|
Post by ant on Dec 9, 2022 11:17:37 GMT
|
|
|
Post by ant on Dec 6, 2022 9:37:05 GMT
Chucking money at it rarely works. If there is an aspect that isnt working people need to identify what it is that isnt working rather than just arbitrarily waving the chequebook. From my point of view, building things myself was very instructive, particularly turntables because i could make changes and track the effect of changes to the designs. What i felt was better and what was worse in an iterative process. A stab in the dark purchase has no guarantee of sounding better. The actual monetary cost of my system is not much, the most expensive purchase thats in there was a 350 quid at33sa cart i bought from a friend that was barely used. And is still barely used because its on the jbe which is not used very often.
But there is much more than monetary cost to factor in in my case because there are 5 years development invested in the lenco turntable and 5 years invested in the arm design. The fact that other people who have heard them want to buy them off me suggests that they are fairly good. I have built quite a few lencos for people, 20 plus over the last couple of years so they must be doing something right.
I have heard six figure systems that i thought had multiple issues, and systems that were a couple of hundred quid that i really enjoyed. I still maintain that it is because those who put them together either did or didnt know what they were shooting for.
That isnt to say that a really expensive system is a waste of money, not at all, its that money is not a defining factor, it is the correct purchases for the individual that are the defining factor
|
|
|
Post by ant on Dec 6, 2022 6:49:56 GMT
It helps to know what you actually want from it. It took me years and years to find something i was entirely happy with and happened by accident. I took the f5 power amp in as part ex for a tt i built for someone and a light bulb went off. The b1 was sought out as it seemed a good idea, and it was. The speakers were built because of the demand for high efficiency by the f5 as it has bugger all gain. So the system i have was built around the amp. But i might have still been stumbling around in the dark without by chance ending up with the f5. It is an extremely transparent amp combo, more like a measurement instrument rather than a musical instrument if that makes sense but it happens to be exactly what i didnt know i wanted until i heard it and went 'there it is, thats the sound in my head'
It isnt for everyone, some dont like the f5 so everyones mileage varies
|
|
|
Post by ant on Dec 3, 2022 12:47:40 GMT
I think mine is pretty simple.
I have a pair of speakers i built myself that are as simple as possible. Bloody great big 15" fane 15-300tc in a ruddy great big box with an aperiodic vent in it, no crossover at all.
A pass f5 power amp which is a very simple amp, a pass b1 which is also very simple, anyone can build an f5 and b1.
A cole lcr phono stage which is not quite as simple, but i was given it for nothing as it was broken and had to be fixed and several turntables which i just like playing with. I have one of my own type 3b lencos, the arm on that i built myself, and a vm750sh moving magnet so thats simple aswell.
Others are a jvc ql-y5f which my wife uses, that has a benedict audio hothead phono stage for it, a roksan xerxes which i fixed, a jvc ql-y3f which was broken so i bought it and fixed it, a technics sl150 which was cheap so i bought it on a whim, and my jbe series 3 and air bearing arm which means alot to me and i cant bring myself to sell.
this isnt complicated, its just hoarding...
The balanced mains unit i built myself, that is only because i had the bits to do it, it wasnt something i was actively looking at at the time.
Cyrus Cd player was bought only because it was cheap and the earlier one packed in, streaming is a 100 quid tablet that i bought for the kids during lockdown so there were enough machines for them all to get on teams for school at the same time.
that tablet was barely used since, so i just downloaded tidal and plugged it into an old unused dac.
Cables are any old shite, speaker cables are some fisual stuff at 4 quid a metre which ive only just got, and only because i found the insulation was falling off the old stuff and i got paranoid about it shorting.
The actual connected up system is the bare bones of what i need, there is nothing that is not required apart from the bmu i built.
There are no accessories at all in there, no isolating feet, old pasta things whatever they are called (i cant remember what they are called, somebody will know), Grounding boxes, level attenuators, those houdini cartridge isolators, special cables, special phono plugs, input shorting plugs, record weights, or any other little extras.
There are a million little extras you can use to overcomplicate things, just because you can, doesnt mean you need to
You know that stu, the endless box swapping and tweakery and magic dust isnt for some people and is for others its up to the individual.
