About | The Gateway Pundit
Printable View
https://twitter.com/login?redirect_a...%2F4f7i4b%2520
- - - Updated - - -
851 replies | 27352 view(s)
jedgarsquink
1 week ago
The real problem with the H16 was not so much that the cars wouldn't handle. The engine was a bit heavy, mainly because it used an iron block. Evidently the design was difficult to cast in aluminum. However, the compactness of the layout mitigated the weight penalty.
The real problem was that the engines wouldn't stay together. When they blew up, they were so totally destroyed that it was impossible to tell what had failed first.
The engineers at first suspected that some form of harmonic vibration between the two cranks was to blame, or possibly the bolted-on tungsten crank counterweights were coming off.
According to L. J. K. Setright's book The Grand Prix Car, 1954-1966, two different crankshaft configurations were tried. One was the simple single-plane design shown here. The other had eight throws rather than four. The former design gave even firing groups of four cylinders for each of the four exhaust systems. The latter produced odd firing groups. This explains conflicting accounts of what these engines sounded like.
A friend of mine who heard one run at Watkins Glen in 1966 said it sounded clattery.
Finally, they found the reason the engines kept blowing up, and probably the reason for the clatter. The valves were hitting each other during overlap. This can also happen with MoPar Hemis and their derivatives, or any other hemispherical combustion chamber design. It depends on the valve timing and the spacing and angles and sizes of the valves. For the third version of the H16, they made the valves a bit closer to parallel and that fixed the problem. The same fix is used in Hemis: stand the exhaust valve up 2 degrees to get it a little further from the intake.
At some point during the year and a half of mysterious blowups,
somebody decided to create a fallback in case the H16 could never be made to work, so the V12 was designed,
essentially as one and a half of the 2-liter Tasman version of the 1.5-liter V8 from the previous formula.
What really killed the H16 was that about the time they finally got it debugged, the Cosworth appeared.
It made similar power right off the bat, weighed less, and was immediately reliable.
852 replies | 27388 view(s)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvsOj3fCQAAYKXK.jpg
V. Stiviano says she and Donald Sterling are just buds and she's his beard (Photo via Instagram)
Well, this is a new twist. The visor-wearing V. Stiviano claims in legal docs filed that she never slept with Donald Sterling. She says the embattled and racist former Clippers owner is gay and she's been his beard all along. (Yes, the word "beard" is actually used in the legal filing.)
"V.S. was D.T.S’s beard for three years prior to the filing of suit," according to the filing. "V.S. is informed and believes that (Sterling) is a homosexual and enjoys sexual acts and or sexual congress with males."
This comes on the heels of Stiviano's interview with Barbara Walters in May where she said, "I'm his confidante, his best friend...his silly rabbit." She did mention at the time that she never had sex with him and she saw him as a "father figure."
Stiviano filed these new legal docs in response to Donald's wife Shelly Sterling's lawsuit alleging that Stiviano was a gold digger preying on her husband, according to TMZ. Shelly says Stiviano made out with a Ferrari, $240,000 cash, and a $1.8 million house from the family trust.
But Stiviano says that Shelly knew about it all along. Shelly was "acutely aware of [Donald's] sexual orientation and condoned same as well as acknowledged and approved [Donald's] gifts of money [to Stiviano]," the docs claims.
Stiviano argues those gifts came from Donald's separate account. And is now also suing the Sterlings and the Clippers for slander, saying they have shamed her and ruined her sparkling reputation. She wants no less than $10 million.
- - - Updated - - -
The Day Ferguson Cops Were Caught in a Bloody Lie
The officers got the wrong man, but charged him anyway—with getting his blood on their uniforms. How the Ferguson PD ran the town where Michael Brown was gunned down.
Police in Ferguson, Missouri, once charged a man with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms while four of them allegedly beat him.
“On and/or about the 20th day of Sept. 20, 2009 at or near 222 S. Florissant within the corporate limits of Ferguson, Missouri, the above named defendant did then and there unlawfully commit the offense of ‘property damage’ to wit did transfer blood to the uniform,” reads the charge sheet.
The address is the headquarters of the Ferguson Police Department, where a 52-year-old welder named Henry Davis was taken in the predawn hours on that date. He had been arrested for an outstanding warrant that proved to actually be for another man of the same surname, but a different middle name and Social Security number.
