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TheState posted:Over an extended vacation from work I built the Overnight Sensations kit from Parts Express. I actually had a lot of fun doing it, so I’m looking for a new assembly project and think it might be the SEX kit from Bottlehead ( https://bottlehead.com/product/single-ended-experimenters-kit-3-for-headphones-sensitive-speakers/) That Bottlehead is a headphone amp completely. Driving speakers might be overly optimistic. I don’t know that it’ll have enough oomph to keep you satisfied. Maybe wait for the Amp Camp amp to come back if you really want to solder a kit? You’d need at least a passive preamp with that. https://diyaudiostore.com/products/amp-camp-amp-kit?variant=7072933085218
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May 28, 2018 21:17
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eddiewalker posted:That Bottlehead is a headphone amp completely. Driving speakers might be overly optimistic. I don’t know that it’ll have enough oomph to keep you satisfied. The Bottlehead Crack is definitely a headphone amp only, but the SEX kit can drive speakers. I’ll check Amp Camp our though
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May 29, 2018 03:24
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I'm building a house and I need to figure out how to get audio and TV on to the back porch. The easiest way would be to get some big honking receiver and run the back porch as a separate zone but I won't really have a place to put said receiver. I also don't really do surround sound on my main tv (65" Sony with AndroidTV) so spending $400 on a receiver seems like a waste. I like the idea of a Chromecast audio for out there but I don't know where to mount the amp and chromecast. Maybe in the attic? I was also thinking about using the outdoor speakers with the TV, at which point I'd definitely want a real receiver, right? I have until December to figure this out so I'm just spitballing now. It would be nice if they made a dual zone soundbar. I would buy that and be done.
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Jun 4, 2018 22:52
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I was in a similar position to you a year ago (and up to as recently as last week) so I can share some things I came across that you might find useful. When you say you don't have space for a receiver, do you mean inside/outside/neither? I have my receiver running in the main room and use a phone app to control it when outside. First of all, if you do go the receiver route you might notice some say Zone 2 and some say Zone B. A slight difference in terminology between manufacturers? Nope! Lower priced receivers don't really do multizone audio/video very well and on the lower spec ones you'll find out fun things like anything that's multichannel won't get downconverted to stereo, or you might not be able to run audio from digital sources over HDMI out there. This is the main issue I have, which is why I have quite a few additional cables, and mental steps to follow when I want to use the setup. I'm guessing you want a similar setup to mine - a TV mounted out the back, additional speakers if you want bigger sound, and the ability to (for the most part) echo what's being shown on the main screen. I had an HDMI splitter running fine (my cabling is essentially 2 female HDMI sockets with cabling between them, and a run of speaker wire), and you can see how your TV handles running a stereo pair from it's line out. Some allow you to have both TV audio and that audio running at a time, and you can feed that into a small 2 ch amp or something out the back and run RCAs back there rather than speaker wire. Obviously if you want different things inside and outside (or want to be able to turn the main TV off while outside), that can limit you. Sadly, even when planning these things out I still found I run into a whole bunch of roadblocks. You'd think it'd be fairly straightforward these days, but it was a pain in the rear end.
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Jun 4, 2018 23:07
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A full chromecast and small 2 channel amp will mount neatly to the tv bracket. Then all you need to do is run power to it, but would be limited to things you can display on the chromecast. What kind of shows/music/media do you intend on watching out there? Do you want cable or free to air tv?
