Well I treated myself to a new power amplifier

The Chord SPM1000b and Parasound ZampV3's have been replaced with a Musical Fidelity M6X250.5!
A massive multi-channel power amp which tips the scales at over 30kg!!!

Sounds fantastic! Is it better for stereo music but comes into it's own when watching movies and playing games!
All I can say is phwoar!

My poor Tannoy TS10 subwoofer blewup a few months ago so I replaced that with an REL HT/1003 MKII which is an absolute monster!
I don't need it when listening to music as the PROAC D2's have more than enough low end grunt but when watching movies it does a really good job in the LFE role!

Blurryface is a decent album tbh.

Probably less than 10 a year. We have a healthy mix of incandescent and fluorescent (and a few LED items that were installed back when I liked LED that, for the record, seem to be lasting OK). The incandescent stuff all seems to last a very long time, though I think most of the bulbs are considered long-life bulbs. Most of the incandescent lights are also ones that that my parents and I just don’t turn on that often. I have kept most of the lights that are frequently used CFL or fluorescent.

I would like to mention the kitchen light because it is used every day for multiple hours and takes 120V halogen MR16 bulbs. I have had extremely good luck with the GE-branded ones that Lowe’s sells, they are rated for 2,000 hours but I have found that they last a lot longer than that.There are a couple that have been installed since April 2023 and are still working to this day, after at least 4,000 hours of use!

Zero, as of yet i haven't had a failure in my new house where i've been living for one year now. But everything except for 1 is LED or fluorescent.

Is there any sort of comprehensive writeup about miniature Christmas lights and the differences between them? Quite a bit of evolution took place between the 1960s and 2000s, as is visible just by looking at sets from different decades. For example, the tips of the bulbs - the early ones had sharp points, but by the end of the '70s, they all had little balls on the end. That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, either. Wattage, wire gauge, fusing, filament construction, sockets, reflectors, manufacturing techniques, safety standards, plastics, paint formulas, and so much more all changed during that time, yet as far as I know, nobody has really sat down and tried to document it all.

For me, it was when I was exploring the World Theater in Cedar Rapids, IA years ago. The stage had an arch with dozens of carbon filament bulbs in it, all of which I'm guessing dated back to 1915 when it opened. From what I read, it was only used for live performances for a year before switching to movies, and the bulbs were basically abandoned in place. When I visited, it had been turned into a nightclub and the stage area was closed off. I'm not sure if the nightclub (or even the theater) are still there, but at the time everything back there was preserved exactly as it was nearly a century ago.

In my case, I average between 40-50 of them. As would be expected, the bulk are in areas that see heavy use (kitchen, living room, etc.) with several lights going through a half dozen in a year. Virtually everything is incandescent, and with some lights on 15+ hours a day, the number of replacements seems reasonable. I've tracked bulb life by fixture, brand, and estimated usage over the last five years, and have found that I can predict with surprising accuracy when and where a failure will occur.

Does anyone else here track this sort of thing, or am I just a nerd?

@Laurens
You're right. I think it's actually not that hard within EU. It looked relatively easy at posti.fi
Bigger ones might be harder and more expensive to ship, but maybe not impossible.


If anyone is interested, just send me PM!

In a cold region, a fluorescent fixture with a heater wire wrapped around the tube, to warm it up doing the startup. But it was done in a crude manner, where it was all manual, even the tube was started with a switch instead of a normal starter.


I also saw an HPS lamp used indoors without any protection. The 250w bare bulb was hanging at head height without any cover.

I have personally seen incandescent and CFL bulbs above diffuser panels in suspended ceiling setups (even more bizarre than a fluorescent shoplight mounted above diffusers mimicking a fluorescent troffer), mercury vapor recessed can lights inside a home, and a restaurant using real antique 100 year old radial wave streetlights (now repurposed as overhead table lighting).

Let's hear your intakes!