What New Stuff Have You Bought? If You Care To Share Thead! :)

[crazyfingers]

Maybe even for my daily walk.

That's how I'd use them too.

Right now I have some Koss Porta Pro headphones that I like a lot and that I use for walks but headphones get broken especially when the wires aren't designed to pull out.

 

[Bobby Bass]

That sounds like fun! Is it a new house you're building or a renovation?

We have a family homestead on the ocean in Maine. 150 years old. We've spruced it up over the years and spend multiple weeks in the summer and fall long weekends there. It's about a 5 hour drive from where we are south of Boston. But I would never leave anything actually valuable there. We've had tools stolen from the barn. I don't think anyone has broken into the house but you never know what could happen if something is visible through the windows. We hide the flat screen TV when we are done there for the year.

Natural Sound has a good number of used equipment for sale. I've seen the rows of electronics. They probably have the used speakers in the listening rooms.

Family lake house that sounds similar to your setup. Needs work done inside in the spring. Once that’s done will work on setting up for sound. That’ll be the fun part. Nice to think about on cold grey winter days.

 

[3db]

Some of my music orders came in

 

[davidscott]

They look good for outside activity. What are they and what makes them special?

Sorry Koss kph30i and they get good reviews online. I have Bose earbuds for my daily walk, but I'll use these with my laptop. Listened to Amazon music with them and they do sound better than my cheap Panasonics on my laptop.

 

[davidscott]

That's how I'd use them too.

Right now I have some Koss Porta Pro headphones that I like a lot and that I use for walks but headphones get broken especially when the wires aren't designed to pull out.

There also have wires not designed to be pulled out so I'll probably use them with my laptop and continue to use the Bose earbuds for walking.

 

[crazyfingers]

There also have wires not designed to be pulled out so I'll probably use them with my laptop and continue to use the Bose earbuds for walking.

Earbuds have some appeal. But I just can't keep them in my ear. I have several. The wired Apple ones that came with one of my iPod Classics sound pretty good. And I have some Beats wired earbuds that sound great and are noise blocking (not cancelling) that I've used on airplanes when I want to rest on the side of my head and not destroy the Bose headphones. But there is something about the wires that cause sound to travel up the wire when they touch together and so unless I stay still they can be really annoying.

But I just don't want bluetooth and I don't want one more thing to keep charged.

Fortunately I have no plans to be on airplanes again now that I'm retired. Unless perhaps my wife and I make it to Europe some day.

 

[davidscott]

Extended listening today with the KPH30is on my PC. Using Amazon Ultra HD to listen to Diana Krall and these things are excellent. At less than half the price of the Porta Pros you might want to look into a pair of these, I've also heard good things about the KPH40s

 

[crazyfingers]

I just purchased all of the Grateful Dead's Road Trips series off Nugs as ALAC. 18 Concerts. I have 5 already but it was worth it to me to get the other 13 I don't have. They can only be purchased as a set.

Getting them ready is going to be a job of work. They all came in Zip folders only named Nugs Archive.Zip and I need to rename all the folders to the year month day venue and volume and number.

After extracting I need to rename all of the song files. They look like this. I need to delete the extraneous stuff before the track numbers. Then drop in the album art.

Then import into iTunes and then rename the albums to get them to sort by my format.

In this case rename to 68 02/14 Carousel Ballroom San Fransisco CA RT V2 N2

Hours of editing but a labor of love. Some of the ones I already have may be standard AACs to I need to see which I need to replace with the ALACs.

And backup 3 times and then convert a copy to AAC to put on my phone. 18 ALACs will take up a lot of space on the phone just playing in the car.

Off to do more folder editing before I extract....

 

[3db]

Today's thrift store finds

 

[Eppie]

Earbuds have some appeal. But I just can't keep them in my ear. I have several. The wired Apple ones that came with one of my iPod Classics sound pretty good. And I have some Beats wired earbuds that sound great and are noise blocking (not cancelling) that I've used on airplanes when I want to rest on the side of my head and not destroy the Bose headphones. But there is something about the wires that cause sound to travel up the wire when they touch together and so unless I stay still they can be really annoying.

But I just don't want bluetooth and I don't want one more thing to keep charged.

Fortunately I have no plans to be on airplanes again now that I'm retired. Unless perhaps my wife and I make it to Europe some day.

I have the Bose Quiet Comfort ear buds, one pair regular and another pair with noise cancelling.

The silicone part fits in the curve of your ear to holds it in place and the flange reduces outside noise. Both pairs are wired as I don't want to worry about charging every time. The noise cancelling pair obviously have a battery, but if you switch the noise cancellation off they still work in passive mode (although the tone does change a little).

They were not cheap, but sound way better than the stock Samsung and Google ear buds. I don't think they produce them any more. All of the big brands seem to be going wireless. Yeah.... 5 or 6 years of battery and then in the trash. Maybe with a $50 ear bud but not when I spend $300!

 

[3db]

My third Yamaha KX-800U in pristine condition came in on Saturday and I opened it today with the orginal box, remote, and manual.

These cassettes came in today.

