Most liked posts in thread: What's new Pussycat too?

My bike usage was going through forests doing semi BMX stuff or just casual bike riding along tow-paths up to my mate's place, just casual biking. I used to ride from East London to west London via the West End for a couple of years, but it got so dangerous I stopped. I'd be wary to ride on roads now. I actually had a polish guy ride out of a blind turning without looking, straight in front of me, I was only doing about 22mph so stopped sharply, but he was just so "oh well" about it. A few mph more and I'd have hit him square on, one sec the road was empty and then he pops out from behind a lorry without a care in the world, no edging out, just rode straight out of the T junction without waiting to see if there was traffic.

He got lucky, most people use that bit of road like Brands Hatch, he best think about what nearly happened, or he's brown bread sooner rather than later. What with these stupid electric scooters and the 'youth' who now walk out in to the road making you slam on the brakes, it's too mad on the road.

 

It's been a minute since I've posted about any new purchases in my favorite thread of show-and-tell. But it's also been a bit since I've spent frivolously on my hobbies. I have only purchased a few electronic components for a few dollars for a few repairs in recent weeks or months. Nothing to brag about, the parts and repairs were for my Dreamcast and two 3DO consoles.

But, I currently have a tidy bit of kit headed my way and expected by weeks end.

This includes 4 used Metal Type IV cassette tapes from 3 different sellers, but from the best companies most premium versions and once properly erased with my tape deck's proper tape erase system, they will be as good as new for recording. Metal tapes don't stretch like the Type I and II cassette tapes that are plastic and sprayed with the magnetic recording medium. Metal tapes are, well magnetized metal. They also have higher quality cases and tape mechanisms for smoother recording and playback and less distortion introduction. NOS of these same tapes are selling for $50-100 each, used $25-50, so I got a great deal on these at an average of $12 per tape, including shipping costs. Now I can back up my high-end DMM vinyl records to another analog medium that is capable of recordings with the same fidelity and clarity along with my tape deck's noise reduction system, as the original LP's. And it didn't cost me as much as the actual LP's themselves! These are 90 and 100 minute tapes, so I will be able to fit a full album per side of tape, so I can back-up 8 of my LP's with these 4 tapes.



I also was on a waiting list to be notified when some Rush remastered audiophile reissue EP LP's were back in stock, and several of them are, so I bought one of them already. Again, these are the super-high-end quality ones produced by the now legendary Acoustic Sounds Studios and manufactured across the street at the sister company Quality Records. The same I posted a documentary video about a couple pages back, if any of you took the time to watch the very interesting behind the scenes look into a modern LP and tape company that settles for nothing less than the best possible quality all around, eclipsing original release print quality of the original albums. Rush commissioned them to do all the limited edition and anniversary box sets of their LP's. These are incredibly reasonably priced LP's selling new with production and print quality that eclipses the original LP prints, for half the price of what the original LP's sell for in used but good condition! $25-35 dollars! I couldn't find this particular album, even used, for less than $150 on eBay or Discogs.

https://store.acousticsounds.com/index.cfm?get=detail&Title_ID=103725





I'm also expecting a new Atari Jaguar game I ordered from the Atari Age Store this week. But I'll show-and-tell about it when it arrives, along with a custom rotary controller I made from a jaguar controller that will work with the new game and Tempest 2000 and a couple other free homebrew games.

 

Nice one Matt, you have your audiophile hat on and those tapes look great, have fun with the LP's. I think I saw an article yesterday saying that Metalica sold soo many LP's last year that they are opening their own pressing plant. All power to vinyl..

 

Wonderful, Matt.

Great news to have you back with news of your "what's new" items - those metal tapes sound like the dog's dangly bits - absolutely top taping, mate, and I can hear the enthusiasm as you type as you can't wait to blank em and then back up your rich LP collection, incl Rush of course, to handy sized cassette mega metal media!

And then you've some new Atari Jag game arriving with a custom built controller (like a paddle, by the sounds of it?) that you've adapted to work with software - it's all happening again and we're thrilled to hear it.