I am perfectly happy to use my proper system, or plug my b&w p5 cans into my phone when i cant
|
|
|
Post by ant on Dec 2, 2022 15:56:12 GMT
I must be the only person who has not had any bother with hermes or evri. The hermes bloke was the same one for years, its a different bloke now its changed to evri but he is spot on too. We also have a regular dhl lady who has always been spot on Parcelfarce on the other hand are an absolute nightmare and i refuse point blank to use them. Every other parcelforce delivery i have something goes wrong with
|
|
|
Post by ant on Nov 29, 2022 17:03:24 GMT
It will solve nothing
|
|
|
Post by ant on Nov 20, 2022 18:54:48 GMT
After 3 races it wasnt a great championship
|
|
|
Post by ant on Nov 20, 2022 16:45:22 GMT
Finally the most boring season in years is over Race result was a foregone conclusion, as per usual verstappen buggered off into the distance and perez missed the mark to deny rbr the one two in the championship
Far too long a season
|
|
|
Post by ant on Nov 14, 2022 13:29:15 GMT
But i would have had to buy something to do that and i am a cheapskate
|
|
|
Post by ant on Nov 12, 2022 14:31:07 GMT
My daughter has been mithering for spotify premium for ages.
I finally caved in and agreed, so i thought if im the one paying for it id like some use out of it myself.
So, how to use it with no outlay for equipment.
Well, i have an old topping e30 dac that i just use along with a laptop to do speaker measurements. I use it in conjunction with a behringer interface and rew, its basically just to output pink noise and sweep tones.
I also have a basic 2020 alcatel tablet running android 10 that is very very rarely used as it was bought for the kids to use so they could all access teams during lockdown. One used the pc, one the laptop and this had to be bought so the other one could get on teams at the same time as they could....
Its seen very little use since.
So i dug both out, did some faffing in the developer options to get the tablet to send audio out of the usb-c port which allowed the dac to see it, and put spotify on it.
The dac cant see it until there is a song playing so it throws an err message on the screen and goes to sleep, but as soon as the song starts it wakes up and plays so it works fine. The dac displays the bitrate as 96khz so it looks like the tablet is upsampling whatever the spotify bitrate is. Interestingly, i did the same faffing in developer options to get my phone (galaxy note 9) to output audio via usb and with the phone connected it shows 192khz.
I also connected the cyrus cd player to the dac via coax as i dont have enough inputs on the pass b1 pre to use both at the same time. The topping is a nice dac, i originally bought it to use with the delta 170.3 transport i had.
So streaming via a tablet and dac cost me nothing and is perfectly acceptable.
|
|
|
Post by ant on Nov 6, 2022 16:57:58 GMT
I just use discogs or go to my local shops
|
|
|
Post by ant on Oct 26, 2022 9:37:15 GMT
Oh and the akai r2r has gone, swapped for a linn mimik cd player which my dad has at the moment because his cd player packed up too
|
|
|
Post by ant on Oct 26, 2022 9:34:15 GMT
Its all been faffed with again. its 12 months since i last updated, and various things have conked out or been faffed with..
Analogue Jbe series 3, airprodigy air arm, at33sa (same) Bte designs type 3b lenco, bte designs cx unipivot (latest version) audio technica vm750sh Jvc ql-y5f, jvc z1eb with musonic elliptical stylus (will be swapped out for a shibata when the pennies are in place) Roksan xerxes which i got broken and restored, xps7 110v psu and 110v step down tx, roksan tabriz, dynavector dv20x2h
Cole lcr phono stage Benedict audio hothead mm phono stage
Pass b1 Pass f5
Cyrus cd7 (the arcam transport packed up finally)
Big fane 15/300tc aperiodic boxes
Cables are the same old shite because i refuse to spend money on wires when i can spend the same money on other toys......
Such as a broken jvc ql-y3f deck, just need to re veneer the plinth to finish it after restoring it to working order, a technics sl150 to play with, a mission 774 arm to faff with along with a couple of others that need fettling, a couple of dacs i cant be bothered to connect up, an old jvc amp, a stock lenco, some other bits and bobs.
The only real reason that anything has changed is because the cd player conked out and the roksan was too good to bin even though it was broken
|
|
|
Post by ant on Oct 20, 2022 13:56:40 GMT
The only vintage stuff that i think is really worth looking at are turntables in the main. Certain amps can be good, (quad 306, 405, spring to mind, there are plenty of others) but will require at least a good poke around inside and caps replacing. In the case of turntables, engineering is engineering. a well engineered deck from 'back in the day' is still well engineered now. Carts are an absolute minefield as the suspension either turns to mush or hardens depending on the conditions it has been stored in, these days i dont buy old carts at all even to retip. Electronics has moved on in leaps and bounds over the last 50 years, engineering parctice has not because it was right already. A tolerance is a tolerance wether it was done by a bloke with a machine or a cnc machine. Arms are the same, but matching a modern cart can be more problematic as most are mid compliance these days and older stuff requires high or low depending on its age. There are workarounds to these problems.
But the crux is that people have nostalgia for the big meters and the 'look'
Those willing to put the work into old stuff can reap the rewards, because the industry has stagnated since the 80s. But it aint cheap. There isn't a demand for innovation so speakers, amps and sources are regurgitated every few years with some marketing gobbledygook and a fresh coat of paint. It is there if you go looking, but mass market stuff isnt where it is unless it is a flagship product costing tens of thousands.
