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OT - rediscovered my Hi Fi and music
nick205 - 17/10/14 at 12:37 PM

Supposed to have spent the morning packing ahead of a house move. I started under the stairs and unpacked my Hi Fi system, LPs and CDs, which have been in there for the past 7-8 years since we had kids.

WOW! What a joy it is to listen to music again on LP and CD through a decent system. Made me realise just how strangled music is when listening in the car, on ipods and through a little mini system in the kitchen.

Suffice to say I've done no packing and SWMBO is due back to inspect progress shortly Maybe she'll be woo'd with Metallica at full chat when she walks in

Barkalarr - 17/10/14 at 01:24 PM

Best you make sure there's room for one of these in your new house..... you're gonna need it...


mds167 - 17/10/14 at 02:35 PM

Enjoy!!
..And Justice For All?
My floorstanders have just gone up in the loft following arrival our our little man in June.
I can't see them coming back down before a house move
Ah well, off to see Bob Mould next month to make up for it

SteveWalker - 17/10/14 at 03:11 PM

Ha, snap! Mine has just come out of storage after 9-1/2 years. Floorstanders with Aerogel cones and a power-amp with exposed valves do not mix well with kids!

coozer - 17/10/14 at 03:27 PM

I've been using the PC and car for a few years now... on holiday in Ibiza wandered into a bar with little mixer and a single massive pa type speaker playing mp3,s off a laptop... Boy what a sound...

Now I'm looking at a 1000w pa system for the front room:-)

nick205 - 17/10/14 at 06:29 PM

quote:
Originally posted by mds167
Enjoy!!
..And Justice For All?
My floorstanders have just gone up in the loft following arrival our our little man in June.
I can't see them coming back down before a house move
Ah well, off to see Bob Mould next month to make up for it



Black album, followed by some Judas Priest and Iron Maiden for good measure

The packing rather accelerated rapidly after SWMBO got home

whitestu - 17/10/14 at 07:48 PM

I've got an old Sony minidisk walkman. The sound quality compared to my iPod is amazing!

James - 18/10/14 at 10:15 AM

quote:
Originally posted by whitestu
I've got an old Sony minidisk walkman. The sound quality compared to my iPod is amazing!


I've got one too... cost £250 or something daft and I ever used it much really. The quality of the machine itself is beautiful all anodised ali and loading the discs is a beautiful mechanism. Still fun just doing that with it!

ChrisW - 18/10/14 at 11:12 AM

quote:
Originally posted by James
quote:
Originally posted by whitestu
I've got an old Sony minidisk walkman. The sound quality compared to my iPod is amazing!


I've got one too... cost £250 or something daft and I ever used it much really. The quality of the machine itself is beautiful all anodised ali and loading the discs is a beautiful mechanism. Still fun just doing that with it!


I have one of those too, in fact it was an 18th birthday present I believe. Mine got used loads - I had plenty of spare time in those days - so it's a little scuffed and scratched but still sounds great. In fact I've still got a Sony MD separate in the 'stack' in my office/workshop too!

Chris

James - 18/10/14 at 11:36 AM

With some googling I found my one:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mz-r55&espv=2&biw=1078&bih=681&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=OFBCVJ2vOKLB7Abqu4CwAQ&v ed=0CAcQ_AUoAg


Beautiful looking bit of kit IMO.

I've still got it as have some music on the discs I don't have anywhere else so plug it into the amp if required. Only problem is the battery is dead but I can put AA's into the bolt-on pack and I just saw a new battery for it for £5.99 on ebay! lol

Be interested to know how MP3 vs Minidisc quality compares on comparable quality players.

[Edited on 18/10/14 by James]

coozer - 18/10/14 at 12:37 PM

I've got one as well, loathe to chuck it as it hardly got used, its still brand new looking after spending its life in a vinyl case thing...

Old vinyls on a good turntable have a much better sound than all the digital stuff!

loggyboy - 18/10/14 at 12:52 PM

I cant wait to get a big enough house to set my decks back up again. Not quite with you on the music choice, but defo with the days of cds and mini discs. My bro had a cool 3 MD changer seperate which was great for pulling off cds and making great mixes. One thing I would say with regards to elec media is make sure you rip your old cds at 320kbs +, will make the mp3s bigger but retain lots mire quality, still not as good as CDs tho.
also, if you dpend more time in the car listening to music (I dont as much as I used to), its well wirth sticking a decent setup in your car, you can get some great quality out of a car stereo.

coozer - 18/10/14 at 04:04 PM

Yep, I have 1000w amp driving a 12" dual input woofer

All for metal, one minute silence sounds mint!