“I said, ‘I told you guys it wasn’t me,’” Davis later testified.
He recalled the booking officer saying, “We have a problem.”
The booking officer had no other reason to hold Davis, who ended up in Ferguson only because he missed the exit for St. Charles and then pulled off the highway because the rain was so heavy he could not see to drive. The cop who had pulled up behind him must have run his license plate and assumed he was that other Henry Davis. Davis said the cop approached his vehicle, grabbed his cellphone from his hand, cuffed him and placed him in the back seat of the patrol car, without a word of explanation.
But the booking officer was not ready just to let Davis go, and proceeded to escort him to a one-man cell that already had a man in it asleep on the lone bunk. Davis says that he asked the officer if he could at least have one of the sleeping mats that were stacked nearby.
”He said I wasn’t getting one,” Davis said.
Davis balked at being a second man in a one-man cell.
“Because it’s 3 in the morning,” he later testified. “Who going to sleep on a cement floor?”
The booking officer summoned a number of fellow cops. One opened the cell door while another suddenly charged, propelling Davis inside and slamming him against the back wall.
“I told the police officers there that I didn’t do nothing, ‘Why is you guys doing this to me?’” Davis testified. “They said, ‘OK, just lay on the ground and put your hands behind your back.’”
Davis said he complied and that a female officer straddled and then handcuffed him. Two other officers crowded into the cell.
“They started hitting me,” he testified. “I was getting hit and I just covered up.”
The other two stepped out and the female officer allegedly lifted Davis’ head as the cop who had initially pushed him into the cell reappeared.
“He ran in and kicked me in the head,” Davis recalled. “I almost passed out at that point… Paramedics came… They said it was too much blood, I had to go to the hospital.”
A patrol car took the bleeding Davis to a nearby emergency room. He refused treatment, demanding somebody first take his picture.
“I wanted a witness and proof of what they done to me,” Davis said.
He was driven back to the jail, where he was held for several days before he posted $1,500 bond on four counts of “property damage.” Police Officer John Beaird had signed complaints swearing on pain of perjury that Davis had bled on his uniform and those of three fellow officers.
The remarkable turned inexplicable when Beaird was deposed in a civil case that Davis subsequently brought seeking redress and recompense.
Schottel figures the courts might take the problems of the Ferguson Police Department as more than de minimis as a result of the protests sparked when an officer shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old named Michael Brown.
“After Mr. Davis was detained, did you have any blood on you?” asked Davis’ lawyer, James Schottel.
“No, sir,” Beaird replied.
Schottel showed Beaird a copy of the “property damage” complaint.
“Is that your signature as complainant?” the lawyer asked.
“It is, sir,” the cop said.
“And what do you allege that Mr. Davis did unlawfully in this one?” the lawyer asked.
“Transferred blood to my uniform while Davis was resisting,” the cop said.
“And didn’t I ask you earlier in this deposition if Mr. Davis got blood on your uniform?”
“You did, sir.”
“And didn’t you respond no?”
“Correct. I did.”
Beaird seemed to be either admitting perjury or committing it. The depositions of other officers suggested that the “property damage” charges were not just bizarre, but trumped up.
“There was no blood on my uniform,” said Police Officer Christopher Pillarick.
And then there was Officer Michael White, the one accused of kicking Davis in the head, an allegation he denies, as his fellow officers deny striking Davis. White had reported suffering a bloody nose in the mayhem.
“Did you see Mr. Davis bleeding at all?” the lawyer, Schottel, asked.
“I did not,” White replied.
“Did Mr. Davis get any blood on you while you were in the cell?” Schottel asked.
“No,” White said.
The contradictions between the complaint and the depositions apparently are what prompted the prosecutor to drop the “property damage” allegation. The prosecutor also dropped a felony charge of assault on an officer that had been lodged more than a year after the incident and shortly after Davis filed his civil suit.
Davis suggested in his testimony that if the police really thought he had assaulted an officer he would have been charged back when he was jailed.
“They would have filed those charges right then and there, because that’s a major felony,” he noted.
