The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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ATM Turntable set-up

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Just over five years ago I acquired a “Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB”.

It’s seen sporadic use. At a guess, probably one hundred sides played, certainly no more than two hundred.

One of the reasons I’ve not used it so much is that it has a depressing tendency to jump, usually backwards. Mostly on my heritage collection but also on two brand new LPs. A good proportion of my older records are played-once, so they should be in pretty good nick. After I bought a cassette deck I copied all purchases straight on to tape and played the music from there – at that time I aspired to own a really good turntable one day* and wanted to “save” my precious records for that event. The advent of CDs eroded that dream – once I’d got a CD player the quality seemed great to my (not very discerning) ears and the rot set in.

(* I’d been indoctrinated by my father who had a pair of Garrard 401s with SME pickup arms.)

After a session last Sunday when six sides played yielded two jumping tracks I became a bit despondent. Then I started to wonder if I’d not set the » Continue Reading.

ATM: Bluetooth aptX Connection Sound Quality

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Thanks to a thread on this site I succumbed to a pair of Ruark MR1s. I accept that I might have got better value with another product but that’s water under the bridge now.

At times the sound quality is up to my expectations. But quite a lot of the time it is not – the sound breaks up.

My hunch is that my very-much-NOT-top-of-the range HP laptop (circa 2014) running Windows 10 is struggling with the FLAC to aptX conversion. (The laptop is approximately 60cm from the Bluetooth receiving speaker.)

Is this a plausible explanation? If not, what else might be causing it?

If I am on the right track, would a USB Bluetooth aptX transmitter help? In other words would it offload the “to-aptX” part of the conversion workload?

Or am I in for a new lap top?

Police Dog Hogan

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Venue:

The Komedia, Brighton

Date: 22/03/2018

This was the fourth time I’ve seen “The Band That Tim Dowling’s In”. When I mentioned the gig to Mrs never I was surprised when she insisted that we go. This is because, due to age, grumpiness and the need to be out early to walk the dog* before work, a weekday night out in Brighton would normally be beyond us. For me the dog walk this means getting up around 05:30. (* Until three weeks ago, “dogs” – bone cancer took the older lad at eleven and a half on the 2nd.) Luckily we both had holiday to use up before the end of the month so the night out became possible.

Full disclosure: I like, even love, music but I don’t consider myself properly musical. I judge that really appreciating the nuances of musical pieces and performances is beyond me.

Anyway, here we go.

The support act was Jamie Freeman. One of my companions reckoned the songs were “Billy Bragg-ish”. This is probably fair comment on the general themes but they were sung in a Martin Freeman voice. The latter is unsurprising because Jamie is Martin’s brother. When musicians do, shall » Continue Reading.