The Yumcha Diaries: 16/01/10

The Yumcha Diaries: 16/01/10
Rituals

Yumcha is kind of a ritual. Although a eating activity, it centers itself on a beverage and the conversation that brews over it. I think most people just went for meeting friends. This day was even more so, as JC was in HK, bringing with him a few rare guests. On this day, he was every inch the host, and the 13 of us had a good time.

While camera talk has continued unabated, a newly shaven tubediyer explained first the notion then the procedure of the "consecration of the house" (for lack of a better English term) prior to moving in. 不是普通入伙仪式那么简单，更像入伙乾坤大法。The ritual involved salt and other 风水 peculiarities, of course terminating in firecrackers.

Termination of cables is yet another myth-laden subject and certain people make a ritual out of it. Old friend stardust and I had a good discussion of our favorite Gotham cable. How do you terminate (for RCA) a model that has 3 conductors and 2 shields? I think most people would opt for using only 2 conductors, fewer 2+1- and even fewer 1+2-. How to connect the shield is another story. While most of us would leave one end unconnected, some would connect at the distal end while I out of routine connect at the proximal end. This has to do with whether one adopts "star grounding". Of course, one can reverse the cable and use it. Interestingly, stardust told me he obtained rather better results connecting only the outer shield for this particular model. Equally interesting, he told me the factory-terminated cables sound rather different and better! This should make those who pay more money feel better.

Too bad I had to go after yumcha. JC went on to a marathon home-visit tour and a few people went on to visit ghost. A beautiful day was certainly not wasted.