JamesSavik

CD players arrived on the scene in the 1980s and quickly supplanted vinyl as the dominate audio-media. Unlike cassettes and LPs, CDs are a purely digital media. They reproduce sound with complete fidelity. Compact Disks (CD) are optical disks which are read by IR laser. Data stored on audio CDs follow formats defined by the Rainbow books. Prior to 1988, the audio standard was defined by the Red Book. It was superseded by the Red Book in 1988 and by the Orange Book in 1990. There have been other standards but they deal with other CD technologies more applicable to data applications. The first generation of CD players were very much like cassette players. They played one CD at a time. They connect to the amplifier by a pair of RCA cables. This old Pioneer unit is ~ 20 years old and still working. Its operation is very, very simple: put in the CD, play, pause, track forward or back. Note the simplicity of the back. There is a power cable and a hookup for a pair of RCA cables. That's it.

God I hope not.

Well yeah... it's all good if you can afford it.

Mike- very nice. It's much newer than my Mitsubishi. I like the layout and capabilities that it has. Russ- I think one of the reasons they have stopped rating watts per channel and using the total watts number is that so few people know the difference anymore. Back in the day I knew people that had the chops to to do custom rebuilds on their amps and replace the tubes and transformers. Sadly, that kind of know how just isn't out there anymore.

One of my many hobbies is that I like to play with something called vintage audio. This is the collection of old stereo components and the attempt to make it all work. It may sound expensive but it's not that bad. Speakers are expensive but you can find some REALLY neat old components on e-bay. At the moment my current stereo configuration is playing and doing a great job with David Bowie's Greatest Hits. So.. let's get into it. The number 1 component that you need is called an amp. That's an old term but it is fairly accurate. Since the 70s most have been integrated with a am/fm receiver. Some have 5 band equalizers built in but my advice is to steer clear of them. What you need out of an amp is: Watts per channel: this is the power that you have to drive speakers. ~100 watts is usually powerful enough. More if you want to host events, less for a smaller room. Speaker channels: speakers come in pairs with the exception of a center speaker (called a thumper or sub-woofer). Most of the time you want at least two pairs and a center speaker channel if you can find one. Component channels: These are the different components that you will be using to feed your amp. Typically these are CD players, turntables, cassette decks, video/tv audio, or an am/fm receiver if your amp doesn't have one built in. Other items you might be trying to integrate with your system might be a satellite radio hook up, mp3 player, etc. This can get complicated FAST and there are big differences in amps and their capabilities. ALL Digital- the very newest amps are all singing, all dancing and ALL DIGITAL. This is cool, very cool. Digital components run cooler and have a longer life. There is a drawback. All digital components leave behind some of you older components like turntables. Hybrid amps- have digital and analog features. Most amps built since the eighties fall in this category. Their strength is their versatility in coping with both legacy (old) and new digital components. Analog- true analog amps have tubes and transistors. There is a snobbish minority that insists that the true analog sound off vinyl is the only way to go. There's a lot to be said for that. However- the really good new analog amps costs thousands. The old ones are just as pricy and you had better know what you are doing if you go that direction. Some electronics knowledge is a must. I suggest that beginners work their way up to analog systems. What components you must have for an amp: These are most common, must have: -CD player -tape 1 -tape 2 -tv/video audio -aux You might want: -turntable -extra video channels -extra aux channels Mitsubish M-VR600 c.1999 This is a good all around hybrid amp. You can get one from 50-120$ depending on condition. Be sure to pay attention to the sellers reputation!!! Detail of the front panel. Note the buttons for the component input + controls for various speaker set ups and surround sound modes.

This is where the speakers attach. The front speakers you can consider the "main speakers". I have a pair of Base series 3 attached. The "Center" speaker is where the sub-woofer attaches. There is another bank for a second pair of speakers that's not in this photo. Please note the bank of s-video cables. This amp has the ability to switch video signals. S-video is an older video standard and it's completely optional whether you hook it up or not. Well- that's all I'm going to say about amps. Tune in next time for CD-players!

The back panel is where the action is! This is where you interface your components with the amp. Note that this amp takes audio channel from video sources! Each component connects the amp with a two channel RCA cable. Left and right channels are red and white.

Don't forget to go by the emergency clinic after you wash the cat. You might need stitches.

Catholic Guilt

My Muse shows up drunk at 3am and goes to sleep before anything useful is accomlished.

When I logged into facebook today...

Why the moon matters: The earth is essentially a ocean of viscous magma covered by hard plates connected by joints. These joints are the stress points of earthquake faults. The moons gravity has major effects on liquid water but we're not sure about its effect on magma or the plates that sit on top of it. It may well be that a supermoon may have no effect on a stable series of faults when it occurs. BUT when it works against an unstable series of faults, it could create chaos.

This is an enormous win. With Exodus out of business, they can't mess with anybody else's head.

It's on You-tube Ms. Wolf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYi5FqpXDT8

Usually when you buy the rights to a book, you assume that the movie is going to be based on the book. Hollyweird is known for taking liberties but in this case they threw away the book and rewrote it. The only thing that the two have in common are zombies, a mysterious plague that causes them and the United Nations. That's it. Max Brooks originally wrote World War Z in the style of Studs Terkel's The Good War. It was a collection of stories told by the veterans of World War II. It had their voice and was an oral history. A critically acclaimed history told by the people that had fought in the war and survived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_War Brook's book followed this design. It took place in the future. It interviewed survivors of the zombie war and told their story. It was collected by a minor functionary of the UN. Of course that was apparently too difficult for Hollywood. They threw it all out the window. They made a zombie apocalypse movie that shared the name World War Z. Of course in its own right, it's not a bad movie. Brad Pitt stars as a retired United Nations troubleshooter. When the zombie apocalypse breaks out, he goes back to his old job. He travels the zombie infested world in search of answers. As a movie, I give it a C+. However- it loses the entirety of what made the book special. You don't get the characters voice. You don't get the characters. All you get is your typical Hollywood adrenalin-pumping thriller with little or no message or staying power. Read the book. You'll get more out of it. Wait for the movie to hit NetFlix.

The supermoon of 2011 was followed shortly by the Japanese tsunami and quakes. The supermoon of 2004 occurred just before the Christmas Tsunami. The great earthquake that struck Hati in 2010 and Christchurch, NZ in 2011 also coincided with supermoons. So... I wonder what the supermoon of 2013 will bring. http://www.livescience.com/33106-will-supermoon-cause-earthquake-storm-natural-disasters.html http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/supermoon-and-earthquakes-is-t/46883

I know a lot of navy people that have been stationed in Japan and Okinawa. According to people who should know, the sex industry in Japan offers more kink than even squids can stomach.

The human mouth is an astonishingly dirty place from a micro-biological perspective. It's a great place to grow bacteria with moisture, warmth and a variety of food sources plus the introduction of numerous alien bacteria while eating. There are thousands of tame bacteria that live there and a great many those can act badly if they move into another environment. My mother had a long running infection in her eyes that took over a year to clear with powerful anti-biotics. Many bacteria are developing resistance to anti-biotics because those drugs are being over used in the human population and the production of poultry and beef.

>>Whydo so many people hate twilight? Because it sucks.