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Jun 5, 2018 04:19
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EL BROMANCE posted:
Our living room tv will be mounted over the fireplace (I don't like being those people but it is what it is), and the fireplace is in the corner of the room. We'll probably have Uverse TV so that receiver will probably mount behind the tv. We won't really have any furniture to hide the a/v receiver in so I'm trying to get by without one. If we do get one, luckily there is conduit from the wall next to the fireplace to above the fireplace so I could feasibly run HDMI through there. Next to the fireplace there is a coax drop, said conduit (smart tube), and power. Above the fireplace is coax, power, and the other end of the conduit. Waldo P Barnstormer posted:A full chromecast and small 2 channel amp will mount neatly to the tv bracket. Then all you need to do is run power to it, but would be limited to things you can display on the chromecast. What kind of shows/music/media do you intend on watching out there? Do you want cable or free to air tv? I'll have power and coax outside for the TV. It was a $200 change order but the exterior is brick and it seems worth it. This will be a covered patio but I guess my concern is the durability of any amp that I place outside. I live in south Alabama so this will mostly be SEC Football in the fall and whatever else I feel like the rest of the year.
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Jun 5, 2018 17:06
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Have you considered just mounting a sound bar under the TV outside?
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Jun 5, 2018 17:39
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Hey Y'all! Sorry if this has been asked before, but... My friend is cleaning out his aunt's belongings and found crates and crates of old vinyl. He wants to sell the vinyl, but wants to get digital recordings of each before he does. Currently no turntable or anything, so we're going from scratch; looking for the cheapest path to converting to digital without sound quality being compromised a ton. Suggestions? Note that I'm not an audio guy so if explanation is involved, assume I'm a roughly a toddler wrt terminology and science.
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Jun 5, 2018 19:44
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The cheapest path is going to yield disappointing results. If these are truly collector's items you shouldn't run them under a needle before selling them. If they are readily available recordings today, then why bother?
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Jun 5, 2018 19:49
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LRADIKAL posted:The cheapest path is going to yield disappointing results. If these are truly collector's items you shouldn't run them under a needle before selling them. If they are readily available recordings today, then why bother? Well a lot of the records are things that aren't readily available in digital format today (e.g. some old obscure stuff), so I think that's the motivation for the recordings. What's the "best" option, in your estimation? They don't want to throw a ton of money at it but these are recordings they'd really like to have copies of for sentimental reasons, even aside from a lot of the music not being available elsewhere anymore.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:02
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edit: just missed the post above 100% agreeing that even ripping mediocre audio from youtube videos is going to give massively superior results with a poo poo ton less effort. So your first step should be checking if there is really anything you can't source anywhere else.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:05
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Advice noted: Let's say that ultimately there's at least one record that needs to be converted (there's like 80+ so I'm sure at least one will be relevant); also, I've just been informed that he does have a turntable which apparently is new enough it maybe has an audio-out... so I should be able to plug that into my laptop and somehow record the sound played through there, right? With whatever recording software? Also I mentioned him not putting needle to vinyl if he wanted to sell them as collectors items, and he said his needle is a ball-bearing one not an actual needle - is that better/less damaging? Doesn't make a dif?
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Jun 5, 2018 20:20
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black.lion posted:Well a lot of the records are things that aren't readily available in digital format today (e.g. some old obscure stuff), so I think that's the motivation for the recordings. I'm not a record expert, but I do have a turntable with USB out that was gifted to my wife. It's cheap and sounds cheap. I'm not a huge fan of LP's but they're supposed to sound better than this thing. You should probably do some research on care and cleaning of vintage records as well. A good record player is hundreds of dollars, a cheap one won't sound great. You can use any old record player to record audio. You DO need to have a pre-amp (or assuming his receiver has one and an audio out) to properly record the sound. Then use any old audio tools to record the whole record, and chop it up to tracks before converting it to FLAC (because why make a record sound possibly any worse at all by using lossy compression? I've never heard of a ball bearing needle, so I dunno. edit 2: if he has a record player, and wants to retain the audio on one of the records, then KEEP IT! LRADIKAL fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jun 5, 2018 |
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Jun 5, 2018 20:25
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black.lion posted:he does have a turntable which apparently is new enough it maybe has an audio-out... so I should be able to plug that into my laptop and somehow record the sound played through there, right? With whatever recording software? You may find many opinions on what in that chain needs to be upgraded to optimize the quality, but it should work on a basic level as is.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:41
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The lower-end Audio Technica USB turntables like the LP120 are pretty good. Vinyl rips can sound fine if you're willing to spend a couple hundred on a turntable.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:47
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Since we're on the topic, is there a good SMALL record player that isn't too much money? The one we have is normal sized, and taking up a ton of space and it is hardly used. I'm talking about the ones that have a smaller footprint than the size of the LP when not in use. Not having a record player is unfortunately not an option in my house.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:53
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For curiosities sake, find out 5 titles that he’d be interested in doing this with.
