On this page, we provide a list of links, audio and otherwise, that we hope you find
interesting and useful*.  For links to shipping services, please scroll down to the end of this page.:

 

Audio Links: 
 

PR’s Favorite Music Videos and more

(PR says he can’t believe he did not think to add this sooner!!!  This gets it’s own page!!!

Magazines

Car Audio and Electronics   http://www.caraudiomag.com/index.html
Audio Xpress   http://www.audioxpress.com/

Reference Information, Tables, etc.

Pro Audio Glossary (Provided by Rane Corporation.)  http://www.rane.com/par-a.html 

Reviews

Here are links to reviews on speakers Paul has designed or been a part of, in the past:

Snell Sub 1800 woofer

Paul designed the 18″ driver used in the “Snell 1800 THX Music & Cinema Reference Subwoofer”, to target T.S. parameters and excursion requirements developed with Glenn Stasky, then with Soundstream.  These were used in several system configurations by Snell.  Paul even hand-built the first 100+ of those 18″ woofers (the production was eventually taken over by Credence under Paul’s supervision of said production.)  That was quite a few years ago…  Snell’s price was awfully high, but the systems they built around those subs always got great reviews:

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/snell_acoustics_type_a_reference_loudspeaker/index1.html
(There was another Stereophile review, and also a good review in Audio Magazine, among others — if anyone can find links to these, please let us know!)

Credence also built Paul-designed 12′s for Snell, back then. 

Here’s a really “all out” system that uses the Sub 1800′s (16 of them!!!): 

http://www.wackyarchives.com/featured/most-expensive-home-entertainment-system.html

http://www.kipnis-studios.com/The_Kipnis_Studio_Standard/Equipment.html

(Paul must say though, the Sub 1800′s do NOT go down to 1 Hz!  They are good, as Stereophile reported, but not THAT good.  Not even 16 of them…) 

Sound Companies

Robco Audio (Southern Illinois)  www.robcoaudio.com

Speakers

www.thiele-small.com  Large online driver database.

Test Gear

S&L Audio: Home of The Woofer Tester – 2, WT-Pro, etc.  Excellent computer based speaker / audio test hardware / software packages at reasonable prices.  www.woofertester.com .

More Audio Fun…

Realm Of Excursion (Car Audio Info., forums, and fun):
http://www.realmofexcursion.com/

 

Non-Audio:

    

Computer Software

Foxit Reader:  Fast, easy to use PDF viewer (and more.)  Much, much faster than Adobe Reader, and leaves less clutter behind, too.  Highly recommended, especially for smaller / older machines.  http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

IrfanView  Free Image File Viewer (and a lot more).  Very useful, fast program.  www.irfanview.com

Mike’s FREE GIF’s:  This guy has a ton of free (mostly animated) GIF’s.  A few are in rather poor taste, and you may want to ignore some of his comments, but the cool stuff makes up for it…  http://www.mikesfreegifs.com/

Nothing But Software:  Low Prices on software (including many older versions), memory cards, storage (drives), and much more (than just software.)   You have to know what you are buying (not much support) but this company has always shipped orders to us quickly and accurately.  (You will get their best deals if you sign up for their e-mail flyers.)
http://www.nothingbutsoftware.com

Computer Hardware

Worldwide Security Services:  We’ve been pretty happy with used computer equipment
purchased from this company.  Obviously that is not all they offer!  http://www.worldwidesecurityservices.net/

Information / News

County by county gas prices in the U.S.  (Nationwide map).  Pretty darn fascinating, and, useful too!
http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

Southern IL / Western KY Top 10 Weather Events of the Decade (2000-2009)
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pah/?n=top10ofdecade  Whew!  (We were not kidding about that Ice Storm!  It probably qualifies as the top weather event in this area for the last 50 years, if not more.)

Nature

The Earl’s Place:  A great place to vacation / lodge in the North Carolina Mountains (wonderful hosts, very nice, 6½ room cabin.) http://www.virtualcities.com/vacation/nc/m/ncm99v1.htm  

Two Rivers Canoe:  Canoe trips down the beautiful Current River in the Missouri Ozarks.  http://www.2riverscanoe.com/

Volcano Cam:  Monitor Mt. St. Helens.  (Sort of the old joke:  On some days you can see the “creator” smoking, but now you don’t need to go there and climb to the top to do so!)  Generally sort of boring, except when it is not! http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

Philippines / Fil-Am

Mag-Anak:  Excellent site with info. on Phil-Am (etc.) relationships (marriages), Philippine culture, and much more.  http://www.mag-anak.org/

My Cebu Photo Blog:Excellent site with info on my wife’s hometown, Cebu, Philippines;  http://mycebuphotoblog.wordpress.com/.  Check out the travels of the site’s mascot with the Roth family; http://mycebuphotoblog.wordpress.com/satchmo/satchmotravel/north-carolina/

