Audiophile, Budgetphile, and Dontgiveaphile thread.

[jp1]

MiniDisc?

Yep.

I'm curious because I've known so many people who don't use an eq the way it was intended, do you plan on flattening your response using an SPL meter?

[Ziggy]

MiniDisc?

Yep.

You gotta love Sony and their various media format that they've tried over the years. Betamax, Video8, Elcaset, MiniDisc, UMD.

So why the interest in adding a MiniDisc player? Just to mess around with a weird format? I know nothing about the format, other than it exists.

I'm curious because I've known so many people who don't use an eq the way it was intended, do you plan on flattening your response using an SPL meter?

No, I have some odd reasons for getting it...

The BSR EQ-3000 came with a mic, although the auction I won doesn't include it. I have plenty of mics lying around, but I have no clue what the specs are, I haven't been able to find a PDF yet.

Anyway, there's three main reasons why I wanted to add an EQ.

1. As I said, the setup that I have in mind is gonna be a little weird, and I want a separate way to EQ music from AV sources. My Yamaha mixer has a 3-band EQ for each channel, but that doesn't cut it for music in my opinion. It has a global 7-band EQ, but if I'm ever listening to music while using the TV, I'll want a way to EQ the music without touching the audio from the video source.

2. It'll work as a 3-way input selector, which will be useful since inputs fill up fast. The individual REC out might come in handy some day.

3. As shallow as this is, I don't care, the real time spectrum analyzer will add some bling to my setup.

As for HOW I actually want to EQ, it'll be kept mostly flat and I'll make minor adjustments by ear for personal tastes. A lot of times I'll listen to music at pretty low volumes, so I may want to boost the low end slightly just to be able to hear it better. Or if there's a little hiss in the high end when I'm listening to analog sources at louder volumes, I want to be able to roll it off a little but without scooping the highs like a 3-band EQ would. Stuff like that.

[jp1]

So why the interest in adding a MiniDisc player? Just to mess around with a weird format? I know nothing about the format, other than it exists.

No good reason honestly, I feel like they bring the benefit of optical media and cassette together. Seems like a cool way to do mix tapes. Really though, its the cartridge like feel that has me interested.

[Ziggy]

So I discovered an annoying problem with my turntable pre-amp. There's a low end hum. When listening to music, it's there if you really listen for it. But it's not bad enough to really notice. It might be a 60Hz hum, the power adapter that came with the pre-amp doesn't look especially good.

Anyway, it never bothered me at all while simply listening to music. But, I finally got around to digitizing a few records (ones that I don't own in any other format). I recorded a ~30 second clip to test, and the hum is unbearable.

So, I gotta figure out how to get rid of the hum. I have this kinda expensive power supply that's designed to not have issues like 60Hz hum. I wouldn't be able to use it with my pre-amp full time, but I could at least borrow it while recording, if it actually takes care of the problem. My backup plan is to make a power supply out of batteries, which should definitely take care of the problem (if the problem is indeed a mains hum). Hopefully I can get enough battery life that I can record a few albums before they die, otherwise it will be very costly.

So why the interest in adding a MiniDisc player? Just to mess around with a weird format? I know nothing about the format, other than it exists.

No good reason honestly, I feel like they bring the benefit of optical media and cassette together. Seems like a cool way to do mix tapes. Really though, its the cartridge like feel that has me interested.

Say no more. I was thinking about that with cassettes, handling them is much the same as handling retro game carts. And we all know that classic "emulation/digital versus real hardware" debate. There's just something gratifying about it.

I just skimmed the Wiki page. Apparently the recordable discs are PCM. So yeah, CD-like quality with the durability of a cassette/cartridge. I had no idea that you could record to these things, I thought they were playback only. UDMs are pretty neat and MD look very similar in design, so yeah, I get what you're saying.

[jp1]

So I discovered an annoying problem with my turntable pre-amp. There's a low end hum. When listening to music, it's there if you really listen for it. But it's not bad enough to really notice. It might be a 60Hz hum, the power adapter that came with the pre-amp doesn't look especially good.

Anyway, it never bothered me at all while simply listening to music. But, I finally got around to digitizing a few records (ones that I don't own in any other format). I recorded a ~30 second clip to test, and the hum is unbearable.

