Miscellaneous

My "new" old car has a cassette player/AM/FM radio and I have no cassette recorder. Does anybody have recommendations for in-car CD players? A multi-CD unit is probably unnecessary for my needs, and the same with video. I don't think I'll need a new amplifier or speakers, but I'm also completely new to car audio in an audiophile sense. I've always stuck with the stock car setup to save money for my home listening. Should I just get a cassette adapter to connect my iPod shuffle/PCDP instead?

Title says it all. As of 3rd December SME announced that they were no longer supplying pickup arms, and now would only provide them integrated with an SME turntable. https://sme.co.uk/2019/12/03/sme-product-announcement/ They instantly removed the entire pickup arm category from their website. Thus ends pretty much to the month 60 years and >1 million arm sales since Alastair Robertson-Aikman sold the first SME pickup arm. Of course, the new owner (Ajay Shirke) and the new MD Stuart McNeilis can do what the hell they want - but it seems to be a major strategic error to withdraw from arm sales. The entry price for the lowest cost SME package will now be t…

Hey, I'm from Aus. As such, most of our gear operates at 220-240v, which limits my 2nd hand amp purchasing options. So the questions is, is it worthwhile using a step down transformer? What are some of the cons, that I could run into?

Link to Audiokarma thread

Anyone have any experience here? Kinda tempted by the 3M MPro 100 (which appears to be running $300). With VGA and composite could be good for laptop/iPhone/Touch use.

Hello. I'm new to this forum & wanted to say hi. Well, as the title of the thread asks, does anyone know of any good audiophile stores in the Philippines (Manila specifically)? I will be going there next week, so I thought I might have the opportunity to check out some cool gear while I'm there - stuff that might not be released in the US or stuff that I could find at a really good price. Any suggestions or pointers would be great! Thanks in advance!

Per title, and no, not DVD-A, just plain DVD. I have a couple of concert films that I would like to extract the audio to CD (lossless). This is on a Mac. I played around with OSEx and mac3 something or other last night and managed to extract AC3 files for each track from one and get them converted to AIFF, but it was somewhat less than intuitive. I haven't compared the sound of said CD to the DVD yet, but it seems fine. Also, the total content was a bit outside the range of a 700Mb CD (at 1:30). If I were to compress it slightly to try to fit the whole thing on one CD, any suggestions? If I extracted the AC3 to mpeg4 (m4a?) would that save any space? Thanks -Chri…

So, we're closing on our new house on Friday, and we have a month to take care of a few things before we move in. The biggest project is a gut on the kitchen. Recommendations for the major appliances? Leaning towards a slide-in gas range instead of separates, though I do like the cook top and wall oven. And we're trying to decide if a French door fridge is worth the extra coin vs side by side. Liking the Kitchen Aid stuff I've seen, but we're not sure. And washer and dryer... We've been really happy with our LG combo unit, so we were thinking we'd stick with that, but I'm more than happy to hear real world experience and advice. Thanks.

I ordered the Boltz CD-600 a couple of weeks ago. A part was back ordered, so it didn't ship until this week, but when it finally did ship, it was only in transit for two days. Assembly was a breeze, just lots of repetition, but I always feel great after I put something like this together. I also have a box with an adjustable incline writing desk sitting in another room ready to be assembled. I'm puttin' shit together, cos I'm on vacation this week, y'all. Respect. Sorry, no step by step building shots. Just know that there is a lot of screwing hex nuts and acorn nuts on long skinny poles. Assembled: Alphabetizing albums: All done: I got the a…

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This is a little outside the "normal" world of audiphilia, but I have a pretty vexing problem. The right side transport of my Pioneer CMX-3000 is acting up. It can't read most CDs, regular or CDR. I am afraid the drive is failing and I'll have to ship it back to Pioneer. Before I go that route, I'd like to try cleaning it. I haven't owned a CD cleaner in more than a decade. From what I recall, they're not all created equal. Any suggestions on what brand name cleaning discs I should look for? I'm additionally worried in that the last disk I used (ca. 1994) was an audio CD with a brush on it. It included frighteningly cheerful music and a 1950s-style voiceover telling m…

hey y'all I was just looking around, trying to figure out how loud (objectively) I listen to my music. I saw spl meters, and was wondering if those worked for headphones, like the HD650. If those do work for that application, which meter should I get? I was looking at the Radio Shack brand one, or this one: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Extech-407730-Decibel-Digital-Sound/dp/B000EWY67W/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_2]Amazon.com: Extech 407730 40 Decibel to 130 Decibel Digital Sound Level Meter: Home Improvement[/ame] Let me know what's what. Thanks

Oh, snap! Has anyone noticed that today Facebook has changed their photo viewer, so that when you click on a photo to view, the bottom of the photo is cut off in order to display an ad at the lower right corner. Only way to view the entire photo is to keep pushing control/- to make the photo small. Absolute FAIL and shows where Facebook is headed! http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100503334101314

