Cheapo Hi-Fi challenge: week 3

This week hasn't seen much activity for the Hi-Fi challenge. A new acquisition is winging its way to me, but it hasn't yet arrived. Unfortunately this new item is being delivered via Royal Fail (sorry Mail), so even if it does manage to get here, it will probably be in pieces.

One change I have made this week is to the RCA cables being used to cobble the separates together. When I first set the system up I used whatever I could find in the loft. However, the cables I used weren't of the best quality and some even had bent plugs. Therefore I resolved to purchase something better.

I decided that the budget could stretch to some Primewire HQ Platinum cables. At £5 they fit the bill perfectly; they are both 'budget' and of good quality. These cables are undoubtedly a step up from the rubbish I had been using and have impressed me so much that I have bought more for my system upstairs. I also have some in reserve for when new separates arrive.

Cheapo HiFi Part 3: CD player overload

The third week of the "Cheapo HiFi Challenge" sees me hoarding CD players. I was always going to need another CD player as my computer is not kept in the same room in which I am setting up my new separates system. So, during the week I placed a few bids on devices that took my fancy and let eBay do the rest. Next thing I know I am the proud owner of a Technics SL-PG390 and a Sony CDP-491.

Technics have arrived

Now the Technics machine remains in the 'cheapo' bracket having cost me just £15. It has an optical output so is ideal to live in the upstairs set up with my computer. It works well enough and isn't in bad shape cosmetically.

At this point I must confess a predilection for retro Technics gear. I spent a large part of my school days in 1985 (and '86 and '87) leafing through Technics catalogues thinking: 'if only'. Whilst this particular machine is from much later than 1985, it still has that magical Technics badge that the 12 year me can't resist. Of course I am now toying with the idea of building a Technics system to compliment my SL-1200 MKII and new CD player. We shall see how that plan develops.

Anyway, back to the old Sony stack. I had decided to break the bank on a CD player with a remote control. Messing about with the remote-less CDP-XE370 was becoming a bit of a chore and when the CDP-491 (complete with instructions and remote control) came along, my head was turned. The 491 is a much older machine (circa 1990) than the CDP-XE370 (circa 2001) but it is higher spec (it must be, it has more buttons for heaven's sake). It seems a remote and instructions raises the price on eBay quite considerably and I ended up paying almost £40 for this one.

The new CD with remote

However, the majority of the extra functionality contained within the CDP-491 does not have much to offer in the modern era. This is because there are a large number of functions dedicated to recording CD to tape. Like the Technics machine, the new Sony has a 'Peak Search' function to scan the CD for the highest peaks on the disc to allow the user to set the levels on their cassette recorder. This machine can also fade tracks in and out and build a programme to fit a specified time. I would have killed for these options back in 1990 (particularly the fade options) but in 2018 they are pretty much redundant. For now that is...mix tape anyone?

Cheapo Hi-Fi Part 2

So, part 2 of my cheapo HI-Fi challenge sees me actually generating sound. Having overhauled my old Jamo speakers I decided the first step to my new separates system had to be the amplifier. My approach was to leave a series of relatively low bids against amps on eBay and see if any were successful. As the days went by the 'outbid' notifications multiplied and my chances of landing an amp in the first week began to look remote.

Happily however, nobody seemed to interested in a bashed up Sony amp beyond £25 (can't think why). Two days after the auction ended I received the unit and fired it up for the first time. I took my £10 Sony CD player, hooked them all up and to my surprise, everything worked.

Now the TA-F161 isn't going to win any awards and was decidedly budget even when it was new (circa 1995). The sound is indistinct and no matter how you coax the eq it sounds a bit woolly. But it was £25. On the plus side it has a phono stage (as yet untested) and actually produces sound (something of a novelty on eBay where half the listings seem to be 'for spares only'). Or rather it did work.

