Audio on Jackenhack

NAD 3020B Amplifier A Classic Worth Restoring

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A friend of mine bought a new amplifier, but he wasn’t pleased with the sound. So he called me and asked if I could recommend a good old amplifier that could drive smaller speakers because he likes the aesthetic of older things. And the venerable NAD 3020B was the first one that came to mind. When I was young, this was the first affordable amplifier that sounded good.

It’s not a powerhouse by any means, putting out (a very conservative estimate) 2 x 20 watts. But the phono stage accepts both MM and MC pickups which is excellent, and the sound quality is exceptional. So he scoured the used market and finally found a NAD 3020B. Unfortunately, when he got it home, there was a loud hum from the output. So I told him to send it to me so I could fix it.

Apple Music Streaming – It's a No Go For Me

Mon, 10 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Apple Music

So I gave Apple Music streaming a try. Being able to just search for music and add it to my playlists sounded like a good idea. After a while the recommendations becomes rather good as well, giving me some tips of other bands I might like. But here’s the problem I have with Apple Music. When you sync your music via iCloud, you can no longer sync music via iTunes! And to be able to download music locally from Apple Music to your phone, you must use the “in the iCloud” solution. Catch–22 anyone?

Flac, the best choice

Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Audio Engineering Pioneer John Meyer: Stop Chasing The Next Big Thing, And Go With Flac Instead — Tech News And Analysis:

John Meyer may be making really expensive loudspeakers, but when it comes to high-end audio, the audio engineering pioneer prefers free. FLAC, the open source audio format developed by Grateful Dead fans to trade bootleg recordings, is “the perfect format” for music aficionados looking for higher-resolution audio, Meyer told me during a recent interview. And to him, any company pushing trying to make a buck with selling upsampled music is just out to sell snake oil. “It’s tricking people who don’t know enough about technology,” he said.

Run Away Brainz: Audio: Crystal cMoy Freeform Headphone Amp

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Crystal cMoy Freeform Headphone Amp:

Very cool transparent cMoy headphone amplifier, made using clear casting resin. This is something I have to try.

Via 0pachira

Raspberry Pi Car Computer

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Update: You can find my latest update on the progress of my Raspberry Pi Car Audio System here.

I’m working on a Raspberry Pi as a music player in my car. I’m putting all my music on a SSD disk in lossless FLAC. I’ve already got hold of a 2x16 character LCD with six button from Adafruit that only uses two pins for communication with I2C. It’s easy to program and it has four different background colors.

Raspberry Pi as a Squeezebox Logitech Server

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I love my music playback setup that consists of a couple of Squeezebox V3 players in different rooms so I can listen to music in lossless format wherever I am in the apartment. With the iPeng HD app on my iPad, I have a nice interface for controlling the players with album art and other nice features. But the best part is that I can playback high resolution audio directly on my iPad using the Camera Kit USB adapter and an HRT HeadStreamer DAC portable USB headphone amplifier. But I wanted a small, cheap and eco-friendly server for hosting my music files and wondered if I could use the Raspberry Pi. And here’s my findings.

Lenn-Art Tang Band W8-740C subwoofers

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id=“attachment_969” align=“alignnone” width=“292” caption=“Lenn-Art Subwoofer”][/caption]

Last time I ordered some speaker elements from Germany I ordered some extra Tang Band W8-740C subwoofer elements for a later build. I’ve been oogling this design to go with my home-built?ProAc 2.5 clones. Micke, a friend will make the boxes for me, provided I sent him the drawings. What an exellent excuse to try to learn Solidworks. Amazing program. I have designed my own version of the venerable GainClone amplifier with a beefed up power supply and will use two subwoofers in stereo. Nice to not have to build the boxes. Last time when I built the clones the apartment was filled with MDF dust for months.

Mods and upgrades on a Pioneer PD S-505 for better audio quality part 1

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Part two of this series is now up. Read on how to install a better clock in your Pioneer PD S-505 CD player.

Mods your Pioneer PD S-505 CD Player for better sound quality

So I bought this Pioneer PD S-505 for $40 to test how good audio quality I’m able to squeeze out by modifying it. But It will not be just the standard subjective judgment of improvement but also measurements. Back in 2000, you had to pay about $400 for it. It uses the stable platter which means you have to put the CD in upside down. So let’s get going.

Spotify is going to kick some ass

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

After using Spotify for a couple of days, I must say that they almost nailed it. And I have never seen as much entusiasm about a new service among people of so different age groups. The Mac client is really nice (and fast!) This is something the music business should have come up with a long time ago. I think I bought about five songs on iTunes total. I like the idea of “owning” my music, or at least own the piece of plastic it comes on. But the chear joy of being able to just search and ad a shitload of music and start listening is exhilarating. But I have a couple of gripes…

ProAc Response 2.5 clones plays real music

Tue, 29 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

So finally my new ProAc Response 2.5 clone playing music. And how they play! I got myself a new Class-A amplifier to have something nice to drive them with. At first they sounded a bit short on the bass side, but now after about 20 hours of listening, the bass starts to improve. I’ve never believed in the “burn-in” of speakers, but I have to say I’ve been mistaken.

DIY speakers

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

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 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.

CMoy DIY Headphone Amplifier

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Building the venerable CMoy DIY Headphone Amplifier

The last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking of building a small headphone amplifier. I want to tap into the line-out of my iPod to get better sound. I also have a problem with my headphone jack on my pod. After fighting with my friend Hermans dog, he managed to get his paw entangled in my headphone cables and destroyed the cable jack. So I have searched the net to try to find a good amplifier to build (I don’t have the money to buy one right now), and I found the Cmoy headphone amplifier. But I used another build page that has some upgrades to it. Unfortunately I could not find the bread board they used, so I had to make my own design. So after a couple of hours of soldering and using a drill it was time to try it out. And it worked! No debugging or anything. This must be a first.

EU the European Union and the technical stupidity

Wed, 08 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000

When Sweden joined the European Union a couple of years ago, all the politicians promised that everything would be better. The food would get cheaper and a lot of other stuff.

Well, the food is more expensive than ever. Other than that the only thing I noticed is some stupid things that changed. Let me give you a couple of silly examples. Here are some rulings coming out of Brussels.