 

[crazyfingers]

My third Yamaha KX-800U in pristine condition came in on Saturday and I opened it today with the orginal box, remote, and manual.
View attachment 65740View attachment 65741

These cassettes came in today.

View attachment 65742View attachment 65743

Whatever is fun for you. I couldn't go back to playing tapes. They were great in their day. I never bought pre-recorded tapes. I'd only make my own from the LP.

Some day I might consider selling my two Nakamichi BX-300 decks but I keep wondering if I'll ever want to transfer more of my Grateful Dead bootlegs to digital. I probably never will but.... I guess I should never say never.

 

[crazyfingers]

I need a fun new toy but I don't know what to get.

I need to take my car to the dealer to have a hitch installed so that I can put the bikes on the back instead of on top. But that's not really very fun especially since summer is months away still.

I need a fun toy.

 

[isolar8001]

I just purchased all of the Grateful Dead's Road Trips series off Nugs as ALAC. 18 Concerts. I have 5 already but it was worth it to me to get the other 13 I don't have. They can only be purchased as a set.

View attachment 65694

Getting them ready is going to be a job of work. They all came in Zip folders only named Nugs Archive.Zip and I need to rename all the folders to the year month day venue and volume and number.

After extracting I need to rename all of the song files. They look like this. I need to delete the extraneous stuff before the track numbers. Then drop in the album art.

Then import into iTunes and then rename the albums to get them to sort by my format.

View attachment 65695

In this case rename to 68 02/14 Carousel Ballroom San Fransisco CA RT V2 N2

Hours of editing but a labor of love. Some of the ones I already have may be standard AACs to I need to see which I need to replace with the ALACs.

And backup 3 times and then convert a copy to AAC to put on my phone. 18 ALACs will take up a lot of space on the phone just playing in the car.

Off to do more folder editing before I extract....

Music files always seem to be named wonky.
I use this program...it is invaluable for fixing such things.

Ken Rename

Simple, efficient file renaming app

ken-rename.en.softonic.com

Direct Link

Ken Rename

Simple, efficient file renaming app

gsf-fl.softonic.com

 

[Bobby Bass]

Whatever is fun for you. I couldn't go back to playing tapes. They were great in their day. I never bought pre-recorded tapes. I'd only make my own from the LP.

Some day I might consider selling my two Nakamichi BX-300 decks but I keep wondering if I'll ever want to transfer more of my Grateful Dead bootlegs to digital. I probably never will but.... I guess I should never say never.

Same here. All my tapes were made so I could take and play in the car or on a boom box. Finally got rid of them all in a move when I had the tapes but no player. Once CDs came out no more records or tapes for me. Then I burned all my CDs to my iPod. Now with streaming occasional CDs but they stay home since I don’t have a player in my car or boat. Bluetooth on the go off the receiver or from my phone or iPad. Amazing the changes in how music is played over the last 40 years. I wonder what’s next.

 

[crazyfingers]

I wonder what’s next.

I recall year and years ago wondering when there would be No-Moving-Parts music. Styli running through a wiggly groove on a turning disc creating wear on both. Tape deck motors, rollers, gears, belts, solenoids. Cassettes themselves with two wheels that need to turn. Tape running across a head. More wear on both. CD's need to turn and that takes a motor. And etc. I thought how it would be nice when all those points of wear and failure requiring service or replacement could be eliminated. I think that the most recent was the shift from a spinning hard drive to SSD eliminated moving parts.

So what's next? Will they ever be able to make a loudspeaker without moving parts?

 

[davidscott]

Same here. All my tapes were made so I could take and play in the car or on a boom box. Finally got rid of them all in a move when I had the tapes but no player. Once CDs came out no more records or tapes for me. Then I burned all my CDs to my iPod. Now with streaming occasional CDs but they stay home since I don’t have a player in my car or boat. Bluetooth on the go off the receiver or from my phone or iPad. Amazing the changes in how music is played over the last 40 years. I wonder what’s next.

I gave away my last cassette deck back in 2010 or so. Back in the day I had a few and recorded many songs from LPs. Once CDs came out it seemed pointless to record them to an inferior medium. I've kicked around the idea of buying a used deck but mainly to have one in my system. I doubt I'd ever actually use it.

 

[j_garcia]

Replacing rear Atmos speakers; matching the fronts.

 

[Cos]

Returned the Samsung s24+ due to a software issue causing the phone to require your pin to unlock but not recognizing the pin. Only way around it is a factory reset. Got a Pixel 8 pro instead. What a frustrating weekend.

Pixel 8 is a solid phone. I am enjoying my OnePlus 12, charging speed is insane.

 

[j_garcia]

Returned the Samsung s24+ due to a software issue causing the phone to require your pin to unlock but not recognizing the pin. Only way around it is a factory reset. Got a Pixel 8 pro instead. What a frustrating weekend.

Had not heard that one before. There are people complaining about the Ultra's screen saying the colors are muted, but only when you use "Torch" mode, which I never use. The Ultra has been good so far. My buddy who I bough the S23 Ultra from, also got the 8 Pro and returned it because he liked the S23 Ultra better. I would have kept it except that it was lavender, the color they gave the best deal on for him.