Hamtaro & Lyra

Picture of Hamtaro above.


Picture of Lyra above.

See any similarities? Was told that she looks like Hamtaro.

Some recent pics here.

My CD haul from HK

Top 2 cds are from The Beat Records, a speciality shop selling pop, jazz, classical and audiophile cds, lps, blu ray discs, etc at No.53 Tung Choi Street, Mongkok, Kowloon, near Mongkok MTR. Prices are about the same as those That CD shop in Singapore. Take the Takedake cd for example, i got it for around SGD40.

The other cds are really cheap. HKD50 each! The "Black Magic" cd on the lower left is HKD68. These are from a shop at the 2nd floor of 150 Apliu Street, near Sham Shui Po MTR. I also got the Nippon Chemi-con 220uF 450v capacitors there... This brand of caps are supposedly favored by Sakuma-san in his amps. The Elna 220uF 100v capacitors are from another shop along Apliu street. Do not jump in to purchase. I realised I got these at an additional HKD20 more per capacitor.

Apart from not being able to get the A08-s in kit form, my one free day there was quite fruitful. I met Timothy Yung, the founder of HK Tube Audio Club at he and his partner's shop in 28 Pottinger Street and listened to the Klangflim 203 with f2a output tubes in triode operation. He has a superbly restored EMT950 in the shop plus many other gems.

A must visit. ;)

Lucas at HK Disneyland

San wanted to have a trip with just Lucas and ourselves to spend time with him especially after Lyra's birth. We went to Disneyland HK with Lucas, leaving Lyra in the care of my mother-in-law.

We spent the first 2 days at L'Hotel in Tsuen Wan. This seems to be a newly built hotel meant for conventions. The rooms are in a 95% complete state, with some unfinished parts, but I guess they have to turn in revenue as soon as they can, so they made the rooms ready for visitors. The hotel is a little out of the way. It took me around an hour to get to Central via the MTR.

I spent the 2nd day looking for the Yamamoto distributor. It was raining heavily and I spent the most part of the morning trying to locate the shop which is opposite Coach. When I found Coach, it is on the first floor and there are no visible shops selling amplifiers opposite it. I gave up and went on with my other places to visit. It was quite difficult to locate certain shops as the buildings are all so obscure.

In the end, I came to Vintage Sound. It's supposed to be open in 30mins, so I went to grab a quick bite at McDonalds and returned. When I was there, there were 3 guys in the shop listening to some amps. One of the person introduced what they were listening to in English. It was a Klangfilm 203 amplifier using F2a output tubes, giving 3W or power. It was quite nice sounding, able to drive the low db speakers in the shop with surprising bass and soundstage.

I chatted with the guy and he realized that I enquired about Yamamoto on the HK Tube Audio Club forums. Tim is a nice chap to chat with and he even offered to bring me to the Yamamoto dealer. Turned out that the dealer is none other than Reference Audio at Melbourne Plaza. However, they do not carry Yamamoto amps as kits. The A08-s is going for around SGD4k, which was over my budget. They also only have UX4 teflon sockets. I was supposed to get some other types for an echolofter... Too bad.

In the end, I only got 6 cds a pair of Nippon chemi con capacitors and Elna caps... So sad.

Subsequent 2 days were spent at Disneyland hotel and Disneyland itself. I think Lucas enjoyed himself. He liked the Buzzlightyear shooting game more than anything. The shows were beyond expectations (Lion King was great, The Mickeys was good as well), but the rides a bit short.

More pics of Lucas at Disney here.