Something about the base of the amplifier didn't quite look right in the stack (note the front left foot isn't visible on the picture). This isn't because of the angle of the photograph, it's because the foot is pushed up into the body of the amp. At some stage this unit has received a massive bash to the base that rendered it useless. It seems it has then been 'recycled' (i.e. repaired badly) by a company and sold on. I say badly repaired because there has been no attempt to pull out the dents to the base of the amplifier.

As I manipulated the foot in an attempt to pull out the dent, the unit powered down and could not be resurrected. Now one good aspect to the previous botched repair was that half of the screws holding the amp together were missing. Thus opening it up was achieved quite quickly. Once inside it became obvious that the previous 'trauma' to this unit resulted in the PSU being damaged. As I was pulling the dents out of the case I was moving the PSU and disconnecting it from the circuit board. With the connection re-established we had power and sound once again. This amp will just have to stay bashed and a bit wobbly on it's feet.

So for £35 we have a CD player, amplifier and speakers. However, with only £65 budget remaining and turntables currently fetching top prices, the bigger challenges look set to come.

Watch your bass bins I'm tellin' ya

Recently I wanted to wanted to rip some CDs that had pesky copy protection. In the past I achieved this by taking a digital optical signal from a CD player into my PC; easy. However, 2018 found me bereft of any kind of CD player, a situation that I found surprising and a little alarming. I began to reminisce about all of the CD players I have known over the years and felt a desire to own another. Thus, I set out to find a cheap but reliable CD player with a optical output.

I managed to buy a fairly run of the mill Sony CDP-XE370 (missing the remote control) on eBay for the princely sum of £10. It arrived after 2 days and works fine - in fact, it's quite a nice sounding machine. The internet suggests this model harks back to 2001 and is capable of playing MP3 data - a good find it would seem.

Inspired by this success, I have resolved to build a Hi-Fi separates system for another part of the house solely from eBay. I have a tiny budget (I have challenged myself to not go into 3 figures) but absolutely no time limit.

Barn fresh and bashed up

To start to my 'cheapo separates challenge' I have cheated a little. I remembered that there was a pair of Jamo speakers in the loft that would get the ball rolling. Whilst a pair of vintage D115 cabinets aren't exactly the top of the food chain when it comes to speakers, they would suffice for my needs. However, when I pulled the speakers down into the light of day it appeared that 3 of the 6 cones had become bashed in over the years. Vintage Hi-Fi was obviously going to come with some maintenance obligations.

I have a distant memory of squashing the cones on my father's Acoustic Research speakers sometime in the late 70's. Surprisingly I don't remember getting a whack around the head or him being particularly angry. I do however remember him pushing a pin into the tweeters in an attempt to pull out the dent. This strategy did pull out the dent, but it also left an ugly hole in a very expensive and beautiful speaker. Thus, when I found these speakers I went straight to Google for solutions and not the sewing kit.

The first suggested remedy was to place a cardboard tube (say the inside of a kitchen or toilet roll) over the dent and suck the dent out. Needless to say, I didn't try this. Second option was to stick adhesive tape to the cone and pull the dent out. This method involves rubbing a pencil over the tape to ensure it has sufficient adhesion to the cone and then pull the dent out. With no pencil to hand I grabbed one of the many crayons lying around the office (the children play in there you understand, I am allowed to handle sharp objects) and got to work. Much to my surprise the first pull resulted in a 50% improvement and with a little careful application I was able to pull the whole of the first dent out. The much thinner, paper cone of the mid speaker did suffer some surface damage from the tape, but the dent was also fully removed. The second speaker responded well to treatment and after about 20 minutes work all of the dents were pulled out.

Repaired and ready: the first part of the cheapo separates challenge

Now 20 years in the loft haven't done much for the looks of these speakers and some cleaning and minor repairs were required. I managed to find a permanent black marker in the same shade of black as the cabinets and touched up all of the blemishes that exposed the underlying fibreboard. I then pulled the plastic exhausts and had a good clean inside. All of the wiring and solders seemed good and once the dust covers were back on, these old Danish warriors (these are vintage speakers predating the switch to production in China) were beginning to look serviceable.