Nice work, fella - you've been sorely missed around these parts... (stobbit, Paul, you know what I mean!)

Titter ye not!

Great to have you back, Matt - much missed, matey.

 

Yep, people aren't just rediscovering the living sound of analog, but also vinyl that is being produced with the totally new Direct to Metal Master (DMM) manufacturing style along with many being double LP, which means the same music recorded over twice as much vinyl which allows more space for the grooves so the grooves can be recorded with more dynamic range. Sort of like the difference of the old video tape recordings where you can choose SP or LP recording and fit more video on a tape at lesser quality, or less at higher quality. If we were younger I'd say "this is not your father's LP technology," but in our case we would be the father.

This is analog tech approaching reel-to-reel tape recording which is still the ultimate (if manufactured to highest quality and standards) recording medium, still even better than any newer-than-CD digital audio medium. Is the new LP tech better than SACD or media formats better than MP3? Maybe not, but it's better than standard CD or MP3. It's just something that many won't believe about today's LP's until they here them for themselves on top audio equipment.

Again, they have to be the more expensive audiophile quality LP's; you can still buy new standard quality LP's made like they were 30 years ago too, so you have to look for the 180-200g DMM versions, even better the top quality double LP's in the format. And also make sure the description says "remastered from original master recordings" or at least "made with original master recording" at minimum, sometimes the original masters were mastered well enough that remastering won't make them better...if they don't say this, it's a strong possibility that the LP's were recorded from digital sources which defeats the whole purpose of being produced on an analog medium because it's not the living analog sound, but a lot of shysters do it.

Rush's best selling album 'Moving Pictures' was a triple-platinum status album until they released the remastered LP's and CD's and box sets over the past decade as each album reached it's 40th anniversary. 65% of new sales are LP and 45% CD and 'Moving Pictures' became 4x platinum in sales due to this, recently. Of course this boost in sales can also be attributed to the fact the band retired and the best drummer in the world, Neil Peart of Rush died in 2020.

LP sales have been so huge for Rush that they licensed out the record manufacturing rights to several vinyl LP manufacturers around the world to produce them. I now only by from Acoustic Sound/Quality Records company as after watching the documentary and seeing reviews of their records, and now owning a Rush LP made by Quality Records previous to this latest purchase, I now know they are the be the best of the best at what they do, to ensure the highest quality on every record sold...meticulous all the way to the special made shipping boxes for protection, and actually about half the price of other manufacturers!

 

It was a beginners turntable Paul (with 5 easy Amazon payments). I'm still tempted as there are one or two country albums I'd like that are only on vinyl or tape but I'm a bit of a lazy git and don't like the idea of getting up and turning over the record halfway through the album! The thing that really appeals is the size of the packaging. Maybe they should start putting cd's in LP sleeves

Like you though I find the new manufacting methods that Matt speaks about fascinating. I had no idea about any of it.

 

If you like the size of the packaging, then a laserdisc player and laserdiscs would be right up your alley too. The exact same size; I store my laserdiscs and LP's next to each other, LD's to the left and LP's to the right, all standing vertically of course...though that's only for the safety of the LP's as laserdiscs can be stacked without risking damage, but it's still more convenient to access them standing vertically like books between bookends.

I suggest looking into those country albums before you spend a wad of cash, to see if any of them have been remastered on 180-200 gram DMM LP's. Though even traditional records sound better and better, the better your turntable, needle and Hi-Fi stereo get too. But that is true to an extent no matter the media; the better the player and sound system, the better it all sounds.

Though I've mentioned that DMM is better than traditional record mastering, below is an in depth description of the technology used:

DMM Principle

Separation of DMM master plate and nickel stamper
DMM transcribes audio coming from a workstation or a master tape into a copper plate using a diamond cutting stylus (the copper that is being cut into is a plated layer on a non-magnetic steel substrate). This creates an original "positive" (master/mother) disc that is used to create a "negative" stamper in an electroforming galvanic process. Stamper is then attached onto a pressing machine and is used for a mass replication – pressing of vinyl records.

