It's been a busy time for me, both personally and on the audio & music side of things, but I thought I'd take a moment and tell you about what's going on here at Jeff's Place.

First of all, there's the whole COVID-19 outbreak thing going on here in Washington State, which is the epicenter of the outbreak in the USA.

COVID-19 been slowly working its way across the state from the Seattle area, and now has become a concern where I live, with a few people in quarantine awaiting test results.

Personally, I am a classified as a "senior citizen" in the "high risk" 60+ age group, so I am following suggested guidelines to minimize the risk of a COVID-19 infection.

Mom with her grandson, Chris, and her great-granddaughter, Chloe, who came to visit "Grandma" recently. It was great to see you!

However, I am actually more concerned for my 95 year old Mom than for myself, who has multiple underlying health issues, who has gone through a sudden decline in overall health of late, and is in an assisted living center. She's in the highest-risk group of all.

One of the aspects of staying safe - and keeping loved ones safe - is self-isolation. Which for me means staying home as much as possible, and limiting social interactions to the minimum necessaries.

Now that things have settled down a bit, I am practicing self-isolation to the extent possible and getting in some guitar playing.

In the photo above is retired national lab brainiac and expert luthier, Mike Terry, who has helped me with my desire to build a near-replica of the late Canadian jazz guitarist Ed Bickert's 1964 Telecaster - thanks Mike!

I got interested in Ed Bickert's jazz guitar playing after David Gitlen - an amazing jazz guitarist in his own right, my jazz guitar teacher, and friend - introduced me to Ed's music.

Ed Bickert was an amazing jazz guitarist, and is one of my jazz guitar heroes, along with other greats like Joe Pass, Jim Hall, et al. 

What is so impressive about Ed's playing - aside from his phenomenal talent as a jazz guitarist - is the tone he achieves with his Telecaster, which if you didn't know better you might mistake it for a classic jazz guitar like a Gibson L5 archtop.

Roman Pokorny (left) with Ed Bickert (right). Roman is holding Ed's famous Telecaster.

I'll be writing my Tele project up in full in a future post, but until then here's the basics.

Ed had his 1964 Fender Telecaster modified by the cool guys at The Twelfth Fret in Toronto with a Gibson pickup in the neck position.

Ed's Tele started out as a light-colored blond finish, but has yellowed significantly over time. My Tele (below), is probably reasonably close to what Ed's finish looked like when it was new.

Ray LaMontagne's Telecaster.

For the basis of this project, I bought a Fender American Vintage '64 Telecaster that belonged to musician Ray LaMontagne, who had installed deluxe Lollar pickups in it, and a Mastery bridge plate and saddles.

Mike milled out the neck pickup position in the body of my Tele so it could accept the larger Gibson '57 Classic pickup I wanted to use (which is about as close as I could get to what Ed used that is currently available today), installed an Emerson tone capacitor, shimmed the neck, fine-tuned the nut, and just did a super nice job of setting everything up.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the Mastery bridge plate & saddles Ray LaMontagne installed, so that may get replaced in the future with Glendale "Brass Intone Cutting Edge" saddles, and a Glendale nickel plated bridge plate, which are high quality, and would be more period correct.

Another modification I'm thinking about is replacing the standard Tele electronics with the Emerson 3-way prewired kit for Telecasters, which has better pots and parts, the same tone cap as I had Mike install, and utilizes vintage-style tinned-copper pushback wire throughout. 

My stock tone pot is a little noisy, although a little DeOxit would probably whip it into shape, but the siren call of the better quality of the Emerson Tele electronics is quite tempting.

But for now, I'm being prudent, mostly staying at home except for necessaries, to minimize COVID-19 risk, and enjoying playing my Ed Bickert inspired Fender Telecaster.

My vintage Altec 832A Corona loudspeaker based bedroom system has gone through a transformation recently, and is sounding superb.

Pass Labs XP-12 line-level preamplifier.

At the moment that system is using the Pass Labs XP-12 line-level preamplifier combined with my Leben CS600 as a power amp. 

While it is not intuitive to pair the solid-state Pass Labs XP-12 line-level preamplifier with the vacuum tube Leben CS600, it is a combination that really sounds great together. 

Sophia Electric KT88-ST long life vacuum tubes

I've got the Sophia Electric KT88-ST long life vacuum tubes in the Leben CS600 to get some run-in time on them.

So, I'm not completely sure if it is the Pass Labs XP-12 line-level preamplifier hitting its stride after getting some run-in time on it, or if its that the Sophia Electric KT88-ST long life vacuum tubes have run-in now, or both, but whatever the happy situation is, the system is sounding gorgeous.

The new Leben CS600X integrated amplifier.

As soon as I get time, I'll put the Sophia Electric KT88-ST long life vacuum tubes into the new Leben CS600X integrated amplifier that is in for review, and report back.

Leben RS-30EQ

I've also been doing some "tube rolling" with some NOS US made vacuum tubes in my Leben RS-30EQ phono equalizer, so I'll be reporting more on that as I find time as well.

Leben RS-30EQ phono equalizer.

NOS vacuum tubes for Leben RS-30EQ.

This weekend, in addition to playing my Telecaster, I am hard at work writing up the final portion of the Audio Note (UK) Oto Phono Signature integrated amplifier feature review for Positive Feedback.

The Audio Note (UK) Oto Phono Signature integrated amplifier has been a real treat, it pushes all my musicality & sonics performance buttons, appeals to my sense of value and practicality, and makes me feel happy while listening to music with it.

The Audio Note (UK) Oto Phono Signature integrated amplifier is really something special and I am looking forward to telling you all about it in its feature review!

The Audio Note (UK) CD 2.1x/II Level Two Red Book CD player arrived recently, and I'm getting some run-in time on it now in combination with the Audio Note (UK) Oto Phono Signature integrated amplifier.

I haven't listened to my 1000+ CD collection seriously in almost a decade, and its exciting to hear how much better a current CD player like the Audio Note (UK) CD 2.1x/II Level Two Red Book CD player is at playing Red Book CDs.

My Red Book CD collection sounds way better than I ever thought it could through the Audio Note (UK) CD 2.1x/II Level Two Red Book CD player, and given that it has hardly any run-in time on it yet, that bodes very well for its ultimate level of performance when it is fully run-in.

Ok, that's it for now, with much more to come in the near future. It is time for me to get back to playing my Telecaster, and finishing up the Audio Note (UK) Oto Phono Signature integrated amplifier feature review for Positive Feedback, but I hope you've enjoyed this little status of what's going on here at Jeff's Place.

As always, thanks for stopping by, be sure to stay safe while this COVID-19 pandemic is occurring, and may the tone be with you!