Ear Pain

 The vinyl bargains just keep coming This weeks additions:

 Been keeping an eye out for the bargains online... Picked up a few I have been looking for for a while 

 What does every tiny media room need? A flipping huge telly, obviously way to big for the space. The argument being I needed a TV able to properly work with the the next gen consoles.  So far very happy with the new Sony Bravia KE65XH9005

 I love Goldfrapp...there, I've said it.  Been able to expand my catalogue over the last few weeks as the odd bargain has popped up.

 This weeks theme is Prince. My brother returned my Graffiti Bridge after several years (about 20!) that sent me down a rabbit hole...

P1 has gone Such a good deal found on a Rega Planar 2, I could not say no Upgraded with a AT VM510 cart, but may try my Bias 2 on it.

Felt I was missing something with the 30 year old Planar 3 turntable. Sold on the bay. Needed a stop gap so picked up a brand new Rega Planar 1... what have I done? Needs a quick upgrade. One Rega Bias 2 cart, and a 10mm glass platter and it is starting to sing.

My friend is in the middle of moving house, so lent me his RP8 to play with. Wonder if I could sell a kidney... who would have thought that you would be able to hear the difference between a P1 and a RP8. How can I go back?

 Moved around the room after getting tired of a friend nagging me to try it... don't tell him it works much better. Couple of new additions to the collection to test the quality.

 Been lazy updating the page.  There have been several new purchases recently.

Great bargain find (mis-price?) on Amazon this week. Sod the CDs picked up earlier. I will be listening to this first.

Really slim picking recently. Little success today. nothing really to shout about, but will be a nice listen later.

It has not been for want of trying, but the pickings have not been good at all. Very small success today with a little selection.

Upgrade-itice strikes yet again, beckoning me once more to her warm embrace. Never really happy with the Wharfedale SW150 subwoofer. It made low level noise, but was never really controlled and got a bit too boomy. With music I found it unusable. The low level drone just cancelled out the listen pleasure for vinyl and CD. The lower compression of streaming suffered even more. SW150 was boxed up and sold on a forum I frequent. After living sub--less for a couple of weeks I gave in and purchased this beauty: A BK Gemini II in light oak. I mean, look at it, it is lovely just to look at. Still breaking it in, but the low level experience is in another league. So much tighter, and musical. When listening to music it is a world of difference, and with films, the gut punch is more than enough. I only have a small listening room, and the reason I went for this entry level sub is I just don't need anymore at present.

New arrival from Amazon. Actually purchased a new release. I love the fact Amazon gives you the MP3 when you buy from them most of the time. Have already been listening to this on Spotify, and Then Amazon, since it came out a couple of weeks ago. Was hooked since his first Album, Endtroducing, which I have on original CD in gatefold packaging...so cool

Shopping trip with the wife allowed me a chance to pop into a local charity shop that I have had some success with before. Not a bad haul today. 49p an album.

Been a while without any success. Decided to wander into my local charity shop after a long absence. Quite a successful visit. Not bad for £2 all in. All ready ripped to FLAC, re-cased damaged boxes and sorted on shelf. And now for an evening of some classic REM.

Another day, another Amazon special arrives. Probably one of Massive Attacks greatest (and their first) After listening to this a couple of times I have pulled out the CD of 'Collected', their greatest hits. This then let to a spinning of 'Dummy by 'Portishead'... it just goes on and on....

Deviation from usual content...well kind of. I keep all my FLAC files on a NAS. One of these: https://www.netgear.co.uk/business/products/storage/readynas/RN524X.aspx It a great machine, more than powerful enough for what I use it for (including Plex Server, file Server, Apple Time Machine backup, etc...). But the noise it makes and the temps it registers have been bothering me for a while. CPU was idling in the high 70s (celsius) and the fan noise was not pleasant in the room it sits - which is also my office! Job 1: New thermal Paste Dismantled the the whole thing, which was not easy because I could not find any schematics online. Eventually got the system board out, carefully removed the heatsink off the CPU and cleaned up the touching surfaces - much scraping of crusty old paste. Applied some fresh Arctic Silver thermal paste and put everything back together. Temps dropped to high 60s. Not bad, but the fan noise was still annoying. Job 2: New Case fan ...

While I love searching through the shelves of the local charity shops for my next CD purchase, there is one major problem. Cracked cases! Nothing worse than finding a long sort after album only to realise the case is a depressingly, unloved, disaster zone. Advice - keep a box of these handy. Only problem is, the price per empty box actually costs more than I am paying for some of the albums :)