In comparison with lacquer cutting, lacquer is cut into a nitrocellulose layer coated on an aluminum disc using a heated sapphire cutting stylus. Because nitrocellulose is not electrically conductive it needs to be sprayed with a thin layer of silver in order to be usable in a later electroforming galvanic process. The traditional lacquer processing which includes three copies: "negative" (father), "positive" (mother), "negative" (stamper). These added steps and processes can each introduce flaws in the final product that is completely avoided by the DMM process.

DMM production process advantages:

*more accurate reproduction of high frequencies (16kHz up)
*DMM allows for thinner groove (less noise, longer playtimes)
*better signal-to-noise ratio (even on a groove of the same width, DMM has about 7-10dB better S/N compared to lacquer)
*reduced print-through sounds (pre-echo, post-echo) between adjacent grooves. Double-spaced grooves of a double LP record eliminates this completely. Though there are 2 records and four sides per album doubling the cost of production and higher end price (but well worth it to audiophiles)
*only one subsequent electroforming step

Pre-production VMM mastering:

VVM mastering, improvement to DMM cutting process

VVM (Vinyl Visual Mastering) is software tool designed specifically for needs of a vinyl mastering engineer (ME). It includes a state-of-art computer simulation of the mastering process that allows setting up cutting parameters and simulating the cutting process before the actual cutting is performed.

Consider a CAD system that is aiding an architect and is able to identify critical parts of the construction and address them specifically. That is what VVM achieves for a mastering engineer.

VVM allows for these main critical features:

A very accurate virtual simulation which will find critical parts in supplied audio before the actual cut. Every cutting system needs to employ protections against critically high electrical current fed into the cutting head or critically high acceleration of the cutting stylus to avoid damaging the cutting head or stylus. In most cases this is done using an electrical circuit breaker and an acceleration limiter. Simulating the cut allows to address these critical conditions in a more sensitive and controlled manner with better results in the cut audio.
Each order has individual settings, which can be adjusted for arbitrary parts of audio. There is a direct two-way communication between the computer and the cutting lathe
Differential sound and graphic analysis can play or show differences between original audio and processed signal, feedback or vinyl record signal.

Vinyl measuring system - geometric, physical, dynamic and load measurements in time or frequency domain.
Groove processor - controls groove pitch, groove width and warps audio signals to compensate possible cutting and playback distortion. Every cut can have a different groove pitch strategy.
Mathematical model of stylus and groove – the software computes a virtual groove based on geometric dimensions of a defined cutting stylus and can compare it visually with a real groove photo from a microscope.
High quality non-destructive signal processing with unique vinyl algorithms. The original audio data remains untouched for a future use.

Then, of course, if the records pressed from DMM masters are pressed onto the thicker, heavier and more rigid 180-200 gram vinyl, it virtually eliminates vinyl record warping that can cause distortion on your turntable and less chance of the record getting bent or broken with use.

 

Great posts on using quality analogue audiophile gear again and sharing the listening pleasure. It is very much appreciated by us all who lurve our sounds - wonderful pure sounds and of course the chance to again wallow in nostaligia as the rock and the country and the synth/disco/funk etc, propels us back in time, in our time machines, to a time when... we didn't ache so much or spend so much time being ill and down the docs...
I briefly explained to Alex Drito this week, I have been really poorly but didn't want to harp on about it, but in a nutshell I've had acute stomach pains, in and out of A&E twice this week (spending nearly 15 hours in there on intravenous drip painkillers) and also to and from my surgery seeing a locum doctor who one day said he couldn't take bloods, and then the next said he could... wish he would make up his mind. Anyhow, I'm on a dose of antibiotics and a shedload of other anti stomach inflammatory/cramp/acid tabs... keep you posted, guys, but suffice to say I'm tired out, sore, achy and have chucked up more times this past week then I have in the past 10 years. At least I hit the bowl.
Take care one and all and stay safe and well, folks.

