February round up

My right side is playing up so I'm strapped up and resting a bit, at least physically as there's some family stuff that's been on my mindover the last few weeks that's been hard to escape from.

That's nothing new, I mean there's always been stuff that shall we say seemed more intense that that of your mates from way back in the day with everything being played to the max.

I have been listening to a few cds the old transport took issue with apart from that 12" single compilation  from 1986 I wrote about on the other blog this week and I suspect that when part II comes out will be the cut off point as by then I was focused more on albums and especially building a cd collection having got s player then.

I have played a couple of the latest reissue classical lps in a series I have being buying - not blindly collecting in full - where the performances were one's I've always loved but where with them due to when I first got them I never had them on vinyl so having newly remixed from the original masters versions is great and to go with one I bough a few months ago I've tracked down a later recording with a different orchestra of otherworks that I only part of on a early cd to go with it as much as I'd love to see that reissued.

I enjoyed reading this months AdventureMaxPlus magazine

mm

Respinning the Compact Discs II

Way back around November 2024 I wrote an entry around a series of changes to the hifi as it had changed radically in several years thinking that would be pretty much the end of that for a while but something happened.

Issues started to develop with the cd player, never one for playing recordable cds, around 40 to 60% of my super audio cds with hybrid regular cd layers just refused to be recognized and play spitting them out and those that did seemed to have audible errors on the first track.

Then to top the lot it was fussy about the slightest mark or finger print on regular cds, skipping tracks so it needed to go.

Pity.

I bought this SMSL half sized transport from someone unused as due to financial issues having just got it they needed to raise cash quick that had been on my list of potential upgrades in the future.

One aspect of it took me back to my first cd player a Toshiba  and that was it loads from the top with no slots or draw mechanisms with a magnetic puck you put on top or more accurately two, a larger one forming part of the lid.

It's a bit more basic on the display just track number and time information and if you wish to use the USB socket  but it spins very quickly on anything finding all the tracks accurately.

There are a choice of outputs, the newer I squared S, AES/EBU XLR, coaxial which my default and optical which the lead to the minidisc portable was put in.

It works really quite well once you relearn how to get the disc out using the recesses the grip the disc with the edges of your fingers having removed the puck.

I did reorganize the shelf to make it a bit neater and stack the mini size components in a more functionally related way while I was at it.

45 rpm attachment

 There are a good five boxes of singles around my bedroom that go back to the early 1970's and cutting off around 1992 of the old vinyl wrap lockable sort even if a good many have songs that are on lp albums or cds in my collection.

There are a few select ones from the 1960's that I picked up over time, some that were played with early compilations of hits often containing original mono mixes that are otherwise hard to find but generally they're the hits of a time I really loved.

In the earliest years you had to effectively lodge an appeal for someone, usually Mum to buy you one although my copy of Jeepster by T Rex I had for Xmas 1971 has been missing for a while surviving a couple of house moves but as time went buy I had pocket money that I saved towards things like that such as my stash of Bay City Rollers singles or were bought at things like birthdays like my copy of Elvis Costello's Oliver's Army.

You could say they reason they're still here is actually down to the memories attached to each one played as the earliest were three in rotation on a autochanger before you flipped the pile over for their b sides with friends to those like Charles and Eddie's Would I Lie To You that were played a side at a time on my hifi set up before I got around to picking up the cd of the album it was taken from.

Memories these days count for such a lot.

Thoughts before cornflakes

 

Normality of sorts resumed last week with Blue Peter resuming on Friday while I have also been also enjoying like a good many The Traitors, so popular there was even a series of cartoons across copies of the Beano referencing it quite openly but with the anarchic beano take you'd expect.

I avoid politics like the plague here (and on our forum) but I think all of us have been knocked for six to use a cricketing metaphor by how events involving the President of the United States and other Nato countries have turned out although though there appears - for now in this crazy world at least - a bit of a step back from the brink that was as bad as anything we went through during the Cold War.

I do wish to turn to matters that do directly affect all of us to address a topic that is causing some concern and that is around messaging be it emails or messaging on sites.

Please, Please, Please do wait for a response before shooting off volleys of messages even within minutes of each other because we need to firstly have to time to fully read them as everybody has lives beyond their computers and sites.