Look at the new leak stuff and those new missions that look like old missions for the nostalgia factor
|
|
|
Post by ant on Oct 10, 2022 16:23:57 GMT
And the very next day the fia confirm rbr are in breach of the cost cap regs Somewhere between 10p and 7.5 million quid ish. A mil buys a lot of performance in the year in question, could have been dumped into the development of this years championship winning car, who knows.
Rbr have dropped a right bollock with this. If it was 10 quid over the fia would not be bothered so it must be a relatively large figure and the legitimacy of two championships is now in question which is a massive disservice to verstappen
|
|
|
Post by ant on Oct 3, 2022 14:54:55 GMT
Yep, poor race all round for me. Just boring and dull. If someone tried anything and got off the dry line they were heading into the barriers No overtaking whatsoever. The 2 hamilton blunders smacked of frustration, russells antics of frustration, the verstappen massive lockup and sailing off down the escape road an destroying the tyres blunder also of frustration.
Both alpines blew up, both williams out, latifi dropped a real clanger and albon just fell off all on his own.
The only position changes were from balls ups or from safety car pit swaps.
A very very scrappy race from practically all the teams, quite a few drivers cocked up badly, (looking at you lewis and max) but practically all drivers cocked up apart from norris, vettel, stroll and ricciardo.
Overall very very boring
|
|
|
Post by ant on Sept 30, 2022 19:27:47 GMT
But does anyone think that the fia will sanction a team? If either rb or am threaten to pull the plug over sanctions if either are in breach, if indeed the paddock rumours are to be believed, the fia wont sanction them and the other teams will not stand for that This will be a real lose lose situation. If for example am are found to have blown through the cost cap and spent another 10 million quid, they could say it was material and exclude them from the championship, and it wouldnt matter much. Just the rest of the season would be a test session. But do that to rb and the ramifications are enormous.
|
|
|
Post by ant on Sept 30, 2022 15:14:11 GMT
I've just done some work with REW to measure my speakers. Used a behringer ecm8000 mic and a behringer um2 interface that my daughter got for using her guitar into garageband when that was still around. I bought the mic and pinched the interface. interesting bit was the difference in closing a door and the effect on the measurements this is the left channel, right channel and where my earoles are. The l+r traces were done at 1m on axis, I haven't got an spl meter so the dB level isn't calibrated, but it was the traces I was after and the relative dB levels of the freqs are the important bit in this instance. Blue is the listening position, red is the left hand speaker and green is the right hand speaker overlay l+r+listening position by anthony cresswell, on Flickr green is door closed, red is door open. overlay by anthony cresswell, on Flickr as you can see the main differences are hole in the response between 40 and 60hz, right where you don't want it, and quite a deep hole at about 120hz which suggests a cencellation mode. lesson is keep the door shut... I built the speakers, so it was nice to be able to correlate what they are actually doing and what I think they are doing. In terms of speaker positioning I haven't got round to faffing with that, I need a day when nobody else is in which is rare in this house, but as a tool REW is very useful on a number of levels
|
|
|
Post by ant on Sept 30, 2022 14:34:56 GMT
ive been more interested in the growing furore about 2 teams apparently exceeding the budget cap last year. one by a little and one by a lot . one is apparently aston martin, the other is apparently red bull. this one will get nasty whatever the fia do. one that cant be swept under the rug if any team has broken the cost cap rules
|
|
|
Post by ant on Sept 29, 2022 12:14:14 GMT
1. Technics sl150, sme3009, rigb vm95 ml Ive just put this combo together this week
2. Roksan xerxes, roksan tabriz, dynavector dv20x2, xps7 replacement psu Restored the xerxes and added the arm and cart
3 jvc ql-y5f, original q damping arm, empire 1000gt Complete rebuild as it was very broken, fully automatic so the wife kept it so she can play records too
4. Jbe series 3 (slate plinth, transfi salvation legs), airprodigy linear tracking air bearing arm, audio technica at33sa Had it a long time, my reference that all are judged against!
5, bte designs type 3b lenco (one of my builds), bte designs cx unipivot arm (version 9, almost ready to market), audio technica vm750sh Built for a laugh during lockdown but people seem to like them so ive built quite a few for people now. The arm is something its taken about 5 or 6 years to develop, i was going to start offerring them this year but that looks like its up the swanny with the economy as it is..
Not connected but can be used Jvc ql-y3f, original q damping arm, origi al jvc z1eb with a new musonic elliptical on it that look suspiciously like it jico produced one
Ill not list the others that arent working right now
|
|