If you went to enough shows your ears can't tell the difference anymore. Is the phone ringing?
Component stereo system?
- Thread starter Casual Fan
- Start date
If you went to enough shows your ears can't tell the difference anymore. Is the phone ringing?
I'm deaf in one ear so I'd miss half of the dialogue anyway so why pay for something I'll never use.
When I was in high school I had a stereo that would make the chandelier upstairs swing. These days I have a nice surround sound system for my TV and listen to music through it sometimes. I don't really feel the need to have a massive stereo in the house anymore, but I do rip all my CD's to 320 or better. Don't really listen to music around the house much unless I'm doing housework. I have a pretty decent bookshelf stereo in the garage. Now I do have a high end aftermarket stereo system in my truck (aftermarket stereo, two amps, component speakers, large sub) as that is where I listen to music the most. I can't stand poor quality music, which is why Sirius is useless for me because the SQ is just awful.
I have an Onkyo NR-530 home theatre receiver, hooked up to some Polk Audio surround sound speakers. I have my PS-3, Cable Box, Apple TV, HTPC all run through it. When I want to listen to music, I usually just stream it from my iPad through the Apple TV Airplay. I use the SiriusXM App, or my personal music collection saved on my Network through iTunes or Amazon Cloud. I ripped all my CDs at 320 kbps MP3.
Since I live on the 2nd floor of an apartment, I don't have a sub connected. No since in getting into it with my neighbor below me. When I really want to listen to music, I have some Sony studio grade headphones and listen that way.
When I was in High School back in the last decade I had a Technics 5 Disk Changer and a Technics 2 channel, 100 watt amp. I had some 15" woofers that I got when Montgomery Wards went out of business on clearance. I could really shake the house when my parents were away. I had a Radio Shack branded cassette deck too, but didn't use it much.
Since I live on the 2nd floor of an apartment, I don't have a sub connected. No since in getting into it with my neighbor below me. When I really want to listen to music, I have some Sony studio grade headphones and listen that way.
When I was in High School back in the last decade I had a Technics 5 Disk Changer and a Technics 2 channel, 100 watt amp. I had some 15" woofers that I got when Montgomery Wards went out of business on clearance. I could really shake the house when my parents were away. I had a Radio Shack branded cassette deck too, but didn't use it much.
In order for you to hear music, it needs to be analog when it hits your ears, so speakers are analog. Amplification is also analog. So whether your source is a turntable, tape deck, tuner, CD, MP3 or HDMI, it's analog the rest of the way.
And when it's in it's in
And when it's out it's out
And when it's only halfway in
It's neither in nor out
I have one that's even more component, the tuner and amp are separate units. The tuner is a Sangean HD radio tuner, and the amp is a Kenwood 100 watts per channel amp that I've had for over 25 years, I bought it as a refurb and I've never had any trouble with it. And I have a Sony turntable, and real ADS bookshelf speakers.
Had to go way back for this one, but it seems dumb to keep posting this stuff in the "Construction" thread.
You're all familiar with my basement music room.
Over the years, those big, mid-80s-vintage Snell speakers have needed a few speaker component replacements. When we moved them to Maine, the right tweeter broke. And recently, the left one broke too.
If you take the grill off the top half of the speaker tower (not easy to do), you get this:
That's the tweeter up top with the rectangular face-plate. Below that is the midrange speaker, and then some dampening material. The entire bottom half is for the woofer. Looking straight-on, the upper cabinet resembles a pyramid viewed from above. The whole thing is hand-built using 5 layers of wood.
When you remove the tweeter, you get this:
After unsoldering the speaker from the cabinet wiring, and removing the rectangular faceplate, the speaker dome separates from the magnet. From the back of the dome, you can see the voice-coil and hair-thin copper wiring.
That delicate copper wire is what eventually breaks. Fortunately, a company called Cinergy Audio in Cincinnati Ohio stocks an updated replacement speaker component, made in France.
After swapping-out the round faceplate for the original rectangular one, it fits perfectly. I just had to solder it in. And then I put it all back together, and I was back to 100% awesomeness. I used this Tori Amos track from Boys for Pele to analyze and confirm the fix. The harpsichord sound is amazing.