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Jun 5, 2018 20:59
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LRADIKAL posted:Since we're on the topic, is there a good SMALL record player that isn't too much money? The one we have is normal sized, and taking up a ton of space and it is hardly used. I'm talking about the ones that have a smaller footprint than the size of the LP when not in use. Not having a record player is unfortunately not an option in my house. You still need the space for the record to spin and those little portable tables are pretty wobbly.
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Jun 5, 2018 21:32
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black.lion posted:Also I mentioned him not putting needle to vinyl if he wanted to sell them as collectors items, and he said his needle is a ball-bearing one not an actual needle - is that better/less damaging? Doesn't make a dif? Does he have a victrola?
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Jun 6, 2018 01:01
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BigFactory posted:Does he have a victrola? I do, and its needles look a lot like half inch nails with the heads cut off. I’m not sure ball bearing needles/styli are an actual thing. empty baggie fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 01:19
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Are there any decent mp3 players available anymore? I hate the way Sandisk Clip Sport separates the internal and external storage music away from each other in the menus.
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Jun 6, 2018 01:58
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black.lion posted:Advice noted: Let's say that ultimately there's at least one record that needs to be converted (there's like 80+ so I'm sure at least one will be relevant); also, I've just been informed that he does have a turntable which apparently is new enough it maybe has an audio-out... so I should be able to plug that into my laptop and somehow record the sound played through there, right? With whatever recording software? Record them to cassette tapes. Ball bearing cassette tapes.
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Jun 6, 2018 02:44
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Posted this in the hi fi thread, too, but I want to make sure it gets seen. So, I'm having a weird problem. My home theater setup is a big Westinghouse LCD running through a 1981 Akai Am-U33 stereo amplifier, and then out to some vintage speaker boxes (in walnut, of course) with Celestions. I run an X-Box, an aux audio cable for phones, and a turntable into the amplifier, and it has been a great sounding system for years. A few months ago, I saw the light and got a firestick. I love it, and everything was good. Firestick runs into an HDMI port on the TV, and the TV runs to the amplifier via built in analog stereo outs on the TV and to the stereo in on the amp. Then about a month ago, certain apps would have a terrible overdrive to the audio. Like, HBO has terrible overdrive on everything it plays, as does Hulu sometimes. Netflix always works well, prime is iffy. Running Soma.fm through TuneIn works great, but I can't run spotify without, again, terrible overdrive. Here's the interesting bit - no problems from the turntable or ANYTHING I run through the X-Box. Any thoughts at all?
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Jun 6, 2018 16:20
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I'm assuming by overdrive, you mean distortion?
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Jun 7, 2018 19:02
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Have you considered just mounting a sound bar under the TV outside? I think I'm just going to go with an all Sonos solution since I saw the Sonos Beam came out. It seems like it can stream HDMI audio to other Sonos speakers which will be fine and I'll worry about the TV part some other time. Outdoor audio is more important than the TV.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:05
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KillHour posted:I'm assuming by overdrive, you mean distortion? Yes. Though the particular type of distortion you get if your gain is set too high.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:23
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Ryuga Death posted:Are there any decent mp3 players available anymore? I hate the way Sandisk Clip Sport separates the internal and external storage music away from each other in the menus.
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Jun 8, 2018 02:37
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:What kind of storage do you need? What headphones are you using? I just use a 16gb micro sd card with my Sandisk Clip Zip. I switch between this and this depending on whether I'm working out or not. I'm thinking of just getting a pair of bluetooth headphones to use with my phone.