Indisputable evidence of what transpired in the cell might have been provided by a surveillance camera, but it turned out that the VHS video was recorded at 32 times normal speed.
“It was like a blur,” Schottel told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “You couldn’t see anything.”
The blur proved to be from 12 hours after the incident anyway. The cops had saved the wrong footage after Schottel asked them to preserve it.
Schottel got another unpleasant surprise when he sought the use-of-force history of the officers involved. He learned that before a new chief took over in 2010 the department had a surprising protocol for non-fatal use-of-force reports.
“The officer himself could complete it and give it to the supervisor for his approval,” the prior chief, Thomas Moonier, testified in a deposition. “I would read it. It would be placed in my out basket, and my secretary would probably take it and put it with the case file.”
No copy was made for the officer’s personnel file.
“Everything involved in an incident would generally be with the police report,” Moonier said. “I don’t know what they maintain in personnel files.”
“Who was in charge of personnel files, of maintaining them?” Schottel asked.
“I have no idea,” Moonier said. “I believe City Hall, but I don’t know.”
Schottel focused on the date of the incident.
“On September 20th, 2009, was there any way to identify any officers that were subject of one or more citizens’ complaints?” he asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Moonier said.
“Was there any way to identify any officers who had completed several use-of-force reports?”
“I don’t recall.”
But however lax the department’s system and however contradictory the officers’ testimony, a federal magistrate ruled that the apparent perjury about the “property damage” charges was too minor to constitute a violation of due process and that Davis’ injuries were de minimis—too minor to warrant a finding of excessive force. Never mind that a CAT scan taken after the incident confirmed that he had suffered a concussion.
Schottel has appealed and expects to argue the case in December. He will contend that perjury is perjury however minor the charge and note that both the NFL and Major League Baseball have learned to consider a concussion a serious injury.
Schottel figures the courts might take the problems of the Ferguson Police Department as more than de minimis as a result of the protests sparked when an officer shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old named Michael Brown on the afternoon of Aug. 9.
“Your chances on appeal are going up,” a fellow lawyer told him.
At least one witness has said that Brown was shot in the back and then in the chest and head as he turned toward the officer with his hands raised.
“I said, ‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me,’” Schottel told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “I said I already know about Ferguson, nothing new can faze me about Ferguson.”
Schottel has also deposed the new chief, Thomas Jackson, who took over in 2010. Jackson testified that he has instituted a centralized system whereby all complaints lodged against cops by citizens or supervisors go through him and are assigned a number in an internal affairs log. Schottel views Jackson as “not a bad guy,” someone who has been trying to make positive change.
“He wants to do right, but it was such a mess,” Schottel said Wednesday.
Jackson has seemed less than progressive as he delayed identifying the officer involved in the shooting for fear it would place him and his family in danger. Jackson would only say the officer is white and has been on the job for six years. This means that for his first two and most formative years the officer might have been writing his own force reports and that none of them went into his file.
“It’s hard to get people to clean things up, especially if they’re used to doing things a certain way,” Schottel said.
On Friday, police finally identified the officer as Darren Wilson, who is said to have no disciplinary record, as such records are kept in Ferguson. We already know that he started out at a time when it was accepted for a Ferguson cop to charge somebody with property damage for bleeding on his uniform and later saying there was no blood on him at all.
As police in Winnipeg seek answers about the death of Tina Fontaine, family members say they tried to get help for the 15-year-old, who had struggled with her father's violent death three years ago.
Fontaine's body was found wrapped in a bag in the Red River near the Alexander Docks on Sunday, more than a week after she was reported missing in the city.
Winnipeg police are treating her death as a homicide, but they have not released any details about how she died or what may have happened to her during the time she was missing.
"It's like somebody just tore my heart out and they just keep stomping on it," Thelma Favel, Fontaine's great-aunt, told CBC News.
"Why would someone do this to a baby?"
Tina Fontaine, Faron Hall deaths: Candles still burning after Winnipeg vigil
Tina Fontaine death renews calls for inquiry into missing women
Sagkeeng First Nation acting chief talks to CBC's As It Happens about Tina Fontaine's death
Police officers were going door to door in the inner city on Wednesday, asking residents if they have noticed anything suspicious recently.
The teen's death has sparked an outpouring of grief and renewed calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls.
