Retro and budget home hi fi

Maybe i take separate shots.

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Some great title strip making programs online. Modern technology meets old school.

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Indeed. I have a nice little pdf creating file which suits me.

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So, been reflecting on the equipment I currently own, it’s condition, performance and usability in a house that I’m severely restricted in its use, at levels I enjoy at least :wink: Just as it is I guess, not complaining but before lockdown, I had the house to myself during the week, I could crank it up without disturbing any one
( think Mrs B :grin:) Anyway, I have always had headphones kicking around, RF wireless, over ear, in ear, Bluetooth etc bit never really got out of them what I needed. So I’ve just purchased a set of these,

I am in awe of these! I know they’re award winning cans, along with the previous iterations but they are truly amazing. Along with the SONY headphone connect app, they are fully adjustable. The noise cancelling is first class, ALEXA compatible for my Amazon unlimited subscription, a great range and they can also be connected via a cable! Which brings me to the other purchase, a SAMSUNG USB to 3.5mm female jack. Less than Ā£9.00 delivered from Amazon and for my NOTE 10+ a perfect match. It has a built in DAC and activates the HQ upscaling features on the phone! So even Spotify tracks sound great :+1:

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Amazing little gizmo!
I now have access to literally millions of tracks in decent quality, doesn’t bother anyone else (cupping the right ear cup activates speak to chat, allowing ambient noise through) and has left me wondering about my whole collection of retro equipment, boxes of tapes, vinyl albums etc. :thinking: when a pair of cans and a smartphone replaces all of it with better functionality. I am only musing ( and listening to music :notes:) while putting my thoughts onto the thread. Anyone else like the convenience of such things? Or have I succumbed to the modern world :earth_americas: :thinking:
Barrie

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Have no regrets (Cue Edith Piaf!), enjoy the best of both worlds! :+1: :heart:

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My thoughts exactly!

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Can you plug these into a headphone jack?
Only got a very basic computer.
I see them at Ā£215 quid…and at Ā£320! :astonished:

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It’s all about the music - Listening in whatever format is an individual choice, but listening is key! Other than an occasional dip into YouTube, my system has been CD based since about 1986!
Just keep enjoying the songs and music…! :slight_smile:

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Hi :wave: yes you can indeed, I’ve not explored them fully yet but they are supplied with a directional 3.5mm cable ( and an airplane type adapter) I would have to check against the specs but I ā€˜think’ some of the on headphone controls are disarmed with using the cable. They are duplicated on the phone app though so no biggy. I got mine for Ā£279 which is a good price I think. The lower price might be for the mk3 version? :thinking:
Barrie

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Non, je ne regrette rien! :slightly_smiling_face: I think the right approach is probably as stated by my learned friends! Keep both and enjoy as suggested. The devil makes work for idle hands as they say, I’m always looking for the next thing to do, so will probably move on from the phones, to something else shortly! :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
Joking! :thinking: I’m typing this from my lounge while Michael Buble sings his heart out! Left the phone on the couch, went downstairs to make a cuppa, out into garden as its quite pleasant today, back up past the lounge, up another floor to deliver tea to Mrs B in her office and back down to lounge again! Phew! Mr Buble never missed a beat! No drop out or poor reception from the headphones! Excellent performers. He’s just sung ā€˜La vie en Rose’ :rose: another Piaf song!!
Barrie

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Hi Barrie.

Beware of the danger of being seduced by new technology. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the ā€˜new wave’ of convenience, dispose of all one’s ā€˜traditional’ stuff, often much loved for decades, and regret it later.

Back in the 80s, I bought my first CD-based system, and instantly began replacing my favourite vinyl albums with their digital versions. A house move, following a divorce, meant less space to store stuff, so took loads of vinyl albums, to which I had bought CD versions, to a charity shop.

Years later, I regretted the change, and the disposal of all those old albums, because I have since fell in love with the sound of vinyl again, even though it is a little bit less user-friendly.

Having said all that, over the past few years I have put much of my CD collection onto a laptop, which is even more user-friendly, and often play my music stored on the computer through Bluetooth headphones, or from the computer Bluetoothed to my TV surround sound system. However, I have vowed never again dispose of my old vinyl or CD collection ( I even have some cassettes lingering on a shelf too !). Luckily I now have enough space to store everything, and regularly swop from listening to vinyl, then CD, then laptop and back again, to my hearts content. I have even started buying the odd vinyl album again !

I discovered a few years ago, that some old albums have not found their way onto CD or streaming services, so to me, it is vital to keep the facility to play music in whichever format is available to me.

As previously advised, keep everything, and have the best of both (all) worlds.

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This taps into a perennial thought process I have. I have a full (high quality) separates system with a Linn turntable and over a thousand albums, bought over a 45 year collecting period and a similar number of cd’s. It all takes up a lot of space and I never, ever, play either. I now listen to Spotify or internet radio on my iPad with a blue tooth connection. Sound is fantastic! I also have sennheiser over ear cans that connect to my iPad. So simple and again, what a sound…

If I could be bothered, I reckon the whole lot would fetch £3-4k on eBay, especially some of the vinyl. I am on the brink of buying a Naim MuSo one box player to replace the lot and buy a wood burner for the corner where everything now sits!