My old Sanyo PLV-Z2 has been showing its age. Rather than dump another $250+ into a new bulb I decided a new projector was the way to go. So I just ordered a brand new Sanyo PLV-Z2000 . It is suppose to ship today, which means that I should have it by tomorrow, or at the latest Wednesday. It's exciting! but it will start a round of upgraditus. First up a HD-DVD player. For a little review go here http://www.projectorcentral.com/sanyo_z2000_home_theater_projector.htm

So I've got tons of SHN files. Its easy enough to convert them to FLAC, but I've really got lots. It'd be nice to be able to listen to them first so I can then convert them straight to WAV to burn to CD, rather then having to convert them to FLAC first only to find out its a shitty tape. Yeah I'm lazy, but if I wanted to work I'd go to work. I've searched for a SHN plugin for foobar, and though I've read about it lots and have found plenty of links claiming to lead to it, all of them are dead. If a SHN plugin can't be found, can anyone recommend a free player with a working SHN plugin or native SHN capability I could download. Thanks.

I've got a Studer amp to keep my Stax menagerie under control via the SRD-7 Spritzer. It has always had quite marked mechanical hum when run at 240V (Australia's mains voltage). I have a 240 -> 110V transformer and the Studer is able to be configured to almost any possible mains voltage via a rotary switch and with a change of fuse. Did that. NO FREAKIN' HUM! $2.50 for 2 new fuses! Love it.

I realized that I have a ton of portable equipment that has a lithium battery in it and that has been sitting unused for years (long before Tim passed away): Pico, Pico Slim, cell phones, cameras. How dangerous is it to charge up a battery that has been sitting around discharged for a long time (evidently you are not supposed to do this ever)? I know that lithium batteries are not as likely to leak as alkaline batteries but can be really bad if they go. What should I do with this stuff? The cell phones I can recycle but I am not sure what to do with the Pico and Pico Slim. I was going to sell them or give them away since I never use them but now I am worried a…

My niece wants a video camera for her birthday. What should I get her? She already takes a lot of videos with her phone (has been for a couple of years) but wants something a little more professional. She originally asked for a camera but is mostly interested in videos. She's turning 15 but is pretty careful with her stuff. I assume a dedicated video camera will be much better than a DSLR? What about this? https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1109405-REG/panasonic_hc_v770_full_hd_camcorder.html

The obvious solution to using US voltage electronics in Japan is a step up transformer. Or a different AC adapter if that's possible. But say I wanted to use this in Japan. Is it doable without a step up transformer? The IEC inlet on top right says EMI Filter 115V/250V~ 50/60Hz

Folks, My cousin is looking for some advice to build a computer based system for around $2000. Thats going to be some sort of DAC/Preamp/Amp, cables/wires and speakers. I'm thinking of: 1) Peachtree Nova: Signal Path International - Era Speakers & Peachtree Audio - Introducing Nova 2) Used speakers with minimum 91db efficiency. 3) Bluejean cables or Signal cables. Any thoughts?

Like the title says, I need some help ID'ing some 6SN7's that I'd like to list for sale. Basically, I just want to make sure that both parties get a fair deal. I'd rather not find out later that I sold a $50 for $10 or vice versa. I've got 10 that I'd like to list (of the way too many that I've accumulated) since I'm now pretty much exclusively using 7N7s. If you need more information just as, but I figured we'd start with pictures and go from there. And huge thanks in advance. Batch 1: Batch 2: All have been tested on my Jackson which can do everything short of conductance (but it does have a better than average LIFE test). They all test good to very …

I plan on doing a nice little headphone shootout (HD580, HD650, L3000 because they all share a similar signature) and it would be perfect if I could level match them all rather than relying on my ears. How accurate are those things?

Alright, so I have created what I think is a fantastic Senn cable. Perhaps the best I have made. I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on the cable. If you would like to give it a try shoot me a PM and I will gladly send it your way.

I have to pick between two car receivers. Most of the functionality is pretty similar, however the iPod/iPhone navigation is better on one and the other has a HD Radio tuner built in. I'm unlikely to buy the optional HD tuner for the former. As I understand it, HD (Hybrid Digital) allows multiplexing, thus additional content channels and is mandated by the FCC to have at least one channel equal in sound quality to the analog broadcast. What I can't find is any commentary on how many stations multiplex (none of those I listen to appear to), nor even rough real sound quality comparisons. I can't even tell if HD Radio is catching on. Track metadata would be cool though. …

Saw this on hf and thought some of you might be interested... http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f42/tubes-boxes-boxes-silicon-valley-313585/ no connection/interest with this (other than if you find some Amperex 6922 PQ white label for cheap, I'll take them off your hands )