Father beaten to death in 2011
Fontaine grew up in the Sagkeeng First Nation, located northeast of Winnipeg.
Favel said she looked after Tina and her sister for the past 11 years, while their father battled cancer.
Thelma Favel
Thelma Favel, the great-aunt of Tina Fontaine, says she went to various Child and Family Services agencies to get counselling for the teen, who she said had trouble dealing with her father's violent death in 2011. (CBC)
Eugene Fontaine, 41, was found beaten to death on Oct. 31, 2011. Two men later pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Favel said she went to various Child and Family Services agencies to get counselling for Tina, who she said had trouble dealing with her father's killing.
"I [sought] help from all agencies, and I was just turned away," she said.
Tina recently met her biological mother, who Favel claims introduced the teenager to drugs.
Favel said she last saw Fontaine on July 1, when the teen ran away from Sagkeeng.
The great-aunt said she contacted a CFS agency that located Fontaine and brought her into a voluntary placement at a foster home in Winnipeg.
It's not clear when Fontaine entered the foster home or how long she stayed there. She was reported missing on Aug. 9.
"They had her in a foster home and it took them three weeks to tell me that she was AWOL," Favel said.
Spent time downtown
Police investigators said Fontaine was known to spend time in downtown Winnipeg, near the Portage Place shopping centre.
Body pulled from Alexander Docks
Winnipeg police pull up a tarp after recovering a body from the Red River near the Alexander Docks on Sunday. (CBC)
Lana Fontaine, Tina's aunt, said her niece would go to her Winnipeg home whenever she ran away. But on Sunday, police officers appeared on her doorstep instead.
"They told me that they found her and it wasn't good," she said, sobbing. "I just knew in my heart she was gone."
Police said Fontaine's body was discovered while divers were searching for a man who had been seen struggling in the water near The Forks on Friday.
Since she was under the care of Child and Family Services, her death is automatically being reviewed by Manitoba's Office of the Children's Advocate.
Lana Fontaine, who last saw her niece a week before she disappeared, said Tina wanted to find a job and finish school.
- - - Updated - - -
854 replies | 27444 view(s)
- - - Updated - - -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntWsU_qqTIs
- - - Updated - - -
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/08/22/aboriginal_men_murdered_at_higher_rate_than_aborig inal_women.html
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2014/08/23/luka_magnotta_documentary_pulled_from_montreal_fil m_festival.html
- - - Updated - - -
https://www.google.com/search?q=Eugene+Fontaine,+41&client=firefox-a&hs=Jak&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=rcs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X& ei=c1b5U56ZL4vbigKlnoDwDg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1063 &bih=604
- - - Updated - - -
http://en.audiofanzine.com/getting-started/editorial/articles/mastering-at-home-part-21.html
OT, New Tube Amplifier, low-powered, only for certain ALTECs
8-20-2014
This post introduces a new low-powered ( about one Watt ) single-ended 6AH4GT tube amplifier that is directly-coupled and designed for “high sound-quality” home hi fi use. ( Note : To date, reports on line by advanced DIYers of “general” 6AH4GT audio use, and its resulting performance, is overwhelmingly positive. )
This amplifier would be suitable ONLY for those ALTEC speaker systems that are modified to efficiently transfer energy ( with minimal power losses ) between the amplifier’s output terminals and the speaker voice coils .
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Three areas require user “optimizations” or “fixes” in my experience, to successfully play low powered amps, full range, on most ALTEC speaker systems, in the following specific order :
(1) Less losses in speaker wiring,
(a) amplifier to crossover and
(b) crossover to drivers
(2) Less losses in the passive speaker crossover,
(a) due to poor internal crossover wiring and
(b) high amounts of “corrective” parts / crossover complexity
(3) Eliminate external active EQing, no digital manipulations,
(a) where raw amplifier power makes up for uneven speaker response
(b) when an “extra” stage of active electronics, extra interconnect wiring, degrades the original audio signal, prior to amplification.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If your ALTEC system is typical, and uses active EQ, or high order, high-loss passive crossover filtering with lots of corrective crossover circuitry, and less than optimized wiring between amp and drivers, this post is certainly NOT for you. It would be pointless. Go no further please.