You're all familiar with my basement music room.
Over the years, those big, mid-80s-vintage Snell speakers have needed a few speaker component replacements. When we moved them to Maine, the right tweeter broke. And recently, the left one broke too.
If you take the grill off the top half of the speaker tower (not easy to do), you get this:
That's the tweeter up top with the rectangular face-plate. Below that is the midrange speaker, and then some dampening material. The entire bottom half is for the woofer. Looking straight-on, the upper cabinet resembles a pyramid viewed from above. The whole thing is hand-built using 5 layers of wood.
When you remove the tweeter, you get this:
After unsoldering the speaker from the cabinet wiring, and removing the rectangular faceplate, the speaker dome separates from the magnet. From the back of the dome, you can see the voice-coil and hair-thin copper wiring.
That delicate copper wire is what eventually breaks. Fortunately, a company called Cinergy Audio in Cincinnati Ohio stocks an updated replacement speaker component, made in France.
After swapping-out the round faceplate for the original rectangular one, it fits perfectly. I just had to solder it in. And then I put it all back together, and I was back to 100% awesomeness. I used this Tori Amos track from Boys for Pele to analyze and confirm the fix. The harpsichord sound is amazing.
Yes, that's a photo by a well-known music photographer, of Chicago at Carnegie Hall. That recording was used for the Chicago IV album. I had the photo made into a tapestry. I had done something like this before, as a gift, so I was familiar with the process.
I just love the photo. It has a magical feel, the way it's lit. And you can even see Terry Kath is smoking a cigarette while playing.
Nice bit of work Scotch.
Gotta love it when ya can pull something like that off.
Gotta love it when ya can pull something like that off.
Well, it didn't go that smoothly at first. When it came time to solder the new speaker terminals to the wiring coming out of the cabinet, I wasn't really thinking things out. I needed a hand to hold the soldering iron, and a hand to feed-in the solder from the reel. That left no hands to hold the speaker. I tried to rest it partially in the hole in the cabinet, while still having access to the terminals. I got the first terminal soldered. But on the second terminal, the speaker fell out and dropped. I had done such a good job soldering, that the solder joint remained, but the terminal got ripped off the speaker.
I had to reorder the speaker. I was really pissed at myself, and the whole thing happened during the holiday break, so I missed the window of opportunity to get it done before going back to work. But the new speaker came in like 5 days, and by then, I thought of a better plan. I got an extra foot or so of speaker wire, and first soldered that to the speaker terminals, while sitting at a table. Then I brought that whole thing to the speaker cabinet, and soldered the extended wire to the cabinet wiring, while the speaker was resting on top of the cabinet. I used electrical tape to cover the wire-to-wire joints.
The speaker component (dome tweeter) was only $28, but shipping was $10, and I had to pay all that twice. But replacing those speakers would be at least 2 grand today. They retailed for $4,600 in 1987. I paid $2,300 for them in 1989; they were used as reference speakers by Steven Stone, who (at the time) was a writer for Stereophile magazine. Amazingly, he's still around.
Steven Stone audiophile writer biography
Steven Stone is a very experienced audiophile reviewer with over 50 years experience as a professional writer
futureaudiophile.com
Those are the kinds of issues that I run into with repairs of this kind, or in general, I suppose.
It's the kind of thing that if ya did it more often, you'd have thought to come up with a jig to hold things in place or added the extra wire the first time.
Knowing the hassles involved makes it a bit more satisfying when the project is done.
It's the kind of thing that if ya did it more often, you'd have thought to come up with a jig to hold things in place or added the extra wire the first time.
Knowing the hassles involved makes it a bit more satisfying when the project is done.
Somewhere on these forums, I mentioned that a longtime friend, who I originally met at work, had gotten divorced; and so when he moved, he dumped all his albums on me. Part of me was tempted to say "thanks, but no thanks", but he was the guy who put me up at his place for 3 months, when I was getting divorced. So I owe him a favor.
