There’s a lot of articles on the net about modding and enhancing the sound quality of your audio equipment by replacing components etc. But you never see measurements to backup their claims. Well, I’ve been busy the last two days taking a ten year old middle range CD player and trying to make it to sound really good. But I also have done measurements before and after doing the mod (within reason) and so far it actually confirms that modding really works (if done right). Now, let’s face it, the best measured equipment isn’t necessarily the one that sounds the best, but still, it’s interesting to see what kind of effects different modifications have.My best sounding DAC does not measure as well as some other ones I have. And I have started to get quite the collection.
Will be back with a writeup and test diagrams when I’m finished…
Over a year ago this guy contacted me to get permission to use this picture for an album cover. I sent him a high res copy and told him that he could use the picture but that he had to send me a copy of the album when it was finished. My guess was I would never hear from him again. But to my surprise I got an email from him yesterday asking for my address and if I wanted the album signed by the artist! Things like this makes me believe in the human being again. I just assumed he would forget to send the album, which is what I probably would do.
I don’t think they used used ReplayGain.
The people who adds music type tagging at Spotify must be on crack. You select “Alternative, Punk, Hard Rock” and sometimes you get like pop songs for 14 year olds. Very irritating. I know that people really mark up some tags weird, but this is ridiculous.
For probably 20 years I’ve been searching for a song. An old friend of mine, Micke Fredriksson used to play this punk song from a live recording. The only thing I remembered was that they sang “They called me an animal, then they cut me up”. So sometimes I searched the net for the text, but could never find out the name of the song. Irritating!
But today I went to a vinyl record sale and I found it! As soon as I saw the album cover I knew that it was the right one. So now I can finally listen to [Art Attacks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_art_attacks) masterpiece Animal Bondage
The last couple of years due to the iPod, I’ve listened to more music than ever before. I also haven’t bought much music. But in the last six month I bought a lot of CDs and now also vinyl records. I would never pay full price for a CD, in Sweden you pay around $18! But I do buy nice price CDs. Then I have to pay around $5. And vinyl can be even cheaper. Hopefully the record industry will finally get it and change their pricing so I don’t have to buy back catalog all the time.
I just read an article on why Apple can’t do to video what it did to music. Interesting article, but using the iPod as an example is probably not a good idea. What all there guys seems to forget is that the iPod will never be a popular device to watch video on. And it has nothing to do with not being able to get content. I have downloaded a lot of films on mine. It’s not even the small screen size that’s the problem. It’s the fact that watching video isn’t something that people want to do on the go. You can listen to music and drive a car, but try to watch video while driving.
Well, let’s face it. The iPod have changed my interest in music during the last few years.
With my 5 gig first generation iPod I had most of my music coded in 128kbit MP3 due to the constraints of the number of songs. The first year I put up with the included earphones and really didn’t think of upgrading.
But finally I got a Koss Porta Pro by recommendation from a friend. These headphones are not audiophile, but good enough to make me realize how much better MP3 files coded in 160 or higher sounded. But to accomondate that kind of upgrade in sound, forced me to buy a 15gb third generation iPod to fit more songs. So I recoded all my music to AAC in 160kbit and faced out older songs when I could get my hands on a higher quality version. The third generation iPod worked excellent for me for over three years. Then I upgraded my headphones to some in-ear headphones which took the sound quality up a notch again. A month ago I bought a iPod Classic 160gb and now have all music in lossless full quality.
But guess what, I bought a vinyl record player a while ago. Some would say that it’s a step backwards, but have to disagree. There is something about listening to vinyl. It’s like smoking a pipe, It’s a bit more involved. An other good aspect of this is that I’m forced to actually listen trough a whole song. But one thing is for sure, you need to invest in rather expensive equipment to get good performance from vinyl. But one can still find interesting records dirt cheap. It really is the black gold.
I just bought a new Mac Mini Core Duo2 as a media player in my bedroom. I connected it an old 23″ Cinema display that I don’t use. First I was a bit annoyed that I needed to use the keyboard and mouse, but then I found Remote Buddy. What a relief! I can now do almost anything with Apples lovely simple remote. I’m going to use it for playing back my CD collection that’s been ripped to a large hardisk. Watching DiVX, DVD, MPG films on it. And watch TV with my EyeTV kit.
So the next step was getting the audio out of the mini. Well, let’s face it, the output quality from line-out isn’t something you can call great. So I’m about to order an Zhaolu DAC 2.5 and mod the crap out of it! I’m thinking of installing a ZapFilter, better clocking etc. I’m then going to use mini-spdif connector to get the digital data out from the mac to the DAC.
Now I just need to get my home built amp finished.
I want to have a couple of speakers in the beadroom, so I started to search the net. I found a very intresting [DYI speaker project](http://www.hififorum.nu/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=45145&whichpage=1&SearchTerms=lancetta) here (Swedish). So I ordered the speakers and can’t wait to get them. My skills in working with wood is very limited, but I may get some help from one of my friends, who is an expert wood carpenter.
The build is based on a [German project called Lancetta (PDF warning)](http://www.blueplanetacoustic.de/pdf/134/Lancetta.pdf) but with some modifications. Very cool using a small 3″ driver. I’ll try to post more info when I get started.
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