If, on the other hand, you use simple minimalist, low-loss passive filtering for your ALTEC crossover, have your amplifier-to-drivers path well-wired, and you don’t use active system EQing, or digital line-level manipulations, then you and I are possibly on the same page.
Some ALTEC users will intuitively understand my own inclinations, and this write up is for them. Also, I offer my due and sincere respect to all ALTEC users, people like different things, can make their own choices, and mine is a very specific approach.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Most of “my” ALTEC listening, on GPA-604 MLTLs or A7-800s, in homes and at audio shows, is done at under three quarters of a Watt of power.
I seek an amplifier fully-optimized to play at 50 milliwatts to 500 milliwatts beautifully, where it is used 99 percent of the time.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In 1929, Messers Loftin and White came out with a two-stage direct-coupled amp, which, to this day, can be extraordinary sounding. It is a minimalist design, so it can keep the music reproduction intact – just two stages (so it is transparent), and absolutely no series coupling caps to degrade the audio’s signal. Instead of series coupling caps, etc., we use high quality silver wires to connect the RCA input jack and two tubes to each other. My “best” experiences with ALTEC listening for almost a decade now, has always been with this specific direct-coupled amplifier topology. YMMV, fine !!!
I wanted to specify an amplifier one can build with obtainable parts, so lets use a Dynaco ST-70 power transformer, and two model 159Y filter chokes made by Hammond Manufacturing in Canada, a reliable magnetics supplier. Contrary to popular audiophile spin, output transformers are NOT critical in the design, for “this” amp to sound great.
( This design that follows is superior, and it’s performance “reveals itself ” using any output transformer. ‘ Got that ?!! ) A 5 K primary to 8 Ohms secondary single ended output transformer will work well. Select a brand, any brand, from the most inexpensive EDCOR, up to a lovely Magnequest DS-050. Dare I suggest it, a beefy Push-Pull output transformer, operating as a SE unit might work also!! ( We only run 22 milliamp idle current in the output stage ).
The finals ( or output ) stage is a single octal based 6AH4GT. This is a true triode, designed as a television vertical deflection amplifier. It has a 7.5 Watt plate dissipation and a low mu ( amplification factor ) of eight times. The input-driver stage uses a trusty 12AX7, a high mu ( 100 times ) amplifiction factor triode tube for audio use.
This specific tube-type pairing - in a direct couple - I have recently heard, with the 12AX7 as the driver of 6AH4GT finals tubes, and it sounded wonderful to me. ( Arthur Loesch’s - his 1990s Push-Pull Direct Coupled DIY amp ). The rectifier tube I suggest for this stereo amp is a lovely-sounding new ( current production ) JJ-brand 5U4-G, a directly heated tube, available from Antique Electronics Supply.
Since all voltages are inter-related in a two-stage direct-coupled amplifier, one must carefully simulate the circuit in advance, both audio and power supply–wise, to get voltages to inter-relate accurately and conservatively. My computed circuit shown has direct-coupled voltages balancing to 0.06 VDC, starting with over 400 volts of B+. That’s spot on, certainly good enough.
I carefully measured a DYNACO ST-70 stock power transformer under no-load and loaded conditions, and used PSUD 2 power supply simulations. The supply was simulated to determine (1) VDC and VAC at the finals stage and, likewise, at the input-driver stage, until all power supply voltages met “my” design criteria, and (2) I current-step tested the supply’s B+ filter, until it looked right “ to me ”.
NOTE 1 : There are many trade-offs one makes, and what we have herein is “my” best 2014 COMPROMISES, as to an overall design. My choices for design compromises will likely not be someone else’s, fine!!! There exists very good reasons for doing what I do, I have practical experience, and I assure you, I have considered this amplifier’s design most carefully.
One key advantage to my amp’s design is that the B+ filter to the finals is unusually low in DCR. Each reactor ( choke, L1 and L2 ) in series to the finals, has only 11 Ohms of resistance. Also notice, I have used as little capacitance as possible, so as to minimize this amp from exhibiting excessive “stored energy” sonic anomolies. This approach was fully developed in 1989 by Mr. Dennis Fraker of Livingston, MT, who now runs Serious Stereo. This is called a “Low Stored Energy Supply”. This circuit will play DYNAMICLY – and vividly top-to-bottom. It provides us with a most engaging listening experience.