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Jun 8, 2018 02:45
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Just built a new desk (couple Ikea counter tops, drawer units, and legs) and decided to add a pair of speakers since I was 100% headphone before. Well, these Klipschs (The Sixes) put out enough base to vibrate the desk a lot more than the old Logitech 5.1 computer speakers I gave up on a while ago. I found a few things on Amazon that will probably do the trick, but figured I'd check here to see if anyone has solved this already. Any suggestions will be helpful.
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Jun 20, 2018 04:49
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What's shakin'?
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Jun 20, 2018 04:52
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Try some blu-tac, see if it does anything.
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Jun 20, 2018 11:13
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Is there a dedicated microphone thread? I need me some recommendations for a good value to cost one.
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Jun 22, 2018 00:42
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By popular demand posted:Is there a dedicated microphone thread? I need me some recommendations for a good value to cost one. For what?
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Jun 22, 2018 02:49
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Podcast/ YouTube commentary.
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Jun 22, 2018 12:35
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By popular demand posted:Podcast/ YouTube commentary.
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Jun 22, 2018 21:58
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Desktop, inexpensive.
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Jun 22, 2018 22:09
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I asked earlier for recommendations (and got some good ones, thanks), but I did not buy anything as I have been too busy to shop. I have gone back and clarified what I (think I) want. Bought the following: Polk audio Psw10 CS1 RTi8 x2 In need of a receiver. Hopefully answering the important questions... Budget: 200-300 (could spend a bit more if needed) HDMI Ports: 3+ ? 4k: Not needed. Bluray and 1080 is probably all I foresee needing in the near future. Second zone: Neat, but not required Surround speakers: May eventually buy 2 satellites for movie surround-sound, so sure Sub: One (see above) Bluetooth: Definitely. Phone control: Android, Apple. Laptop control: Is this a thing? Wifi or Bluetooth dongle? Would definitely like to play music from VLC or Youtube or something if possible. Apps: Yes, sure. Pandora, Spotify, etc Use cases: Primary = Music. Really want control from laptop or phone in order to play music. Secondary: Media room movies/TV with Projector. Usually watching HDMI-over-laptop, Cable-TV-over-HDMI. Also have Chromecast and other dongles. Do receivers usually have a HDMI return? That is, HDMI-in (audio+video, for example) then HDMI-out (video). Such that the connection might be: Source(Laptop/Cable box) | |(HDMI) | Receiver --(HDMI)-- Projector/TV | |(Speaker wire etc) | Audio Lastly, a smaller box would be preferred, if this is possible without completely blowing the budget. I would trade extra features for a smaller case, due to some size constraints of cabinet space. For the media room, in particular, heat may also be an issue; I am not sure how hot these boxes get(?) Picture of the built-in cabinet. It would likely (hopefully?) go in this cabinet. Or an entirely different room, in which case size/heat issues would go away.  Thanks!! logis fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 06:10
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logis posted:I asked earlier for recommendations (and got some good ones, thanks), but I did not buy anything as I have been too busy to shop. I have gone back and clarified what I (think I) want. There’s a Yamaha Rx-601BL on amazon warehouse for 306 with a “large cosmetic blemish” for $306. Checks all your boxes if I’m not mistaken. Also, http://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649440182-marantz-nr1606-atmos-72-receiver/
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Jun 26, 2018 13:08
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Marantz make the smallest receivers I’ve seen from memory. Have a look at what accessories4less.com have, that’ll probably be the best price. Otherwise Yamaha or Onkyo will get you the best bang for your buck on normal sized gear.
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Jun 26, 2018 15:07
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What's a good headphone/set for cheap, primarily for the computer that the dogs will probably eat shortly. Over ear preferred but on is fine if you can't get comfortable over cheap.
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Jun 26, 2018 16:08
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