Recent content by Geoff P.

With you all the way there, DC. This is still my main system : Denon DRA 455 stereo receiver, 2001 Mission 750LE speakers, 1999 Thorens TD166 mk2 turntable, circa 1980 Marantz CD5400, youngster at 2006 ! Simpler times, but quite disappointing that "proper" hifi seems to be harder to come by...

Given the current concerns with AI making inroads into songwriting, it prompted me to revisit the thorny subject of auto-tuning. When I became aware of this form of cheating, it saddened me greatly to think that the many singers I've looked up to in the past may in fact be a joint venture with a...

My Thorens TD166 Mk2 was bought 2'nd hand by me in 1999 ( it was probably 25 years old then ! ), from a free ad in the local paper ( remember them ? ) for the princely sum of £50 ! It came with two arms, fitted with Ortofon VMS 20E Mk 2 and Shure N97HE ERA4, and a box of LPs !!! ( the arm boxes...

Sorry Ben -I have no solutions to your problem, aside from - if the room is such a problem, ditch it and use a set of headphones. Your situation has, however, prompted me to consider how on earth we got into a state where it's so problematic to simply listen to music. Some folks seem more keen...

Question - given the thread title, does all this count as a hate crime ? !!! The day we all "hate" inanimate objects, the human race is in trouble !

I may be out of my depth here, but is this all just more SO, or is it out-and-out BS ?

Hi Anthony - sorry in advance if I'm teaching my Granny to suck eggs. Are you aware of the Dolby system ( designed to reduce tape hiss ) and it's means if operation ? By boosting the HF during recording, then bringing it back down during playback the tape hiss was reduced ( with varying degrees...

Nice of you to say so Gray, but being in work at the time I wasn't in too much danger ! ( 'Er Indoors, however, was not happy !!! ). We also lost the tv, phone handset, modem and Arcam Alpha amp ( Boo-Hoo ! ). It could have been worse - next door had a hole punched in their central heating...

The recent Mission 750 review in WHF prompted me to consider the following for discussion : 1. The assertion that the new 750's have no heritage is flawed - my 750LE's ( bought new in 1999 for £200 during a sale at Audio Excellence ) are also 2 way ported standmounters - don't they count ? 2...

This reminds me that, back in the day, at least one thing was better. I had one of the last Toshiba CRTs ( called Picture Frame I think ). Whilst the picture was one of the best for that time, it was the sound that impressed me. This set came with 5.1 surround sound as standard, and had a sub...

OK - get the laughter out of the way - I'm still using a Google Nexus 7, with Android 6.0.1 !, original battery, original charger adaptor. Charging at home to 100% on battery icon, my McAfee Livesafe widget says I have about 12 hrs battery life available. If I'm away from home ( holidays, at...

CSN&Y - Deja Vu on CD. I never owned it on vinyl, but remember being entranced by a friends copy as a youth. So when I spotted an opportunity to buy the CD ( remastered as well ! ) for little money, I jumped in. Well - what a disappointment, it seemed flat, compressed and just downright dull...

Quick update for anyone who's still listening ! : MP3Gain runs just fine on Windows 11 PC ( I did the full download, with VB files, from the official site ). It might be long in the tooth, but it was easy to use for an old codger like me - just find an online tutorial. Trialled the default...

Thanks for that, Vincent. I may be wrong, but I'm lead to believe that a lot of these levellers simply apply a cut-off threshold, whereas MP3Gain does an analysis of each track to maintain the song's dynamics, then alters the average sound level to a fixed number. This would seem to be a...

I've taken to copying some of my old CDs onto a USB stick for use in the car, and I'm feeling quite pleased with myself ! ( I'm 70 in May ! ). Used WMP to rip the CDs, photographed the covers, cropped them in Photo Gallery, resized them in Paint and tagged them as Album Art using MP3Tag. My...