[US Blues]

Happy Birthday @Baldr

 

[FLTWS]

Happy Birthday @Baldr

Ditto!

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Happy birthday, Mike. You can celebrate it with the knowledge that you're not the oldest one here - not by a long shot.

Cheers,
JC

 

[artur9]

Enjoy your day, @Baldr.

I had a big bash for my 40th (a somewhat distant memory . Best part was I insisted on having all the candles (i.e. all 40). I couldn't blow them out because they were packed so tightly they kept re-igniting each other! Everyone was in stitches!

I'd love to know what tipple you are considering for your 70th. And music. And new DACs/digital gear

 

[adydula]

Happy Birthday "You Old Fart"...…

Alex

:>)

 

[hearditontheX]

Happy Birthday, Mike.

May your women be hot and your beer cold!

 

[RickB]

Happy Birthday, @Baldr.

And thank you for creating the Mimby, which has literally given me thousands of hours of enjoyment.

 

[Rowethren]

Enjoy your day, @Baldr.

I had a big bash for my 40th (a somewhat distant memory . Best part was I insisted on having all the candles (i.e. all 40). I couldn't blow them out because they were packed so tightly they kept re-igniting each other! Everyone was in stitches!

I'd love to know what tipple you are considering for your 70th. And music. And new DACs/digital gear

We did the same thing for my Great Aunts 80th, it set off all the smoke alarms in the house... Was a very fond memory

 

[sam6550a]

An outlier looks at 70 (with apologies to Jimmy Buffet)

Damn! As I write I am about 48 hours away from entering my eighth decade. Only a number, I say to myself. I remember, some fifty years ago at 20 when I realized that I actually came home from Vietnam as an unlikely mortarman; then I was about to turn 30 dreading my feeling that my best years were spent. Then it was 40, 50, and 60, each passing with increasing curiosity and decreasing dread. Trouble was, I always thought the sunshine was moving from in front to behind me as I walked. Now it finally dawns on me that the sunshine has always been right beside me. I just had trouble finding it because it wasn’t lost. It wasn’t the light that moved, it was me. All I had to do was take a step sideways, enjoy it, and search out where I really belong. Yup, pretty simple. Thanks to Townes Van Zandt for that.

So how do I figure out what to do? I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up until I was thirty or so; maybe it was the milestone birthday. All I knew was what my parents wanted me to be. It turns out that was actually a blessing. What I took away from living my life as they wanted was a persistence and desire to be the last one standing. All these years later, I harbor no bad will for them; they only wanted the very best for me to enjoy all which was denied to them. Granted, I knew that I liked building things and making them work, particularly radios and Hi-Fi. I also wanted to go see or research things nobody else gave a Schiit about, whether they were geographical or found in a library (yup, I am that old). I was always on the outside looking in. After I learned I could get on the inside whenever I wanted, it became much easier to go outside and watch the passing parade.

Same thing about building hi-fi for sale as part of a formal company which I have now been doing for over 40 years (Can it be??). If you are an outlier, you tend to build products which live outside the norm. Beats being on the inside, because then all you do is make minor variations of the same Schiit everyone else does. That is probably 2/3 of all current products, period. BTW, NOT just Audio. You need a pretty good story to separate your almost same stuff from other almost same stuff. A really good marketeer like Jason is needed.

So I built odd tube preamps – everyone asked me “Why no 12AX7s?”. Some wanted an answer other than “They sound like ass.”, which, of course, they do. So you say, “Outside audio in instrumentation, no one uses 12AX7s because they suck.“ Then I build D/A converters and people say “What do I need a D/A converter for?” and I say because they don’t sound like ass and in instrument labs no one integrates D/A converters with sources (which in the 1980s were tape decks). And so on and so on. I live on the outside and build outside stuff, like obsolete multibit DACs, gadgets (which you will see as soon as I can figure out how to package it.), and a couple of other obsolete (and new) things that you will see soon as soon as we can figure out how to debug them. This cheap-ass homebrew Schiit USB solution has been killing me for way too long now. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.

I want everyone to know I have a ten year Schiit product plan. I may be seventy (Sunday) but feel mentally much younger. Not only can I not imagine retiring, I cannot see myself doing anything else. Retirement is for those unfortunates who hate their jobs. I just cannot imagine myself retiring and realizing the hopelessness of daytime TV (You ARE the father!) makes me want to die. My only physical Schiit is leftovers from Agent Orange defoliant while I was overseas in my military service as a feed-cow. (I fooled them!) I function more as a R&D director and do a little less prototype building than I did years ago, but that stops nothing. I still do all of the research part, and Schiit’s digital R&D team including Dave, Ivana, (Oh and Jason of course for the analog stuff) have built a phuc-ton of products over the last 8 years.

So here I am with a plan to keep going for a long while. I really need to realize that this is impossible without those of you support this hobby and I appreciate it. I must be doing something right to have a few detractors. In the long run, they really do nothing but help me with the free advertising. I hope they can also find their own happy places as well.

Happy birthday, Mike. Age is just a number---I just turned 75 and still feel the need to create things. The biggest mistake I made was listening to my wife and retiring at 65---I miss going to work and creating things. Celebrate your birthday by doing what you want to do--it only comes once a year.

 

[wabe]

Happy birthday @Baldr!

 

[earnmyturns]

Happy celebrations, @Baldr! I work on a different technical field, in a different role and organization, and I am a few years younger, your sentiments about keeping going as far as curiosity, imagination, and bodily health will take us are very familiar. Your DACs have changed how I listen to music, how much more I find in old and new works, for which I am hugely grateful.

 

[FrivolsListener]

Happy Birthday, Mike!

 

[bmanone]

Happy Birthday, Mike; I bet you don't feel 70. I not there yet, but in my mind I'm still that 20 year old young man from the 1980s. Have a great day tomorrow!

 

[JamminVMI]

Happy Birthday, Mike - keep on having them! And keep on enjoying life!

 

[jacal01]

Sunshine for the summer children is right! Best wishes for continued body resilience from a July fellow 70er.