Category: Tech

Selling My Soul

Speaking of the Korean Peninsula, after my father died I had the title and registration of his 2014 Kia Soul transfered in my name. Tomorrow I will be selling the car to a Phoenix area dealership that, according to Kelly Blue Book, is offering me a fair price for a cash deal. I make tremendous deals. The very best deals. 😉

After my father bought the car four years ago, he called me to say how pleased he was with his purchase, and now I know why. Being a Honda-Toyota guy, I had my doubts about Kia, but with the Korean brands Samsung and LG taking over the HDTV market from Sony and Panasonic, I was interested in driving the Soul myself; which I started doing 18 months ago, sad to say only after my father had a stroke. But I was, and continue to be, very impressed with this little car that’s part subcompact, part hatchback, and part mini-SUV.

Dad bought the base model, and that seems to me as the way to go. A more expensive, full-featured trim would make the Soul less of a bargain than it is. I’m surprised that it has Bluetooth integration and voice recognition, but it does and they work well. Seating comfort and the action of the various controls are, if anything, superior to my 2017 Toyota Camry XLE.

There isn’t much cargo space in the back, but that’s actually a good thing because the height is excellent, and perfectly suited for someone who has trouble bending forward and/or down to get bags of groceries loaded and unloaded.

With the many Souls I see here in Sun City West, I’m wondering if this is another example of a car that was originally intended for young buyers and instead found its market with Boomers and retirees. That’s what happened with the Honda Element, and unfortunately it killed that particular model, but the Kia Soul seems to be selling very well.

The bottom line is that I like this little car so much that if I needed a car myself I’d keep it and make a road trip out of driving it back home to Massachusetts.

Carousel – Renew! Renew!

It seems that Logan’s Run is right after all. Carousel renewal doesn’t work!

One of my retirement projects, as told back here, was to get my Sony 300-disc CD carousel changer working again. A couple of days ago I finally got around to doing it. There was no avoiding removing all of the CD’s, which took a while.

There are three belts in the player. One of them works the door, another turns the table around, and the third loads/unloads the discs. Immediately I could see that one of them had fallen off of its pulleys. There are text instructions, as well as various YouTube videos, showing how to replace the belts in a Sony MegaChanger, but I ended up finding my own approach to disassembly and gaining access to the belts.

The other belt in back was holding, but very loose, and the belt under the table seemed all right. But of course I replaced all three of them.

After putting the deck back together, I was very pleased with myself, because it worked perfectly. The table turned, the door opened and closed, and a disc loaded and played.

Not wanting to assume success before being certain everything was good, I didn’t replace the 300 CD’s. As explained back here, every CD player I have ever owned, cheap and expensive alike, eventually starts skipping. Unfortunately, the Sony carousel is no exception. I did the usual things in the hope of fixing the problem, but of course they didn’t help. The unit was made in July, 2000, so I’m not surprised.

This relic from the pre-streaming era of music can probably be fixed, but it isn’t worth the additional effort to me. There was a positive outcome to this little retirement project, however. Before the player started skipping I got through almost an hour of listening to music. Playing a couple of very familiar CD’s, the sound was exactly how I remembered it, with all of the advantages and disappointments of CD audio. Loud and clear, but with everything pushed up front and jammed together. Cymbals in particular didn’t sound real. Once again I was reminded of why LP’s have yet to die as a format.

I briefly contemplated buying a new CD player, but then I had a moment of inspiration. I went to the basement and pulled out the DVD player I retired when first moving to Blu-ray. It’s this little gem.

Panasonic DVD-S47

Wow. And wow. At last, Compact Discs sound like they should. I have ripped quite a few CD’s for playback on my Logitech Media Server network, and indeed they sound excellent on the Logitech Squeezebox Touch player. Which proved to me once again that it’s the quality of digital-to-analog converters that makes the difference.

Being amazed at how much better the Panasonic DVD player sounds than the Sony CD changer, I checked the specs and found the explanation. It has a superior digital decoder and DAC that support 192kHz/24-bit audio. Even today that’s considered to be something of a premium feature.

So for now I’m happy, despite being limited to single-disc playback. It’s better than having to rip all of those CD’s, or buy a new player for that matter. Here’s hoping the Panasonic player doesn’t start skipping tomorrow!