 

My goodness Andy, sounds horrible, have they got you on Omeprazole, seems the go to anti inflammatory / gastro reflux jobby.

Have they x-rayed? The chucking up and acute stomach pains are not a great thing.

Me and Serena live on Omeprazole, me as a side effect of other meds and Serena because of her reflux.

 

Only one new piece of gaming and not even retro! I picked up Wreckfest on the PS4 now that it has came down to £10 in CEX. Just waiting on Tetris and Arkanoid reaching that magic price point now and my PS4 collection will be complete. I only have about 12 games on it but that's more than enough to keep me busy, what with my short gaming attention span

Been doing a bit of wheeling and dealing and as well as the 7800 I've moved on a few other bits this week (tv's, more Subbuteo, bike etc but they've all been replaced with a new Android tablet for watching movies and reading my PDF's on, along with a particular special edition single speed bike I'd been keeping my eyes open for over the last while.

And finally saw one of my A8 'Grail' items on EBay. The Track and Field controller along with the game on cartridge. Seller is also in Glasgow but he has it up at a very unrealistic price of £120 Looking at his other listings most items seem to be well overpriced. I've made him a very cheeky starting offer of £30 and will see where it goes from there, but I won't offer any more than £50.

 

That's the best thing to do Paul. My offer has just been declind (surprise!) but I'm going to leave it as is for now.

Competition Pro's are great sticks, don't think I've ever tried a mini version though. Was that designed for Jeremy Beadle?

I have Competition Pro's on my 800XL and a usb version on the A500 Mini. Then Zip Stick Professionals on the STFM and 800. They don't make 'em like they used to, that's for sure. I also use a Retro-bit USB Saturn controller on my pc. It's brilliant for Saturn (of course), Megadrive, 7800 and NES/SNES.

What controller do you use on the PC when emulating the Playstation 2?

 

Hi Folks

Here is the link to tomorrow nights online meet. Time is UK GMT.

Easter Atari Owners Meet
Monday, 10 April · 8:00 – 9:00pm
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/ipp-mfiv-ycj

 

Many many thanks for setting this up for us lads, Al.
Looking forward to seeing and hearing from you tomorrow neet, fellas,

 

I should be there unless I feel much worse, beware, I'll have a bog roll with me Our only worry is that Cindy's mum continues to feel very ill and refuses to see a doctor or go to hospital as she's worried about being kept in to die there. We are monitoring the situation daily and so far she's troubled but ok. We were hoping that her daughter Fiona would stay with her to help, as she had promised. But instead of that she arrived, moaned that the place was a bit dirty, stuffed her face with chocolate, refused to see her mum because she was "too ill to be around" and talked again about her ex then left...Utter dirt bag...

Anyway, should be ok and looking forward to a chin-wag about silly stuff

 

And as I look out, the clothes are still there despite her and her husband being in the property. Just makes the place look like tramps live here.

 

Lol, she must have heard me calling her the block tramp, and she has taken the clothes in, picked up one of the items off the floor but left the other one on the grass. She's also added more clothes to the line...Who knows when those will go upstairs again.

 

I read ages ago about some bloke in the states who mounted huge speakers facing / mounted directly up to his ceiling. Apparently the neighbour above were very loud abusive large stamper types. He also got a high quality mic and strapped that to the ceiling. So any time they stamped it was returned 10 fold. They called the cops who went in to the guys apartment and burst out laughing at his creativity. I seem to remember that soon after the family of stampers moved out, ironic as it was their own noise they hated

Sadly, I can't emulate his excellent feat But the Die Hard intro will be plenty

And for backup, there's the scene in Close Encounters where the UFO comes behind Neary's pickup and then lifts up and start zapping everything. Heard it at mate's house with his subwoofer on and it had everything shaking, you could feel it in the ground outside. My mate Tony in Walthamstow has a set off Wharfdale E90 speakers that are floor mounted, his house sounds like a night club, the bass just shakes your organs and you can stand across the road and feel the ground ponding when he plays them...Way too much for me to stand..