Slimy38 - 18/10/14 at 05:13 PM

I'm nowhere near 'hi fi', but I wanted something a bit better than the sound I had out of my PC. So with the assistance of my friend, I picked up;

A Rotel amp (£30 off Ebay with postage)
A pair of Tangent bookshelf speakers (£25 end of line model from Richer Sounds)
Decent 79 strand wire between the two (donated from friend)
A USB DAC as a source (£30)

So for less than £100 the difference in sound quality has been unbelievable. Before I got that setup I was not picking up any difference between 128kb MP3 and original CD, now I can actually enjoy my music.

coozer - 18/10/14 at 05:34 PM

This is what I'm thinking of getting to bend the windows with, what do you think?

http://www.hifi-tower.co.uk/Complete-PA-System-Skylar-Skytec-Amplifier-12-PA-Speakers-DJ-Mixer-1200W_i8186.htm

nick205 - 19/10/14 at 09:24 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
I'm nowhere near 'hi fi', but I wanted something a bit better than the sound I had out of my PC. So with the assistance of my friend, I picked up;

A Rotel amp (£30 off Ebay with postage)
A pair of Tangent bookshelf speakers (£25 end of line model from Richer Sounds)
Decent 79 strand wire between the two (donated from friend)
A USB DAC as a source (£30)

So for less than £100 the difference in sound quality has been unbelievable. Before I got that setup I was not picking up any difference between 128kb MP3 and original CD, now I can actually enjoy my music.


Nice.

2nd hand HiFi can be a bargain, where people are upgrading.

nick205 - 19/10/14 at 09:27 AM

quote:
Originally posted by coozer
This is what I'm thinking of getting to bend the windows with, what do you think?

http://www.hifi-tower.co.uk/Complete-PA-System-Skylar-Skytec-Amplifier-12-PA-Speakers-DJ-Mixer-1200W_i8186.htm




Being honest Coozer, it will sound bloody awful! Worse than pub disco and worse the louder you turn it up.

What Slimy describes above will play more than loud enough in a house and will sound good across the volume range.

coozer - 19/10/14 at 10:46 AM

OK,thanks, did think it might be a bit overkill but I want to replicate that heavy 'full' bassy experience.

Dac,s are new to me, how good are they at giving a better fuller sound?

Slimy38 - 19/10/14 at 11:17 AM

quote:
Originally posted by coozer
OK,thanks, did think it might be a bit overkill but I want to replicate that heavy 'full' bassy experience.

Dac,s are new to me, how good are they at giving a better fuller sound?


I bought the DAC as an alternative to a sound card, it was infinitely better than anything I could afford. This is what I have;

http://nwavguy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/behringer-uca202-review.html

You can get it for £20-£30 on Ebay, just be careful of fakes.

The Rotel amp is where the magic is though, it's twenty years old now but they're still very much sought after. I've only ever turned it up to 3, that's 'full' enough for me!

coozer - 13/12/14 at 08:56 PM

Right then, I've done it thanks to a few beers.. Bought a 1500w amp and a pair of 800w speakers..

Also got a DAC off eBay and just need to find a CD player, surprised we haven't got one in the house!

So far it sounds good but the speakers are way to big with a 15 inch woofer and a massive cabinet. Going to be looking at building some cabs that will fit in the front room and was thinking of using the same kind of sub's and 6x9's I have in the car.. 10" sub's with 2 way 6x9's and a tweeter all under the control of crossovers (the speakers I've just got don't have crossovers in them)

Any thoughts on cabinet design and driver build up??

Steve

Slimy38 - 13/12/14 at 09:53 PM

The 2 way 6x9's will have some sort of crossover at least, you'll need to figure out what that is before you try and add more crossovers. Even if it's only a cap limiting the top end frequencies, it'll mess up whatever you work out for the setup.

Personally I'd sell all that to someone who wants to upgrade their car hifi, and get something intended for home use. The 6x9's in particular are pretty much never used in any home hifi, they're a compromise size that were put together for cars.

When I put my car speaker enclosure together, I made use of the various speaker parameters to calculate the volume I required. Of course, this was way before the internet, now there's loads of stuff available to calculate it for you. Here's an example one;

http://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Tutorial/SpeakerBox/

Aim for a right angled enclosure, but not cuboid. And I went for 12mm MDF, possibly 18mm might be better if you don't mind the extra weight.

coozer - 14/12/14 at 04:13 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
The 2 way 6x9's will have some sort of crossover at least, you'll need to figure out what that is before you try and add more crossovers. Even if it's only a cap limiting the top end frequencies, it'll mess up whatever you work out for the setup.

Personally I'd sell all that to someone who wants to upgrade their car hifi, and get something intended for home use. The 6x9's in particular are pretty much never used in any home hifi, they're a compromise size that were put together for cars.

When I put my car speaker enclosure together, I made use of the various speaker parameters to calculate the volume I required. Of course, this was way before the internet, now there's loads of stuff available to calculate it for you. Here's an example one;

http://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Tutorial/SpeakerBox/

Aim for a right angled enclosure, but not cuboid. And I went for 12mm MDF, possibly 18mm might be better if you don't mind the extra weight.


Thanks for that fella, thats a good guide there.

Steve

morcus - 14/12/14 at 09:51 PM

I did the same recently as I'm using mobile internet which is limited, for ages I've just been streaming but now have my old ghetto blaster and turn table set up and fallen back in love with albums. I even found some old cassettes I made at uni where you can really here the cackle my old record player used to make.

mark chandler - 14/12/14 at 10:37 PM

I have an old yamaha amp and some decent speakers, cost a fair bit 12 years ago from richer sounds in their sale and still sounds good, could replace it all for a couple of hundred tops on eBay now, I just stream music (spotify on high quality) via an optical patch lead via an apple airport.

Needs the SWMBO out before I can crank it up, luckily we have a detached house now so can be as noisy as I like

If I was to replace I would be looking at some older NAD separates, fantastic quality stuff which is also now cheap for what you get.