Weeks 6- 7
February 1, 2004 to February 14, 2004 

	Friday February 6, 2004
	My time lately has been spent gathering information for our new tax accountant. We are making great progress and I am happy with the changes that are being made regarding our record keeping in Quickbooks. I have spent little time on wine, now that the blending has been completed. We do have some new prices for our 2003 Futures, but we are offering a 5 percent discount for two case orders or more. This equates to similar prices as before. We still have the lowest prices of any comparable winery in our area.  Friday February 13, 2004 Kate who has been off to college at Cal Poly is due home this evening for a visit. She says she will be home for dinner all of the three nights, but knowing her she will probably stay over friends houses for a great deal of the time. It will be great to see her as we will probably talk some about politics and the Raiders. We may even see a few Movies. I'm expecting a few new toys. First of all, I am finally making a few new additions to our Winery Theater. As some of you know I have purchased a lot of new equipment for my Home Theater in the main house. Martin Logan and Infocus equipment have been installed. It sounds and looks fantastic. In my winery and barrel room, I have two custom sub woofers in front (away from the door), a Vandersteen sub on top of the Rest Room, and a Sunfire sub on the other side of the room. I am using a Crown amp to drive the custom subs and a Sunfire 5 channel to drive 5 Vandersteen speakers (Vandersteen 3's, center and two surrounds on the sides). I have another Parasound amp powering two more Vandersteen surround speakers which are up by the front door, 66 feet away from the custom subs. There is a Sony LCD that shines on a 10 foot wide screen. There are a lot of watts in this building, well over 2000, but we need more. The Barrel tasting event in the first week in March is our biggest event. Sometimes there are over 100 people in the building at one time. It takes a great deal of watts for the sound to be heard over this many bodies. Also the Vandersteen speakers sound wonderful, but should not be played too loud. I have found two used B&W Nautalus 801 speakers and have decided to buy them. These speakers weigh 229 lbs each and can be played very loud. BUT they need their own power, SO I bought a Rotel amp that will deliver 387 watts per channel. Of course, I had to buy more wire also. This equipment should be here by the end of the month. Now, what am I going to do with the Vandersteens. I have decided to do something very different. The Vandersteen 3's are about 5 feet tall and are substantial in their own right. I will put them side by side with the center channel on top and all three will be used for my center channel. They will be powered by the same Sunfire amp. I know this is not an ideal situation, but I don't want to part with the Vandersteens. How will these speakers integrate? At times most of the singer's voice will come out of the center speaker. I think the integration will be just fine, because I have an ace in the hole: The Lexicon 12 processor. It is a wonderful digital processor! Besides, being able to adjust the sound levels for all the speakers, there is a center mix control that adjusts the relative level of the center channel that is encoded into the front left and right channels. The recommended settings are +0db for film sources and -5db for music sources. The mix can be set to -25 db. I want to have the new 801's carry most of the sound so I may have to set the mix to move at least half the sound to them. Another great control is the center delay. I have been told that the 801's are probably more dynamic and will be faster at producing the sounds. The center delay can adjust the relative time offset of the center speaker that is encoded into the front left and right outputs. The adjustment can be from minus 127 to plus 127. I can't wait to play with these settings.   I will most likely turn down our rear surround speakers, because the fronts will be able to play louder with out strain. Some of our customers find the sound of the rear speakers annoying while they are tasting. Now the sound will come from where it should. Let's see what new toy will I buy next? How about a new projector next year!
	Dave
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