Buzz Off!

Turn volume down before playing. Unpleasant test tone.

This is the text I posted on YouTube to accompany the video:

Audiorpheus (https://www.youtube.com/c/Audiorpheus…) posted a lot of interesting and fun videos related to affordable record playing. He used the Hi-Fi News Test LP to perform some tracking tests, with the Nagaoka MP-110 coming out on top.

For this short video I used my copy of the Hi-Fi News test disc to compare a Grado Green cartridge with an Audio-Technica AT92E. I bought the Grado for $100 a couple of years ago, and the Audio-Technica was purchased new in 2013 for only $20 (the price was increased later to $30). The cartridges are mounted and aligned in identical head shells, and installed on a vintage Pioneer PL-112D turntable.

The Grado Green buzzes just as badly as the Grado Black did for Audiorpheus. The AT92E, however, performs just as well on the difficult inner-groove tracking test as the Nagaoka did for Audiorpheus.

The replacement for the AT92E is the AT85EP, for $40. If the AT85EP performs as well as the older model, it’s today’s #1 tracking bargain, costing a fraction the price of a Nagaoka MP-110.

I Broke Google!

Or rather, Google thinks the site is broken. A workaround, if not a fix, for the problem with Google refusing to index this site seemed to have finally taken hold. Everything looked okay on the Google Search Console, and all I had to do was wait a few days for Google to crawl through everything.

But the blog’s technical problems must be too serious even for Google. The process of crawling through everything seems to have busted the search console. It thinks at some level the site can’t be found.

Update: Now it’s working again. I checked the Google Search Console this morning and the error was still there. When I checked an hour later it was working. All I did in between was have a muffin and instant coffee, but I guess that must have fixed it! 😉

It’s All About the Bass

A friend who plays the upright bass was curious about a particular cartoon that features virtuoso bass playing. Cartoon Research has some background information.

Tom & Jerry in “Solid Serenade” (1946)

The copy of the “Solid Serenade” on that page includes something of particular interest to myself. The names of the animators who worked on each part of the cartoon.

A Fed-eral Case

Wall Street has become an economy unto itself. The Fed has helped to inflate the stock market, by holding interest rates so low for so long.

The only thing learned from the 2008 financial crisis is that the Federal Reserve and Treasury will always do everything possible to help Wall Street. For some at the Fed, their actions have apparently been helping themselves.

(Editor’s note [from CNBC]: This story has been updated to reflect new information. Fed Chair Powell owned the municipal bonds in question in a joint account over which he had control. Due to incorrect information provided by the Federal Reserve, CNBC reported initially that Powell owned the munis in a family trust over which he had no control.)

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/fed-officials-owned-securities-it-was-buying-during-pandemic-raising-more-questions-about-conflicts.html