But there is something that stops me. The emotional attachment?

As each week of lockdown goes by, I feel I’m getting closer!

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Thank you :+1: I concur with your thoughts. My Samsung Note 10+ is roughly 6" x 3" x 1/4", using that with the new Sony wireless headphones, I have access to literally millions of songs in good quality! With total convenience, usable anytime and almost anywhere. BUT, I then look at the various bits I’ve accumulated, marvel at their aesthetics and enjoy reconfiguring, swapping out different things etc. Planning to listen to music, setting up the space, selecting a listening format, vinyl, tape, FM stereo, CD etc, and then settling in to a session! Brilliant, those opportunities are quite infrequent for me currently but the former, using my smartphone and cans, is available all the time! As suggested, best of both worlds is the order of the day :+1:my gear, whilst not expensive, or particularly high end, has taken time and effort to put together, some still awaiting repairs etc but thrills me to think someone purchased it all, brand new, 40-50 years ago and I’m now the curator! My children have zero interest in any of it really, or my car for that matter :unamused: so who knows what their future holds? That applies to the equipment AND the kids these days. Oh well, sorry to disappoint my wife, she thought I might be thinning out the collection! :rofl::rofl:
Barrie

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I have some of those! I’ve digitised a couple of old favourites using my Olympus recorders, the oldest one needs a pad down to mic level, the more recent semi-pro LS14 has a line level input. Turn off the auto level control and clean the record, and away.

The tracks can be trimmed and separated later if necessary, but most of the time I treat a side as one track.

Happy.

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Totally agree with you Chris! I have upgraded the means of playing on occasions, not beyond CD players though, but I still have all my 78’s, 45’s, LP’s and CD’s (never got into tape, it hated me as much as I hated it!). In fact I bought a couple of new LP’s a couple of weeks ago, Long live Tangible media sources.

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I presented a programme with Forth Valley Broadcasting for around 20 years till 12 years back.
We had a massive studio refurb following a grant from the Lotto Fund people, and invested in Denon MIniDisc machines, 2 in each studio. They were a ā€œmachine of their timeā€ and made it very easy to actually sound semi-professional. Tee-ing up my jingles to the nano second was child’s play. Still got 2 machines in the loft and a box with around 40/50 blank discs.
They fell out of favour and I bought them off the organisation…no idea why I bothered bar I probably wanted to maintain the option of reusing years of work…including ā€œJinglesā€ made for me personally by non other than the daughter of a certain Sir John Barry who had his studios in the Irish Republic, Elton John, and the lead singer of Middle of the Road…cannot recall her name at the moment.
Need to make a decision to sell or use but looking back on it, they were a real boon.
From recall I got an hour or so out of each disc and the Denons were 100% robust in use.
You can still get Sony I think, but I believe mini-discs are only available in Japan…but there are plenty resellers online.
Best thing since sliced bread at the time…I was able to take my entire show in a wee box around the size of 2 ciggy packets instead of humphering 2 heavy record cases…not to mention getting the LP needle bang on and stopping the direct drive turntables…

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Not so much hated it as found cassettes poor quality, even with the best machines at work, and especially when compared with our 1/4" machines (eg Nagra IVS).
But I do have a couple of Marantz twin deck cassette machines, one of which is still connected ready for use.
This partly because I have some cassettes that did not appear on CD at the time, eg the complete set of Journey Into Space bought from BBC Shop in Regent Street (long gone now). More than 24hours of listening nostalgia from hearing it first time round back in the 1950s…

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Hi Richard.
I have the ā€œOperation Lunaā€ boxed set. It was a Christmas present (1990?) I couldn’t use. My brother in law has played them, but returned them afterwards. I remember the radio series well, quite scary to a 10/12 year old (ā€œWhittakerā€ in a reverb voice from ā€œThe Red Planetā€) but brilliant!

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I loved those Denon MD machines. They were the last of a line of really well designed super-dependable broadcast machines, from 1/4" tape cart machines (using the ubiquitous 8-track cartridge) to CD cart machines and finally MD. All swept away by the rise of PC based playout systems with touchscreens, but I feel a lot of intuitive physicality was lost when slapping in a real cartridge and jabbing play was replaced by tapping on a screen. I feel similar doubts about touchscreens in cars replacing tactile controls.

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Quite.
As I said, I’ve been away from broadcasting for many years but I was invited to a ā€œdoā€ 3 years back and while all the ā€œtouchscreenā€ technology was fantastic, I did not make myself very popular with a couple of reverse-baseball capped ā€œpresentersā€ who, while their programes were pretty good, could dial up their two hours worth, hit Start, and then go for lunch.
Patients knew no better if it was not a call-in Patients Choice or similar but TBH, when I learned of this new stuff being the way forward, that’s when I threw the towel in.
Nothing beat the need to be on top of everything for 2 hours…it made it feel like 20 minutes!
And, it was fun. I do miss it…sometimes.

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