 

Epic quality, fella.

I lurve the story about the noisy bastard neighbours being defeated by their own (amplified) noise - that's poetic justice and some.

Hey, just back from a Thai meal and my guts are (so far) behaving.

Even managed a lager and a vodka and coke and (so far) nothing repeating, gurgling or bloating down below...


So far.

Have a top weekend ahead, guys.

Sunderland vs Brummies tomorrow - they'll mek some noise.

Let's have another date soon for another videolink and really get into our retro rhythms and maybe recommend some groovy sounds - as well as games - to the group.

Hoping to get my moving head lights ordered shortly and then link em up through that DMX interface lead from the laptop AND have something like virtual DJ spinning those virtual MP3 disks and then give that some hammer out of my wee Logitech woofer system...

 

I can recommend some good sea shanties courtesy of the Fishermans Friend, along with a feast of country music artists.

Hey, when did everyone else leave the party?

 

Sea shanties...Careful of the Kraken.....It's out there, just waiting for a land lubber to come..

 

If I had noisy neighbors upstairs I can unequivocally blow out their ears doing the same thing to them as that story lads! My sound system is too loud for me if I turn the volume up to 25% since I added in the equalizer that pre-amps and equalizes. It even has switches to adjust pre-amperage between -10db and +10db.

With the pre-amp I have for my turntable too, by the time it leaves the final amp, I can't get the volume for LP's up more than about 15% before it is too loud for me.

I'll be testing the max of my amps and speakers out on our Independence day celebration with friends and family, as I'll be facing my loudspeakers out my bedroom windows toward the yard...then we'll see if my neighbors a half mile away call the police for noise disturbances!

 

Ha ha Matt, me and you, extreme

I've yet to introduce my neighbours to the surround, as real life has habit of making things hard. Point in case, today, brown envelope turns up, here in the UK a brown envelope is classed as almost certain bad news ie a bill, a threat etc etc.

Opened said letter and it's a demand for 78.19 in overpaid benefits based on my private pension. Only thing is, I'm already paying back the overpayment and when I got a demand a few weeks back the Department for Work and pensions (the social security office) acknowledged it was a miscalculation and it was their fault and I had nothing to repay, just a slightly reduced biweekly payment (I lost just short of 2 quid per 2 weeks). Explains this after 1.5hrs waiting for an answer, and gets told it's been over ruled and I had to pay it. I explain that I'm already repaying my overpayment so any recalculations are void because I've already been billed the amount. Guy says he thinks he understands and will get a higher up to call me back. I said to the guy that the DWP should partner up with Dignitas, as after 1.5hrs to be told I'm a liar and you want to screw me makes me want to commit suicide (it was a joke but putting a valid point across).

He didn't think it was funny, I said that I agreed, but you are putting undue pressure on people with enough worries, and in many cases for utterly wrong reasons, hence the joke is actually a dig.

 

I assume you are referring to the last two Rush videos I posted? As the videos I posted of Rush months ago weren't Heavy Metal, just good old Rock n Roll. However, the second video I posted recently, 'Far Cry,' yes, that is one of their heavier tracks. But the first one, Farewell to Kings, again, I just consider good old rock.

If you consider any other songs I posted besides Far Cry to be heavy metal, then you have no idea what true heavy metal is...even Far Cry a true heavy metal fan would laugh and say that's just hard rock; here is heavy metal and then proceed to blast your ears off with some Iron Maiden. Rush has always been considered Progressive Rock, some can get a bit heavy, but if you try and include Rush in any true heavy metal list you will be scolded and scoffed at by metal heads telling you the same thing as I just did.

But if Rush is too much for you, I understand, they do have some intense rockers in their discography, but they also have many great songs that are a FAR CRY from heavy metal too. have a listen to these, I promise they will be quite easy on your ears...





Two of my all-time favorites.