He dropped-off 4 dusty, spider-web covered plastic crates of pop/rock albums, plus a plastic storage bin packed with classical and jazz stuff. I can no longer keep track of how many people's entire collections have been thrown at me, but it's around a half-dozen. I'd have to live to the age of 133 to get through all of these, after I retire.
Anyway, despite not asking for any of these albums, I don't want to just leave them sitting in those disgusting crates forever, because then I would feel like my house had become littered with his crap. So over time, I spent several hours getting the albums out of the containers, and put into piles by type. And then I went ahead and integrated them alphabetically with my existing collection. Once that was done, I had more albums than I had room for. Here's an idea of where I'm at
That's not all of them; I have another stack, related to what I'm doing now - eliminating duplicates. Here are the dupes, in the process of being sorted-out
The stack on the left represents the work in-progress: the keepers are in the top half (right above a gap), and the yet-to-be-decided dupes are in the bottom half. You can kind-of make out the album names on the binders. On the right is a small sample of the album covers. Generally, if the albums are a dupe of something from my original collection, then it's virtually assured that my original is the keeper. The dupes that I inherited came from Mrs. Scotch's family and friends, my community band friends, and now my divorced friend. Most of those went through college dorms, and all sorts of abuse.
I inspect both (sometimes all 3) copies; and for a while, I was playing a track from each. But I've realized that the album/sleeve/record condition is a reliable indicator of which vinyl album will sound more pristine (or just slightly less trashed). What's fun about this, is that I didn't decide which albums would be dupes; so going from album to album is like a random music generator.
So far, I was most blown away by the opening track of Michael Jackson's Thriller - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'. If you ever wanted an album that would absolutely have someone believe they're listening to a well-mastered CD, this is it. It's an awesome recording with a sound that projects way beyond the speakers, and incredible, tight bass.
Another pleasant surprise was the opening We Will Rock You from Queen's News of the World. A stadium-like sound.
He dropped-off 4 dusty, spider-web covered plastic crates of pop/rock albums, plus a plastic storage bin packed with classical and jazz stuff. I can no longer keep track of how many people's entire collections have been thrown at me, but it's around a half-dozen. I'd have to live to the age of 133 to get through all of these, after I retire.
Anyway, despite not asking for any of these albums, I don't want to just leave them sitting in those disgusting crates forever, because then I would feel like my house had become littered with his crap. So over time, I spent several hours getting the albums out of the containers, and put into piles by type. And then I went ahead and integrated them alphabetically with my existing collection. Once that was done, I had more albums than I had room for. Here's an idea of where I'm at
That's not all of them; I have another stack, related to what I'm doing now - eliminating duplicates. Here are the dupes, in the process of being sorted-out
The stack on the left represents the work in-progress: the keepers are in the top half (right above a gap), and the yet-to-be-decided dupes are in the bottom half. You can kind-of make out the album names on the binders. On the right is a small sample of the album covers. Generally, if the albums are a dupe of something from my original collection, then it's virtually assured that my original is the keeper. The dupes that I inherited came from Mrs. Scotch's family and friends, my community band friends, and now my divorced friend. Most of those went through college dorms, and all sorts of abuse.
I inspect both (sometimes all 3) copies; and for a while, I was playing a track from each. But I've realized that the album/sleeve/record condition is a reliable indicator of which vinyl album will sound more pristine (or just slightly less trashed). What's fun about this, is that I didn't decide which albums would be dupes; so going from album to album is like a random music generator.
So far, I was most blown away by the opening track of Michael Jackson's Thriller - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'. If you ever wanted an album that would absolutely have someone believe they're listening to a well-mastered CD, this is it. It's an awesome recording with a sound that projects way beyond the speakers, and incredible, tight bass.
Another pleasant surprise was the opening We Will Rock You from Queen's News of the World. A stadium-like sound.
IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Are you sure he wasn't just loaning them to you until his divorce is final?
I commend you for keeping the albums so organized. My CDs and LPs were alphabetized at one point. Then I met my wife and her teenager. That ended the organization.
I commend you for keeping the albums so organized. My CDs and LPs were alphabetized at one point. Then I met my wife and her teenager. That ended the organization.