PSUD2 simulation software, ( inputed with the values, shown below ), obtained B+ voltages - using a design-center of 122 VAC as the home’s AC ( wall ) voltage . From the PSUD2 simulations, B+ to the finals is + 418.24 VDC with 0.799 VAC of ripple. The driver/input stage has a B+ of + 321.40 VDC with a ripple of 0.002 VAC. For decades, I’ve preferred one to two millivolts of ripple on front-end input stages.
Total current draw for this stereo amp, both channels, is only 62.81 milliamperes. The specified Dynaco Stereo 70 power transformer ( eBay sourced, either used - or as a modern new reproduction ) will run cool, totally loaf . Also loafing is the pair of 2.3 pound 750 mA. rated Hammond 159Y filter chokes.
NOTE 2 : In the event that no DYNA PA-060 power transformers can be had, Hammond Manufacturing makes a 274BX, a 750 VCT rated power transformer with a 115 VAC and 125 VAC primary. One could use the Hammond’s 125 VAC primary winding, and add a 6.3 VCT filament transformer, below deck. The DYNA PA-060 however, very handily, has TWO 6.3 VCT filament windings, and has been fully measured under load and simulated.
This amp’s audio circuit atypically features a “R-Shunt” ( 36.5 K Ohms resistor ) for each 12AX7 input-driver triode stage. A Mills MRA-12 ( 12 Watt ) power resistor is placed, from the 321.4 VDC input-driver B+ supply 50 uF capacitor, to ground. This resistor becomes a “KISS one part shunt B+ regulator”. The power resistor is drawing 8.8 milliamperes to ground, versus the audio circuit it supplies - which draws 0.6 mA.
So, the simple shunt regulator is drawing FIFTEEN times the audio’s idle current. Makes for a low Z supply, ultra stable. It is critical, audio performance-wise, to have this stable B+ supply for a mu of 100 input-driver tube. This design “gets it done” with just ONE added resistive part for each triode !! Elegance. Simple elegance.
Paralleled resistors were often specifed on my attached schematic. Best audio practice is that paralleled resistors be closely matched to each other, ( and not necessarily absolute value matched. ) From prior build experiences, any good amp sounds better, less skewed sounding on vocal enunciation, when paralleled resistors are precisely matched at 0.01% to each other, instead of 1%. We must have ALL the words understandable on a Gilbert and Sullivan opera !! Diction, enunciation, inflection, musical intent, the whole enchilada.
The vacuum tubes are operating conservatively, and will last for tens of thousands of hours with minimal sonic degrade. This amp could be built in an inexpensive 20 gauge steel Hammond black powder coated chassis, 10” by 17” by 3” with some interior bracing added, although I prefer and do 14 gauge steel, custom welded. No tube amp I personally know of competes with a simple two-stage direct-coupled topology, on a low-loss ALTEC speaker system.
The audio circuit schematic is below, with no parts substitutions, no changes advised :
I encourage experienced DIYers who may want to build this to contact me privately, and I will assist, time permitting, gratis. Currently I’m working on half a 12AT7, direct coupled into a triode connected 6AQ5 SE amp, and can’t get to DO the 6AH4GT design presented herein.
To my knowledge, this post is the first 6AH4GT SE power amplifier published on line and / or in the public domain. This amplifier should perform in a lovely manner, built as described and played on an optimized ALTEC speaker!! YMMV. Who is game?
My email address is drlowmu ata geee male dot commies. Best wishes.
Jeff Medwin
ST-70 LSES 8-19-14 6AH4GT ALTEC USERS.jpg
ALTEC USERS SCHEMATIC 8-20.jpg
Just about any of the Crown D-Series power-amplifiers (i.e., D-75, D-150, DC-300 stereo amplifiers) from the early 1970's would present most of the problematic sound attributes of TIM; they're all readily available on EBay from about $150-$300, so auditioning the troublesome topology (5-9 gain stages in series, wrapped in massive quantities of NFB) is easily at hand...
The Crown D series would be a good candidate for TIM.
http://www.linearaudio.nl/linearaudi...0tim%20amp.pdf