The only test that remains is to actually play something through them. I will be interested to see how they sound - not having listened to them for 20 years (I am making an assumption that they will work as there isn't much to go wrong with them).

Front by front

Front Line Assembly had initially come to my attention in 1993 through a compilation called "Hot Wired Montertrux". I was already a fan of similar "Industrial" bands so it was no wonder that the sound of "Provision" (presented in it's '12" Version') caught my ear. I managed to locate a copy of "Caustic Grip" in my local Virgin Megastore and enjoyed it. However, following this first flush of success, I never saw a FLA release on the shelves again. As a consequence, my initial interest withered on the vine: back in the day it was very hard to follow a band if you couldn't physically buy their records.

A few years passed until one day I happened upon a copy of "Artificial Soldier" in a record store. Suddenly my interest in Canada's second best band was rekindled. I then acquired the majority of the FLA back catalogue as mp3 files (we will gloss over how I acquired these recordings) and albums such as "Implode" and "Epitaph" really caught my ear. I soon found I had developed a desire to correctly tag and complete my new FLA mp3 collection (it still boggles my mind how lazy some people are in tagging their mp3s). In the past I have commented on how difficult it has been to walk the minefield of Gary Numan's back catalogue and that without a literary guide I would have floundered. Well, the same can be said of the monster that is the FLA recording history. Without the excellent www.mindphaser.com I would have been in a real mess. The information contained in Mindphaser allowed me to identify which files I was missing and catalogue them correctly

However, as time has worn on I have become dissatisfied with fantastic albums such as "Rewind" being represented by 128 kbps mp3 files in my music collection. I wanted to listen to CDs of these albums and to rip 320 kbps files. In buying CDs I would be able to listen to better quality rips but also be sure I was tagging the correct versions of songs.

Having resolved to amass the FLA back catalogue on CD, it dawned on me that I had created quite a challenge. As I suggested earlier, getting my hands on FLA releases has always been difficult and the majority of their CDs aren't being pressed any more. Thus, I had to begin by scouring eBay and managed to score some bargains. Encouraged by this early success I searched Discogs and acquired a number of singles and a few of the more elusive discs; but at a price. I've even had a few second hand bargains from Amazon. At present I only have a handful of albums left to find, but as the number of easy wins mount, scarce early albums such as "State of Mind" and "The Initial Command" seem to become evermore elusive.

It's been fun trying to score these FLA CDs and completing the collection on a shoestring budget is definitely an achievable goal. As an avid Pet Shop Boys collector I have reached a certain point many people must hit where I have 'most' things and only rarities that belong in the 'serious money' bracket elude me. I've never paid a four figure sum for a record and don't intend on starting now. Thus collecting FLA CDs fulfils my desire to hoard collect music and ensures my children still have food on the table.

The decade the music died

At one time I freely espoused the belief that music released in the 1970's was terrible. To me the seventies had few redeeming features and were largely devoid of any cultural advances. When people talk about music from this decade I think of Mud, Gary Glitter, T-Rex, Thin Lizzy; that sort of thing. As a consequence I considered this decade an artistic wasteland.

But even a cursory glance through my record collection will show I might not have been entirely correct in my notion. All ELO's records from the seventies are represented and I regard Jeff Lynne as a genius. Two of my favourite albums "Man Machine" by Kraftwerk and "Equinoxe" by Jean Michel Jarre were both released in 1978. So what else is in my record collection that finds its roots in the decade that style forgot?

A search for 1970 in Windows media player reveals "Time and a Word" by Yes (no recollection even listening to this), "Tone Float" by Organisation (Kraftwerk links here too) and "Let It Be" by The Beatles. Not the most auspicious of starts.

