UKH

Prompted by this recent thread:

http://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/t.php?n=620150

And going back to some older threads about digital media and hifi:

http://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/t.php?n=603783
http://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/t.php?n=604349
http://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/t.php?n=607262

I thought it might be time for an update on the digital media front at paranoia towers...

There are a number of charity shops on my walk into and around town, that sell secondhand electronics. I confess that I've become a bit obsessed with trawling these, looking for interesting bits and bobs. Over the past couple of years, I've picked up the following:

Sony CMT-BX1 mini system, c2007, has alarm timer and can play MP3 from external USB drive; used in bedroom (with Ariston mini monitors) £25
Creative Inspire 5300 5.1 amp and speakers, c2002; used to improve sound on flat screen TV £15
Manhattan Freeview HD-T2 receiver, as new, c2014; don't have enough HDMI sockets on TV, unused £10
Canon 9900F flatbed scanner, c2003; in use for all my scanning needs £6
HP11C, c1981-1989; it's a classic, and I couldn't resist... £5
Samsung S850 camera, c2007, to replace one I lost; in use £15
Samsung ST96 camera, c2011, it was tiny; pending charger £20

All of these work okay.

Now back to the digital audio fun and games...

I bought a cheap Android 4.4.2 media box back in January. Yes, it's cheap and Chinese, and bought direct from China. It's essentially a headless Hudl1, but it has more I/O, including an optical SPDIF output. Now, I don't have an SPDIF DAC of any sort, so I had never tried it out; HDMI to the TV and out to the Creative system works okay for video and mid-fi music, as does the 3.5mm audio out jack.

But, in my recent charity shops trawling, I spotted the base unit of a Sony HT-BE1 home theatre box, c2002, for £10. This has an optical SPDIF input, and a 5.1 amp in a subwoofer cabinet. There were no speakers or remote control with the unit (there is a manual control), but it seemed a cheap way of getting an SPDIF DAC; IME, Sony DACs are pretty good.

Speaker connections are weird, proprietary, 6.2mm jobs, and eBay wanted £20 for a set. Bah. So I measured up the sockets, did a bit of 3D modelling in SketchUp, and printed some housings on the 3D printer at work, to accept some terminals for a HDD power connector I'd squirrelled away nearly 30 years ago... So now I had speaker connections for L&R speakers.

Then I picked up some speakers: TDL NFM-1, c1997, £20 for the pair. The centre dome of one woofer was dented, but careful application of some gaffer tape managed to gently prize that back out again, not that it would make any significant sonic difference; it just looks nicer. They're in very good nick.

The optical link was made using a Belkin optical cable picked up in the 99p Store, for, yes, 99p.

I fired the system up on Friday evening. And it works beautifully, with the NFM-1s still sounding great. The sub-woofer rattles the floorboards a bit, so I'll need to play with the balance to tone that down so I don't upset the neighbour...

At first, I thought the top end sounded a bit rough/muddled, but I realised I was streaming from my MP3 library. As soon as I changed to stream from my FLAC library, the top-end sounded clear again. Which shows that I can distinguish between high-rate MP3 encoding and lossless FLAC.

Then I tried the little SoundMate digital music renderer that I bought following Toby_W's suggestion. This also sounded great; hardly surprising, since all it's doing is streaming the audio bits around; the Sony is doing the DAC.

It's interesting to see just how much stuff is given to charity shops that still works perfectly, and how cheaply you can knock together a pretty decent-sounding system, if you're prepared to trawl the shops, and have a good idea what you're looking at.

I have no idea how long it will be before these units climb out of the bathtub. When they do, it will probably be down to the electrolytics failing, as usual. The speakers will probably last forever. But, for now, it's all working well, and has been fun playing around with. Yes; I could go down to my local hifi shop and splash a fat wodge of cash of some fancy system, but I'm a tightwad, and like to keep old stuff going...

Now, about that massive JPW SW40 active sub-woofer I saw in Oxfam the other day...

In reply to captain paranoia:

I'm considering a trawl of the local second hand shops for a amp as my 14 year old Kedwood KAF3030r is having a few issues. I thought 'd fixed it but I'm not sure and I can't find a replacement for the relay that I think is causing the problems.

In reply to gethin_allen:

Relay? Could be the relay driver. I have a little mains timer unit that includes a relay. The problem: smoothing capacitor has lost capacity, so the relay tries to turn on, but the capacitor isn't allowing the rectifier to hold energy, and the voltage drops below the relay holding voltage.

I keep meaning to dig out a cap and replace it.

In reply to captain paranoia:



I've already swapped out the electrolytic capacitors thinking that they could be going dry but that didn't work.
I pulled the cover off the relay and found the contacts to be dirty and after a bit of cleaning it works but the contacts are arcing so it seems like they are on their way out. The Vs to the relay are solid and all switches are fine as is everything south of the power supply.
Do ceramic capacitors degrade? there's one that's high voltage but low capacitance and not readily available which I can't test or get a replacement for easily to check.

In reply to gethin_allen:

Early SMD ceramics suffered from dendritic growth, ending up in high leakage, eventually shorting, but big, leaded devices should be less prone. It was attempting to pack too many thin layers into a tiny package in order to get high values.

In reply to captain paranoia:
perhaps you should call yourself Capacitor Paranoia


We got a lovely 19" computer monitor from Oxfam, and a rather nice Sony FM tuner from the same source, coupled with an old but reasonable pair of amplified computer speakers we were going to throw out gives us a nice sound in the bedroom.

Also quite fond of an old pair of Technics cassette decks we got for a fiver at the local market, just needed the phono connectors resoldering - work like new.