SAF See --> WAF

Samizdat See --> magazine

Sandwich See --> PCB

SDV = Switched Digital Video
Term used in cable TV and other landline broadcasting systems. Simply means that the “hub” (the main sub-distribution for a geographical area) and the “node” (local distribution device, serves up to 2000 homes) are replaced by switches. This allows homes to choose what channels they receive on the cable rather than be bound to what the provider thinks is acceptable in each geographical location.

Only useful if the cable from the node to a home is copper, since a fibre-optic cable will be able to carry almost any number of channels to your home anyway and in practice less useful than it might appear at first since the node services such a high number of customers that statistically you tend to end up with the same capacity requirements as before. What it does allow in practice is to slightly shape the choice of channels to local tastes automatically but that is a rather minor improvement as things stand.

SECAM = Sequential Couleur Avec Memoire
That would translate into Sequential Colour with Memory or something suchlike, variant of the PAL system used in France, parts of French Africa and parts of Eastern Europe, in the last case slightly modified.

Serial
Lit. in series or in sequence. Serial Interface : A digital interface that sends out data one bit at each cycle so it's throughput is determined by its clock speed, see RS232, USB and also parallel interface. Serial Number : A number or other unique mark used to differentiate an individual unit from otherwise identical ones. Serial Production : Mass produced, as opposed to handmade, individually made or prototype. Serial Entrepreneur : Someone prone to bankruptcies, *cough*.

SET = Single ended triode
A type of amplifier output arrangement found almost exclusively in thermionic valve amplifiers although transistorised variants or workalikes exist. In a modern SET hi-fi amplifier the circuit is usually based around a single triode valve and operates in pure Class A arrangement, with alternative arrangements for valve amplifiers like push-pull or OTL typically working in Class A/B or switched Class A/Class B, it the pure Class A operation that is the raison d’être of these designs and what attracts people to them, the drawback is that they have very little output power, a typical SET putting out 5 to 8w per channel, this is too little to drive most speakers and thus this type of an amplifier and the people attracted to them are often associated with high efficiency loudspeakers particularly of the full-range and horn loaded types.

Until the late 30’s when variants like push-pull amplifiers started to replace them these were the only types of amplifiers you would find, by the late 50’s they had completely disappeared except in small signal applications with the exception that a small contingent of Japanese, French and Italian enthusiast kept on using, designing and making them. These were typically homemade, sold as kits or made by tiny part time operations and distributed via fanzines rather than the retail channel and remained an underground but pervasive movement until the late 70’s when interest picked up amongst audiophiles.

By then people had started using doubling (linking 2 triodes to work as one) and expensive power tubes like the 300B in a search of more output power, but even a 300B was only giving out 15w per channel and doubled up only something like 25w. In the early 90’s AVVT and later other companies started making new valves specially designed to be used in SET’s and by using them 40w per channel became possible but understandably these are specialised devices and they and the amplifiers that use them are very expensive. Note though that even though a SET only has a limited output power they will often drive speakers that transitorised amps with the same power rating will not do.

S/H = Second Hand (UK) or Shipping & Handling (USA)
1) = Second Hand I.e. used, previously owned or "cherished". 2) = Shipping and Handling I. e. the costs charged by seller for shipping or mailing the unit to you and packaging and/or handling costs associated with this.

Shag = To fetch/gather
This is an American idiom that was often used in the technical industry as in "I am going to shag some parts", although I gather this usage of the word has agricultural roots, as this definition of the word is not found in most USA dictionaries it is probably best defined as slang. Shag is rapidly falling out of use in the USA due to the increased awareness of the rather coarse UK slang usage of the word, but here it is used to denote .. erm ... sexual intercourse, you will however see old radio heads use this term frequently making some online discussions about radio repairs appear strangely seedy to those outside the USA and you will occasionally see it used by younger people as in "shagging files" = downloading.

Shellac
Shellac, also known as E904 is wood sap that has been digested by flies and is left on the bark of trees in a tiny shell like form, the digestion process had turned the sap into an almost pure resin with a only a tiny bit of wax coming from the digestive system of the bug. It is harvested by hand in India and other mainland Asian countries, then spread out into a flake like form and dried, but if it is left in the liquid form it only has a shelf life of about a year.

The material and was popular as a binding agent for records prior to the introduction of synthetic alternatives but was expensive and usually used with other binders and fillers, a typical shellac record having no more that 15% of its mass made out of the material. Origin of the word is in Hindu and the current English spelling is the approximation of the modern Hindustani word, but the root is the same as for the English word shell (Ísl.: skel).

The currency restrictions placed on Indian businesses in the 20th century meant that the locally harvested shellac was used in the production of records much longer than it was in the rest of the world and the availability of wind up phonograms in places where there was no electricity added to the tenacity of the format there, 78 Rpm. shellac records were issued in India until the late 70's at the least and possibly even later.

Simulsynch
Simulsynch also known as simultrack is used for analogue tape recorders that can record and playback onto all or any tracks of the tape simultaneously. Normal recorders will allow you to listen to a recording while you are recording given that the machine has separate record and playback heads, the problem is that the playback head is after the record head in the tape path the recording happens slightly before the monitoring which is no problem if you are just monitoring the recording for quality control reasons, if you are recording music onto tape little by little, say drums and guitar first and then adding bass and keyboards later, overdubbing in other words, the delay becomes a problem since you cannot easily play in synch with a recording since playback happens after the recording.

With simulsynch recorders playback and recording happens at exactly the same point in time, which means that a multitrack recording of music done at different times is possible. How this is done differs between recorders, some have a separate synch head , others have 1 combination head that can act as both a record and playback head at the same time..

Single crystal casting See --> PCOCC

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