Photography

FiveOclock Images (Seller of some beautiful photography-prints):
http://www.fiveoclockimages.com/

Remodeling & More

Trabajo de Cemento: Decorative concrete work, also use this to contact G.S. Construction (reputable contractor) in Paducah, KY: http://www.decoratewithconcrete.com/

 

Sci-Fi 

 
Babylon 5

B5tech: Babylon 5 fan site – Very cool site dedicated to (overall) one of the best & most realistic Sci-Fi TV shows ever.  My favorite sections are the pages on possible future technologies (and the forum discussions of such, but be forewarned, some of the forum discussions, esp. when they veer off into politics, get a little heated!), and the image gallery.  http://www.b5tech.com/

How many shows have fans working on recreating entire episodes, upgrading the special effects?  (I have argued to improve the audio soundtrack while they are at it, of course!)  http://www.b5tech.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4838&start=30

I don’t have time for computer games, for better or worse!  But, from the same people as above:    http://www.b5tech.org/

Also useful (for new recruits!) is “The Lurkers’ Guide”, which has, among other items, tons of further links.  I am not sure how “current” this site is, but there is a lot of good info. there:  http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html

 12/8/09:  Woohoo!!!  Paul stumbled across this site last night, where all 5 years of B5 (110 shows) are posted:  http://www.slashcontrol.com/free-tv-shows/babylon-5
The video quality is, as might be expected, only fair.  And if, like us,  you don’t have a pretty fast connection, things may get choppy occaisionally.  But, if you are just looking to check out the show to see if you want to “jump” for the DVD’s, this is great.  If you are limited on time, maybe start off with a couple Season 2 episodes like “All Alone In the Night” or “And Now For a Word”.  (Be forewarned though:  You may watch a couple episodes like “All Alone…” and be incurably hooked!  We have heard of people “trying out” a couple of the better Season 2 or Season 3 episodes on DVD, and they ended up watching an entire season in a weekend marathon!)
 

The Tuvela (James H. Schmitz, this title originally published in Analog Magazine, Sept. 1968.) 
 
This is one of Paul’s all time favorite Sci-Fi stories.  It is available online at http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0671319841/0671319841__10.htm , under the original (poor) title of “The Demon Breed”.  This is part of the ”The Hub: Dangerous Territory” series.  It’s too bad no one has turned it into a movie:  The visuals could be just as stunning, if not more so, than Avatar, but the story of The Tuvela is way better and far more original than Avatar could ever hope to be.  (The story in fact is loosely based on the success of a few U.S. operatives and their Philippine allies in WWII, against the Japanese occupiers.  It is almost unknown history that “the resistance” had taken back huge chunks of the Southern and Central Philippines, and disputed control of even more territory, BEFORE McArthur’s return.)  If you have some time, sometime, check this novelette(?) out, and be prepared to play incredible scenes in your mind!  Maybe title it “The Tuvela Theory”?

Who the heck needs blue AmerIndians with tails, when you have intelligent 10 ft. hunting otters as allies?

P.S. Paul found The Tuvela on the Baen Books Free Library at http://www.webscription.net/m-1-baen-books.aspx  (It is one of the stories in ” The Hub: Dangerous Territory ” series, and probably the best of the lot.)  Check it out and don’t limit yourself there:  Maybe give them a little business too!
 

Shippers

 
DHL  (USA)  (may not be around much longer!)  http://www.dhl-usa.com/home/home.asp

Fed Ex   (USA)  http://www.fedex.com/us

TNT (Home)  http://www.tnt.com/   (USA) http://www.tnt.com/country/en_us.html

UPS  (USA)  http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/index.jsx

UPS Shipping Guidelines:  Very useful information for anyone shipping anything. 
http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/prepare/guidelines/prepare_package1.html

USPS (United States Postal service)  www.usps.com

USPS Zip Code Lookup   http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp
 

Space

 
Mars Rover Website:  http://marsrover.nasa.gov/home/
Incredibly, both Rovers are still functioning, though Spirit may not get through this next Martian winter.  Still, this is a great success story for NASA, and fascinating stuff, as Mr. Spock would say.

International Space Station website:   http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

The SpaceX website (private company developing rockets to carry cargo and people):  http://www.spacex.com/
Pretty good stuff!

The Scaled Composites website (private company developing ’Spaceship 2′, a vehicle to take private citizens into sub-orbital flights.  Their ‘Spaceship 1′ won the ‘X-prize’ (1st private vehicle to make such a flight.)  Not quite as impressive a feat as what SpaceX is about to do, but nearly so, and really cool looking ships!  http://www.scaled.com/

 

 

 

 

 
*If you have any more links you would like for us to check out and post here, please let us know!  This page is another “start out modest, will add more as we have time” item.