Archive for the ‘home entertainment’ tag
Young People Are Loving The Warm Sound Of Vinyl And Audio Turntables
“Records sound so much better than CDs, (which) are harsh and pristine. And the cover art is much better,” says Levi Hames of Manhattan Beach, Calif., who at 17 is too young to remember the LP’s heyday. But he found Rolling Stones and Beatles albums in his grandparents’ attic, and an uncle went on ebay to get him a player, which is front-and-center in his room.
Replica turntable systems are available from various manufacturers. They look like the past machines but have today’s technology used in them. A few top manufacturers include Memorex, jWin, Teac, and Crosley. Various functions are included, which includes USB connections, stacking up multiple LPs, and even recording from the LPs to CD as well.
Raman of Classic Buys says that Nostalgia turntables are among the best seller audio electronics during gift giving Christmas season. Nostalgia turntables from popular brands like Crosley, Teac, Memorex and Thomas Pacconi are the top picks.
Many people today prefer to go with top brand names and turntables that provide you with various features. Consumers often go with four in one systems that play the radio, cassettes, records, and CDs. Top brands are usually purchased as well, such as Teac and Crosley. Features are important to most consumers today, such as the feature to record to CD or Stack-O-Matic features. With the Stack-O-Matic you are able to stack up several records and play continuously, and then with the recorder, you can take your LPs and record them onto CDs for your listening pleasure.
“Music in its purest form is on vinyl,” says Bo LeMastus, president of Crosley Radio, which makes nostalgic reproductions of 1940s and 1950s record players, items that were promoted heavily in department stores this holiday season. “It captures everything the producer wanted to put in the record. On CD, you lose a certain something.”
Today the Crosley name lives on with superbly detailed replicas that truly transcend time. Reintroductions of original vintage radios and turntables feature the newest technologies graced by unforgettable Crosley stylings. The Crosley Collection includes AM/FM radios, portable suitcase – styled record players and audio turntables, record changers, multi-functional audio cassette/compact disc players, jukeboxes, music boxes, telephones and more. Rich lines, retro designs and authentic crafting have made Crosley today’s premier vintage electronics manufacturer. True to the Crosley tradition, these replicas are as fabulous as they are functional, providing a delightful dose of nostalgia.
Crosley sold 400,000 record players in 2005, and he predicts greater sales this year. Joe D’Angelo of Teac, which also sells reproductions, says sales tripled last year. He figures 10 billion albums are still sitting on home shelves. With the new units — Teac’s and Crosley’s players, with speakers, start at $100 — “here’s a way to play the music again.”
Compared to CD players, these sales of turntables are not comparing to the CD players, which have sold better than 40 million. Consumer Electronics Associated doesn’t track the turntable sales because they are small. However, among rap fans and DJs, there is always a home, since they enjoy the scratching that can be created when you use the needed in the LP grooves in the right way.
There are two camps of turntable buyers out there today according to Dave Glassman, who is from Restoration Hardware, that provides turntables and more on it’s website, in catalogs, and in stores. Those who are over 35 still have LPs are in one group and then there is the group of kids who find the LPs and want to hear what they are all about. Crosley and Teac have come up with new models putting together the new and old. One is the 4in1 Entertainment Center by Crosely, which includes CD player, radio, cassette deck, plays vinyls of all speeds, and costs about $229 for the whole setup.
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How To Kill Your Xbox – The Towel Trick Explained
Quick fixes for troublesome electronic devices have traditionally involved abusing it somehow. This meant shaking, rapping, hitting, or kicking the device to make it work again. These methods worked because loose connections could be made to reconnect in this way. But it also weakened other connections making the device more likely to fail again.
One of the more well known “fixes” for the red ring of death problem is called the towel trick. It also falls into this category of abusive, quick fixes. Rather than giving the Xbox a swift kick, the “cure” involves baking the internal components at extreme temperatures so that broken connections are resoldered again and warped components get reshaped.
The towel trick is done by covering your Xbox with 2 or 3 towels. Then your Xbox is switched on for around 15 minutes or so and you’re through. Then it’s time to do some gaming. The next time the ring of death shows up simply repeat the towel fix.
If the method works, then why is the towel trick a bad idea? As mentioned above, the towel trick subjects the internal chips to damaging temperatures. Avoiding heat damage to components during manufacture is a big issue in the electronics industry. To get the soldering temperature high enough for a good solder join without causing chip damage is no trivial thing.
So when you use the towel trick, you get a temporary fix at the expense of damaging the Xbox’s internal components. Eventually this damage will lead to yet another heat related failure. Then when you apply the towel trick again, more damage is done which weakens your Xbox even more. You can only repeat this process so many times before the heat damage is too extensive for the towel trick to work any more. This process is a downward spiral that thoroughly destroys your Xbox.
Another problem that’s safety related is that the towel fix is very hazardous. A good deal of heat is produced by the Xbox (and hence the need for fans and heat sinks). Because the towels are insulators, the heat builds up very fast. If your Xbox begins to burn, other things in the vicinity (your house) may burn as well.
The towel trick makes no sense at all and in this case, counterintuitive doesn’t help. The ring of death is caused by the Xbox producing too much heat and having a cooling system that can’t keep pace. Fixing this problem by applying more heat only makes the problem worse.
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Red Ring Of Death – How To Take Care Of Your Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a marvelous machine when it’s working. With superior performance and amazing games, it draws you in and then…nothing. Right when you’re enjoying it the most you get the red ring of death malfunction.
This is a very serious problem that over 500,000 people are dealing with. Once those three red lights turn on, the problem will never go away on its own. If your Xbox hasn’t had the ring of death failure, there are steps that you can take to reduce the chances of it happening to your machine.
The Xbox 360 was poorly designed and built. This means that it’s susceptible to getting very hot. Ultimately, the ring of death is brought on by too much heat.
To prolong the life of your Xbox, you will need to run it cool. Now, I’m not saying that you should put your Xbox outside in the cold or in a refrigerator. This has been tried and you don’t want to do this because the Xbox’s internal components were designed to work near room temperature.
To prevent overheating, you must always ensure that it is well ventilated. That means not using it in confined spaces such as a crowded entertainment center or storage cabinet. Wherever you use it, make sure there’s a lot of free, open, and well ventilated space around it.
Keep it off shaggy carpeting because it will interfere with the fans in the back of the unit. Elevate it off the carpet with props, put it on a table, or use it on an uncarpeted and solid surface. The fans can also get obstructed if cords or cables are bunched up in the vicinity.
Make sure that you keep the fans free of any debris. Depending on the nature of your environment, human hair, pet hair, dirt, grit, dust, and lint can build up quite rapidly. That’s because of all of the air passing through the fans which funnel dust just like a vacuum cleaner. Using some compressed air to clean the fans will easily increase air flow into your Xbox.
Don’t keep your Xbox running for time periods of excessive length. The interior components will get hot and continue to do so with use. If you are done with your Xbox, let it cool off some by turning it off.
The consumer with the 3 red light error normally used their machines for more than four hours. If you live in a warm part of the world without air conditioning, your Xbox will heat up at a very fast rate. Therefore, it will be necessary to decrease your playing time even more.
Whether you like it or not, your Xbox is a very fragile and undependable product. Even following the recommendations given here is not a guarantee that you won’t get the ring of death error. However, you can count on it happening if you allow your Xbox to overheat.
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