We may look after people, be dealing with episodes of ill health ourselves, need to do banking, shopping and possibly have a social life even so you just cannot expect us to be immediately available to look into things, responding fully straight off the bat.

It only leads to increasing frustration as you think you have worked out the answer only to find even more things in other emails or messages and so you have to start all over again.

Please consider fully what you wish to say - make a note even before typing - and put it in a single, ideally structured message and wait for us to respond.

Until next week, bye.

Less skating, more fun!

 

That it's been a cold, snow and ice covered week as I had struggled to get about on foot to the park or to ride buses to get me magazines and that so as a week it took in more comic reading and watching Youtube videos.

Over the last few weeks one Youtube channel has been posting a number of End of Year episodes of Blue Peter from the 1970's and 1980's some I only saw first time in black and white and others I might of forgotten over the years, bringing back memories and also to the void whilst the show in its modern form was taking a hiatus.

This afternoon it returns on CBBC with a Gladiators take over which in everyday terms means its an episode very much focused on and about that gameshow on BBC1 which is a big hit with children to the point of their being a Junior version too.

I have to say of newer programs, that is a favourite of mine together with Masked Singer when it comes to more general entertainment so it's something I'm looking forward to watching tonight.

Greetings from the Snow scene

 

Well we're expecting Storm Goretti here although whither for being somewhat lower than most of the city region we'll just see a light pasting of snow or sleet compared with the 30cm forecast for higher parts remains to be seen but we're stocked up here for the worst.

Yes readers I am in my short trousers and turn over long socks writing this but then the winters I lived through at school age were very much like these with just wellingtons on changing into proper sandles in school trugging to school on foot though snow although I read yesterday a real groan up meanie who took a shovel to a five year olds Snowman which naturally really upset him.

Just what is it with groan ups that cannot accept a bit of schoolchild fun like making things without having an urge to strike out?

Anyway it was caught on camera and with any luck he'll be shamed by the community for such a mean sprited act.

We're slowly catching up with delayed post and also working on the great classical downloads, restoring content and even upgrading a few recordings.

Twenty-Twenty Six and that

So it is New Year although calendars are on order, they have as yet to arrive in dribs and drabs with all the festive holiday delays although you might of thought I'd of ordered them sooner but I had other perhaps more serious on my mind like a badly injured sister in law, an unwell parent and that so they ended up well on the back-burner.

New Year most likely will start as it left with Blue Peter although it's on hiatus until the sixteenth after the Christmas edition.

What I have been doing is watching the Christmas specials from nineteen seventies and early nineteen ages when I saw it around Tea Time on Monday's and Thursdays and the year highlights which brought back strong memories of things like the death of Jason, the seal point siamese cat and various appeals that I was involved in either donating to or buying at "bring and buys" for.

There should be a couple of classical records, one a modern from the analogue tapes reissue, the other while in that series because a spare analogue system was used in tandem with the pioneering Decca Recording System but I've ordered a near mint digital original as it went in the great vinyl purges of the late nineteen eighties when we all swore we'd have need for in the world of the Compact Disc.

There wasn't an awful lot on the television on New Years Eve that interested me so I listened to a repeat broadcast of the Last Night of the Proms from September that amongst things featured a more opera based interpration of Bohemian Rhapsody by the rock group Queen.

I can see more music, not least more high quality 24 bit downloads being purchased, as with just two Super Audio cd plants in the world few are being issued and indeed with one popular series we've just not had them although though they were promised at the start with just a couple of exceptions so if you want better than cd sound more like vinyl at it's finest, then that's as good as you can expect.

I do hope to get away a bit during the year although it may be more extended weekends with issues around accomodation for anything longer given the numbers and that and for day trips by some means or other just to ensure I get some personal time.

Forum depends very much on it's members, generally we rub along well enough but as text only media is want to do, we do have some misunderstandings as subtleties get lost or commenrts misread but we've seen more original story telling related to past lives and the bits we keep with us and some interesting use of A.I art although it can make mistakes.

I do expect more of that as talking about experiences only really continues at length when new people bring fresh tales to it and while we have had some new faces, sometimes participation isn't so strong as you might of thought.

Sometimes visual clues take you back further than words too.