Wired Wood – Page 3 – Vintage HiFi. Sounds great, looks cool, costs peanuts

24th September 202127th September 2021

Danish Delight. Bang & Olufsen Beomaster 1900-2

Few would dispute that these receivers are a marvel of styling. Their “lifestyle” presentation made them very expensive in their day and equivalent sonic performance was available for less money in more conventional packaging. from other brands.

This one came to me from a cousin. It was an exchange for some vinyl records. It’s been stuck in the back of his wardrobe for years, so needs some attention. I’m not paying through the nose for aesthetics, so maybe I can now appreciate this 40 year old design classic. Continue reading “Danish Delight. Bang & Olufsen Beomaster 1900-2”

10th July 202110th July 2021

Headphones. Open or Closed back.

Within a week I acquired these two pairs of headphones for very different outlays.

Both are rather nice, but quite different. Continue reading “Headphones. Open or Closed back.”

29th June 2021

Manual only for 12 inch singles on Garrard zero 100.

I often use a fully automatic turntable for causal listening. For a small drop in fidelity I get the convenience of just flicking a lever and the record plays.

This worked great for LP’s and 7″ singles. Problem came with 12″ singles. Continue reading “Manual only for 12 inch singles on Garrard zero 100.”

8th April 20219th April 2021

Skip diving for parts. Motorised pots and a headphone amp

This was a sorry looking set of separates lurking in a builders skip. Missing parts, dents, scratches and broken plastic aplenty.

It’s always worth a look, so I recovered a very sorry Technics SL PS670D CD Player and RS-BX501 cassette deck. Two Sony TA FE370 amplifiers completed the haul. Continue reading “Skip diving for parts. Motorised pots and a headphone amp”

24th March 202120th June 2021

Digital Streamer now with Volumio on Raspberry Pi.

For a while now I have been using a raspberry Pi to stream music from my NAS to my vintage HiFi through an Audioquest Dragonfly DAC.

Originally my choice of hardware and software was dictated by performance considerations. I now have a new Synology DS220+ NAS, which is quick. Time to re evaluate my streaming system and do things a different way. Continue reading “Digital Streamer now with Volumio on Raspberry Pi.”

20th March 202114th March 2022

Play Mate digital record play counter and timer

Figuring out when a stylus or cartridge needs changing depends on many things. Condition of record, how well your system is set up and how may hours use it has had.

Recording needle time is a useful thing to do then, but precision of 10th of a second isn’t really necessary. So why did I create this fancy automatic digital play counter called the “Play Mate”? Continue reading “Play Mate digital record play counter and timer”

12th March 2021

Everything has it’s shape

Everything should have its shape. This is my own capture of the vinyl recording of the KT Tunstall track of the same name.

If only the same was true of the digital download version of the same track.

Continue reading “Everything has it’s shape”

21st February 2021

Pleasures and Perils of Vintage HiFi

Restoring equipment can be as simple as replacing missing wires, as was the case with my B&W 600i speakers (£2 at a car boot sale).

At the other extreme is the Garrard Zero 100SB turntable (£45 e bay) I’m currently restoring to health. This needs hours of work, including a motor re build.

Continue reading “Pleasures and Perils of Vintage HiFi”

1st February 20211st February 2021

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I recently opened up a couple of dusty cases of 45 rpm 7″ singles which I had acquired over several years of car boot sale digging.

Many were bought as collections, so you get what you are given. What I found covered a broad range of tastes, not necessarily mine. Continue reading

13th December 2020

Output Buffer Amplifier for Mission Cyrus

My Mission Cyrus One amplifier is a very simple affair, which is indeed one of it’s strengths. With the exception of the phono stage the pre amp is purely passive.

Normally this is a good thing. However In my system I want to connect several devices to the tape-output sockets simultaneously. This just won’t work well. Continue reading “Output Buffer Amplifier for Mission Cyrus”