr/local/mediawiki
sudo rm -f LocalSettings.php
sudo rm -f config/LocalSettings.php

Now open your wiki in a browser. It will walk you through initial setup again.

Long Version:
The default installation directory in Ubuntu server is /usr/local/mediawiki, softlinked from /var/www/mediawiki. If you have copied the directory elsewhere, just use that path instead in the following example. Depending on your user privileges, you may want to log in as root or sudo all of the following commands.
cd /usr/local/mediawiki
ls -l

*

*You should see a LocalSettings.php file. This is a real file or a symlink to /etc/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php, which you can delete instead if you prefer. If you are using multiple wikis, though, it is helpful to replace all of these symlinks with local copies.
rm -f LocalSettings.php

*you should also see a config directory. If you don't you can create one thus:
ln -s /var/lib/mediawiki/config ./config

Now you can remove the generated config file (which doesn't actually get used, just copied to the proper location)
rm -f config/LocalSettings.php

Now if you hop over to your wiki in a browser, you will be prompted to go through initial setup again. This will generate the config/LocalSettings.php file again, allowing you to copy it to your install dir.
cp config/LocalSettings.php ./

Under Ubuntu, I changed the permissions and the user to my web server user for security:
chmod 700 LocalSettings.php
chown www-data LocalSettings.php