So, I gotta figure out how to get rid of the hum.

I don't suppose you have any ferrite chokes laying around? It might be a cheap fix if you have some sort of ground loop noise going on. It may even be worth putting one on the audio output jacks of the turntable.

I use them on all of my equipment, necessary or not, simply because they are a cheap way to not have to chase down such a problem.

Though at 60hz it may be too low a frequency for this to do any good.

[Ziggy]

Anyone ever mess around with putting a dummy load on an amp?

As I said a few pages back, I have this 60's or 70's Panasonic 8-track receiver that I think I wanna use for its FM tuner and phono input (as well as the fact that it looks awesome). Problem is, I didn't realize it's also an amp with speaker outputs (it has RCA outputs for speakers, common around this time, but I overlooked it at first glance). It might have a REC output that the volume level doesn't control (I'm hoping), but there's no pre-amp volume on this unit.

So it's apparently bad to drive an amp without a speaker load, and it'd be a shame to damage vintage equipment. It has a headphones output, but I don't yet know if plugging into this jack cuts off the speaker output (I noticed that it doesn't on a lot of vintage gear). If it DOES, then do I not have to worry about having a dummy speaker load?

If the headphones jack doesn't cut off the speakers, does anyone know how to build a dummy speaker load, or where I could buy one for cheap? I've read that you can build one out of resistors, but I haven't been able to find a good tutorial yet.

I don't suppose you have any ferrite chokes laying around? It might be a cheap fix if you have some sort of ground loop noise going on. It may even be worth putting one on the audio output jacks of the turntable.

I use them on all of my equipment, necessary or not, simply because they are a cheap way to not have to chase down such a problem.

Though at 60hz it may be too low a frequency for this to do any good.

I don't have any generic ones lying around (although I think you can get a bag of them for really cheap, so I probably should just get some anyway) but I probably have some spare cables with a clip on type that I could borrow just to test with.

Maybe I should start hunting for a replacement power adapter anyway? The one that came with the pre-amp is especially cheap looking (which is surprising given the company ART). The specs list the power input as 7-12V DC or 9-12V AC @150mA, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a better adapter. In fact, I gotta check, I might have one in my box of spare wall warts.

[jp1]

I think the "dummy load" is only required for tube amps.

[Ziggy]

I've been having some fun with tapes.

I purchased an endless loop tape. There's this neat demo track that is included on some versions of Windows called Kalimba. It's about 5:45 long (not including silence at the end of the track) so I got a 6 minute endless loop tape. Since I don't want 15 seconds of silence before it starts to repeat, I edited the track a little. I looped a drum section to add about 8 seconds. The last note in the song, I put a sort of fast echo on and used this effect that simulates a turntable spinning down. LOL, it sounds kinda neat. Total track length now is about 5:55, which is perfect. My deck can skip to the next song by detecting silence gaps, but it specifies that the gap needs to be at least 4 seconds.

I want to start making mixed tapes, but I think I'm gonna wait. I have a bunch of brand new Maxell Type-I tapes on hand, but I think I wanna use Type-II. NOS Type-II tapes are expensive, but there's a company in the USA that still makes them. They're out of stock right now, but say they'll be back in stock in October. So I think I'll just wait for them to come back in stock.

I think the "dummy load" is only required for tube amps.

So I did a little Google'ing. I've read that it can damage the tubes, which I'm assuming is true, but what most people are saying is that it'll damage the output transformer. So tube amps have output transformers, but apparently there was a period where a solid state amp could have an output transformer. I was gonna open this unit up anyway to clean it, so I'll take a look inside to see what tech it has.

[Ziggy]

So WTF, new cars don't come with CD players!

New car stereos can take control of Android and Apple phones, and you can control them using the console screen. So I was thinking, it would be awesome if someone made an Android based USB audio CD player for cars. You could control it using the console screen, and be able to read track text data, control mp3 discs, and all the amenities of a modern CD player. Does anything like this already exist? If not, here's hoping that someone will come out with such a product. Surely there's some company somewhere that realizes they can corner the market for all the people that still use CDs in 2017.

[isiolia]

Some of them can still get a factory one as an accessory, but to be fair, why would you want to? Most new cars also support USB and/or SD cards for music, so just drop the MP3s onto one of those instead of burning them to a CD.