Things picked up a little in 1971 when Yes released "Fragile", Kraftwerk issued their first album and Bowie put out "Hunky Dory". 1972 saw more of the same embryonic Kraftwrk and early Yes releases that do little to inspire me. 1973 saw a slight upturn in fortunes as the seminal "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield and Vangelis's "Apocalypse Des Animaux" were released. 1974 is all about "Autobahn" and '75 is just more Oldfield and the massively overrated "Radioactivity". The second half of the decade opened with Jarre's "Oxygene" and Peter Gabriel's first solo outing in consecutive years.

The turning point seems to be 1978. The mood on the playlist I created changes here. Giorgio Moroder creates "The Chase" and there is a new yard stick. Jarre and Kraftwerk deliver their afore mentioned master works and one of my favourite Oldfield albums "Incantations" is released. Peter Gabriel steps things up with his second album and Yellow Magic Orchestra release their eponymous debut. Throw in "Warm Leatherette" and a smattering of Japan and you've got an interesting musical landscape.

1979 saw Gary Numan find his feet with "The Pleasure Principle", The Human League introduce "Reproduction", Japan record "Quiet Life" and Sparks release the Moroder masterpiece that is "No 1 in Heaven". The 80's become so close you can smell them. Type anything beginning with "198" in the search box of Windows Media on my laptop and we travel down a different rabbit hole entirely.

No-Man - too good to ignore

In the summer of 2004 I wrote a long post on my then website about the No-Man album "Flowermouth". It was an unashamedly gushing love poem to a piece of work that remains my favourite album. The original article described the start of the love affair thus:

"I bought it on the back of hearing “Simple” on a demo CD given away with a magazine in 1994. I kept coming back to the song and every time I heard it I loved it more and more. I bought the album on a trip into town one weekday; little did I know my life was about to change. I put the CD on and sat down. I moved about an hour later once the CD had finished. Can you name the last CD you sat and listened to all the way through on the day you bought it? I didn’t move. I simply stared at my stereo, awe struck that such a thing of beauty existed."

(I still have that magazine cover CD as I later realised it contained a different mix of “Simple” that I haven’t heard anywhere else. If only I’d had enough foresight to also go out and buy the album on vinyl – it can go for a pretty penny in this over inflated ‘vinyl resurgence’ market.)

Anyway, I bought almost every No-Man release from 1994 onwards and picked up a copy of their first album too. I joined their mailing list (snail mail in those days) and ordered some of the first Burning Shed releases in 2001. Whilst on the mailing list I received a postcard (as was the way back then) advertising a new project by Steven Wilson called “Bass Communication” and caught increasing references to a band called “Porcupine Tree”. However, these were mere sideshows to the main draw and I ignored them (although bizarrely I did buy “Flame” by Barbieri/Bowness – an album that seems inexplicably ignored and has never been reissued). 

And then these side projects seemed to gather momentum and No-Man’s output began to tail off. I guess that “Returning Jesus” was the artistic zenith and, whilst it was not an absolute valedictory, it has been hard to surpass. I moved onto Tim’s solo work and continue to enjoy it very much - it almost fills the No-Man shaped hole in my life. But make no mistake: I am a first and foremost, a fan of No-Man.

Consequently, I now find it strange when I see promotional material and hype stickers attached to No-Man releases referring to “Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson” - with a brief mention of some Bowness fellow. It is even stranger to see people weighing up No-Man’s efforts as “a place to dig deeper if you admire Steven Wilson’s work.”

I freely admit to never having heard any music by Porcupine Tree or any of Steven’s solo albums. Weird, given that I have always followed Tim’s efforts outside of No-Man – but I don’t intend on changing this approach. Primarily because No-Man deserve all my attention (there’s no such thing as one listen when it comes to the new vinyl edition of “Returning Jesus”) and secondly because I am afraid I will like Wilson’s ‘other’ work; and my bank balance can’t take a hit like that.