Inspecting Aspect

Playing around again with posting my own video. Not trying for HD rips or anything fancy. Just want the ability to post an occasional clip of my own choosing when it isn’t conveniently available elsewhere, and to do it as cheaply as possible. Which means not buying an expensive video editing suite. This time around I wanted to see if I could get the 16:9 aspect ratio working.

Up To My Old Tricks

The first few months after starting this blog, I spent a lot of time and effort figuring out how to post video. Keep in mind that was in 2006, before YouTube took over. In fact, Google bought YouTube only one month after I began blogging. Adobe had purchased Macromedia and its Flash technology just 18 months before then. Flash video, with its .FLV files, was the only way to post video, but since the introduction of HTML 5 it’s fallen into disfavor, although not quite into disuse. The last time I checked, the BBC was still using Flash.

Thanks to YouTube, it’s rare for me to capture, edit, and post a video clip. But being the old retired guy that I now am, I have a new video capture setup, and I thought I’d play around a bit. Editing is still a pain, but otherwise there’s nothing to doing video compared to the bad old days.

This is from a first-generation Roku player, almost 10 years old.

This is from a DVD, with the opening to an outstanding, mostly forgotten, film called “The Red House.” Julie London at 20!

The End of a Shure Thing

Shure M91ED stereo phono cartridge

Record Store Day ten days ago reportedly set a sales record in both the US and UK. As the CD format dwindles in popularity against online streaming, the resurgent ancient LP continues to gain strength. Ironically, one of the oldest and biggest names in phonograph cartridges, Shure, announced today that it is discontinuing its phono-related products.

Niles, IL., May 1, 2018—For more than 90 years, Shure has been committed to manufacturing and delivering products of the highest quality, reliability, and value. This commitment requires consistency in materials, processes, and testing, as well the capacity to react to fluctuations in demand.

In recent years, the ability to maintain our exacting standards in the Phonograph Cartridge product category has been challenged, resulting in cost and delivery impacts that are inconsistent with the Shure brand promise.

In light of these conditions, and after thorough evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue production of Shure Phono products effective Summer 2018.

Given our decades-long history of participation in the Phono category, we recognize that this decision may come as a disappointment to our channel partners and end users.

We are grateful for the support and loyalty demonstrated for Shure Phono products through the years and we are proud of the impact that these products have made on our customers’ lives and the reputation of the Shure brand. We believe that the proud legacy of Shure Phono is best served by exiting the category rather than continuing production under increasingly challenging circumstances.

Shure will continue to bring reputable, high quality products to market and we look forward to meeting and exceeding customer expectations on our current and future offerings. As Shure expands into new markets and product categories for audiophiles, our enduring commitment to premium performance and technological innovation will remain at our core.

I use a Shure M92E in one of my turntables, and fortunately I have several factory-sealed replacement styluses (nobody says “styli” anymore, do they?). My first Shure was the very popular and affordable M91ED, like the one pictured above. I was only seventeen when I bought it, and I remember being astounded by how much better it sounded compared to the bottom-of-the-line Pickering cartridge that came with the stereo I’d purchased months earlier with money from my part-time job. I recall the M91ED cost $20, which is equivalent to $120 today. For that much money the best cartridge currently available is probably the Nagaoka MP110, from Japan. Audio-Technica, also in Japan, continues to manufacture a line of cartridges, as does Ortofon in Denmark. They’re the two biggest remaining names in the business, with Grado holding its own in America, but not without some quality control problems that I have experienced myself. My A-T and Ortofon cartridges are both excellent and durable. Viva vinyl!

Now that I’m on the subject, I pulled out an oldie from college, my Ortofon FF15E. I figured I needed a cartridge from Denmark to go along with my Dynaco A-25 speakers from Denmark. Yes, I really did think that way. Still do, I suppose.

Ortofon FF15E

I’m going to give it a spin, despite the wear on the stylus from long ago, to hear how it sounds compared to my newer Ortofon cartridge. But right now I have to get back to not eating anything, because tomorrow I’m having a colonoscopy. You can read about my first colonoscopy, ten years ago, at this link. The prep this time around was much easier than the awful stuff I had to drink last time.