 

I once had the poor luck to see / hear a band who wore horror type masks and the lead singer literally growled all the lyrics while guitars just were so loud it made me turn the TV down. The name Slipknot comes to mind for some reason..

It just does not sound like music to me, same as some ultra weird jazz just sounds like there's 4 people all playing a different tune and not in tune..

I guess it's just me not liking and really loud music no matter the genre of it. My mate Tony plays reggae and it just makes my organs shake, I like reggae, just not THAT loud. The only plus is that when he plays it, there's no distortion in the sound, ie it's not just loud, it's clear and you hear all the instruments as they were designed to be heard....All just too much noise for my liking..

 

That sounds like my system. I've worked hard over the last year+, upgrading mid range and tweeters in my loud speakers (he 16 inch woofers were still good enough). I purchased two quality bookshelf size rear surround loud speakers, I did DIY upgrade to my center channel speaker, adding two tweeters to the one midrange, turning it into an integrated center speaker. It is mounted to the top of and my own custom DIY amplified subwoofer; which I am very proud of as it sounds incredible with the new Pyle dual-voice coil bass speaker I got for $30 after poor results attempting to use some old car rear speakers. But in the end, after deciding to get a true woofer speaker, some testing to find the right size inductor and resister between the amp and speaker. And then using a proper sized enclosure for the speaker size, and proper sized bass air tubes and insulated interior to silence all enclosure vibration...

I out did myself on this project and have a power subwoofer, the specs as good as amplified subwoofers selling on Amazon in the $250-500 range, and I like to think the quality of mine is equal to subwoofers closer to the $500 mark. All for $50; $20 kit amp board and $30 for the Pyle dual voice coil 8 inch woofer. The rest came from on-hand salvage.




A couple of great JVC and Pyle main amps, Pyle pre-amp and JVC Equalizer with pre-amp, and matching up properly all speaker wattage, amps and ohms properly for the amps and pre-amps. So even though I turn up the volume to 15% and it is nearly too loud for me in my room, I have turned it up to over 50% and everything remains crystal clear but way too loud to be inside the house. Sounds good outside though! Of course at that point I do get some bass distortion caused by my two front left & right loudspeaker subwoofers and my amplified mono subwoofer actually vibrating the entire house. If not for the house, they would remain undistorted.

Now, when I'm talking about a percentage of volume, it's just based on minimum to full volume turning the dial, I have no idea how many decibels we're talking about, a lot though. But at 15% it's booming, yet clear as I sit in my recliner in the center of the sound staged speakers, and it can still be heard clearly at the opposite end of my 75 foot long home, like a proper volume for background music, but still able to hold a conversation. But my total system, powering 5 integrated loud speakers and a subwoofer, is pumping out 450 Watts altogether. My JVC amp puts out 100watts x 4 speakers, currently only left and right front attached, so 200 watts there.

My Pyle amp using only the surround speakers, since front L/R are handled by JVC amp. So I get full watts spread to each speaker for another 200 watts, and the self-amplified subwoofer is 50 watts. If I hooked up the another two 100 watt loud speakers to the JVC amp, then the total would be 650 amps (I use them as L/R side speakers, instead of rear, and have 7.1 surround instead of 4.0 with just the JVC or 5.1 with just the Pyle.

With the Pyle amp, it's 200 watts no matter what; two front L/R only outputting 100 watt each, or three surround speakers at ~67 watts each, all 5 speakers at 40 watts each. So I have splitters on my audio lines from sources that send the audio to both amps (after pre-amp and equalizer amp) and I just adjust front and rear volumes separately to equal volume levels and of course the amplified subwoofer has it's own volume control too. Front and rear balances are controlled separately too.

It's the best sounding sound system I have ever owned to this point, and as far as I recall, the best sounding system I have ever heard at other's homes or on the stereo dealer's floor. I know there are far better ones that only the ultra rich can afford, but it's the best I've ever heard as far as "upper-middle-class top shelf quality" that may be worth a couple thousand dollars.