Posted on Tuesday, 24th January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

It’s been a while since my last capacitor comparison review was done. Not much changes actually (not much new ‘interesting’ products also I think). But I was quite tempted to try the Alexander series from Duelund. The reason was simple, it’s quite affordable but having Duelund popularity on it. We’ll see if it’s worth to try.

As usual, I put one of my favorite ‘affordable’ reference capacitor, the Jensen Paper Tube and the ‘premium’ reference capacitor, the Duelund CAST Cu. I kept my ‘ultimate’ reference capacitor, the Duelund CAST Ag, as this was a different beast.

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Tags: Alexander, CAST Cu, Duelund, ELMA, jensen, mundorf
Posted in DIY Audio | Comments (7)

Posted on Monday, 9th January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Long time I haven’t written any review about my CD collection. This time, I will write about one of the most collectible album, Amanda McBroom: Dreaming. This is one from two collectible album from Amanda. The other one is “Growing Up in Hollywood Town” which also ever reviewed somewhere around last year.

Amanda is an American singer and also a songwriter. I think most of her song was written by herself.

Around 1985, Amanda with her manager (also her husband) set up a label named Gecko Records. And this “Dreaming” was their first album under Gecko Record (on 1986). Previously, the “Growing Up in Hollywood Town” was done under Sheffield Labs label.

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Tags: Amanda McBroom, CD Audio Review, Dreaming, Gecko Records, Sheffield Labs
Posted in CD/DVD Review, Collectible Stuff | Comments (0)

Posted on Monday, 9th January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Let’s forget a little bit about audio and move a little bit to another hobby of me: photography.

Recently, I rarely bring my camera during short trip. Why? Because mostly I visit a similar place which no longer interesting. If you have been there to a place multiple times, then the rest would become a boring day. Agree?

By the way, before continuing this, I have to admit that I’m not a professional photographer – not even close. My gear mostly an obsolete one (now I’m using Canon SX10 IS and Nikon D90). And I love night and macro photgraphy. I think it’s quite obvious throughout pictures on my blog here.

When I first time got the Nokia Lumia 800, I’m quite impressed with the camera quality. I think it can compete with most smartphone on its class. Not to mention the f/2.2 Carl Zeiss Tessar lens could give you better capture.

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Tags: Lumia 800, Nokia, Windows Phone
Posted in IT/Gadget, Personal | Comments (3)

Posted on Monday, 9th January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

I always have dream to have a separate and dedicated passive volume control. There was a time when I was offered to acquire few sets of Grayhill ‘M’ series rotary switch. Although it has 7 Decks which definitely overkill for most application, but seeing the quality of the switch, I decided to grab some.

Although ‘M’ Series from Grayhill is not Military qualified switch, but it meets the requirements of MIL-S-3786 which covers moisture resistance, medium and high shock, vibration, thermal shock (from minus 65 up to over 125 degree Celsius), salt spray, explosion, terminal strength (2 lbs pull minimum), and stop strength (15 pound-inches minimum). Quite convincing, huh? The simple but major different is, the ‘HS’ Military grade will have a sealed shaft and panel. That will make a lot of different in ‘heavy’ environment, but probably not much at home.

Each switch is bundled inside a plastic tube. Nice and convenient way to carry the switch and also easy to be put on the storage bin.

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Tags: Attenuator, Grayhill, Military, preamp, Switched, volume control
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (8)

Posted on Saturday, 7th January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

After the Part I has been done, now I continue to the Part II. On this 2nd part, I will see what’s wrong with the Marantz PM400AVK.

Simple testing method is to try it on other speaker. Initial diagnosis is the volume control problem, as I could hear some cracking and intermittent no sound on the speaker. But sometime the problem could be solved after turning the volume up and down. Definitely, initial problem is on the volume control. So let’s take a look inside.

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Tags: ALPS, Capacitor, Fake Capacitor, Marantz, potentiometer
Posted in DIY Audio, Personal | Comments (0)

Posted on Wednesday, 4th January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

If you have read this previous article, probably you got my point when reading this one. Now, I’m doing the modification for the speaker. After several serious examination (well, you know me, I can’t be more serious than this time), it seems that there is no hope for the tweeter. So let’s find a good replacement. After googling around for several hours, I stick to the Vifa XT25SC90 tweeter. I use the ‘older’ brother XT25TG30 on my other DIY speaker and quite convinced with its sonic quality (despite its poor off axis performance). Price wise, you can get a pair less than $50. What a bargain?

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Tags: Bennic, Cable, inductor, Mission 762, Siemens, speaker, Tweeter, XT25
Posted in DIY Audio, Personal | Comments (7)

Posted on Monday, 2nd January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

My wife knows and supports my hobby in audio. I think she even knows almost all of my expenses. Well, ‘almost’ means maybe there are some that she doesn’t care or aware of – not my intention to hide from her .

Once upon a time, when we were on her mother’s living room, I stumbled upon an audio system used there. It was quite old and sounded ‘ultimately’ bad. She jokingly asked me how do I rate this system. Honestly I said, maybe around 20 from 100 scale. Well, it’s true. Even maybe 20 was still slightly over rated. Then she challenged to improve it. After checking them for few minutes, I decided to give further examination as the condition was ‘terrible’. OK, I could bring this home for some new year’s fun. Then the adventure begun…

Now, let’s start with the speaker. The speaker is Mission 762. Quite good on its era (20 years back). But now, it sounds so bad. The woofer seems fine, but the tweeter I think already running out of his life. Too much noises and ‘too smooth’ (means no treble or detail) .

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Tags: Marantz PM400AVK, Marantz Receiver, Mission 762, Mission Speaker
Posted in DIY Audio, Personal | Comments (7)

Posted on Monday, 2nd January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Time flies… I have owned this blog for more than 5 years. Despite the fluctuation, I think the trend is quite stable and showing a positive growing up trend. I think I have to start putting more convincing article (and more quantity for sure). I wish I have more than 24 hours a day. Actually I got enough toy to be played with, but so limited time.

Anyway, Happy New Year all. All the best (health, family, career, wealth, hobby, etc) for the upcoming year (indeed, now is 2nd of January).

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Tags: blog, other, statistic
Posted in Indonesia, Personal | Comments (2)