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The lonely tech post thread.

I mean one of these days I'll move to SSDs for everything, but that's a long way away, especially as I like to download stuff at 4k when I can.

I had to return the 12TB drive to eBay, but that was easy. The SAS card from Bargain Hardware and 14TB drive work flawlessly. However, I've just been looking at Amazon for refurbished 14TB drives, and they are cheaper. Now, I trust Bargain Hardware more than a random Amazon seller, but I was reading the comments and they mentioned the Amazon warranties. So a 6 quid odd gets you a 4-year insurance policy on ex-enterprise drives. Not sure what I think about MaxDigitalData, but apparently they're often re-branded Western Digital. So quite tempted to get one to put in my NAS, to mirror the one I've just put in my server.

 
Audiophile alert :oops:

Miraculous though it is, today I noticed the poorly-filtered USB speaker doesn't like Keith Jarrett's piano very much :p
Mind you that started off as a CD - now FLAC on my PC set up as a "DLNA" server (I had no idea until yesterday that you could do that sort of thing natively - though it's a bit clunky in VLC on Android) ... WIFi'd to my new Pixel phone then Bluetoothed to the unholy Chinese non-linear amplifier thence to some 1980s speakers branded "Goodmans" - though even by that time that company was even less than the mid-FI company it had once been.... and these things are probably light enough that I brought them home on my bike...

So the aforementioned new phone - very nice camera etc and a vast improvement on my 7 year old Moto G4 with the wonky screen...

... but no earphone jack - and at the moment I would have been happy enough with that ... so I have ordered a Fiio Bluetooth / USB DAC / amplifier ...
If I get a replacement PC with functioning USB it may encourage me to wear headphones at home ...
If I finally get around to fixing my amp and speakers, it will be more than adequate as a DAC for that purpose - it will take a whole new life before I could possibly find that wanting ...

My old phone was in any case working a bit too hard to power my phones - my teeny KSC75s are 101db / 60 ohms and the Philips over-ears 101db /32 ohms ...

This tiny amp I've bought can supply 125mw into 32 ohms ... apparently the early Fiio incarnations were appreciated by customers with only 25mw ...it also has a 4.4mm balanced output rated at 340mw into 32 ohms that I don't currently need (perhaps one day I will be in a frame of mind to appreciate some planar headphones though I may be ready to up my game generally by then) - and it would suit me to keep that socket pristine for my HIFI connection - but for the "balanced" bit - I don't think you can simply short the grounds together ...
I hope the amp doesn't waste battery power on that side of it when I'm mobile ...

I've ordered a genuine Google charger- probably overpriced and silly, but I've watched far too many scary USB charger tear-down videos - and a wireless charger stand - inefficient though that is - but I like the idea of not using the USB-C socket ...the heat will warm my room in the winter (it apparently has a thermistor built in to avoid cooking itself and the phone)

FiiO BTR15
3.5 mm Unbalanced: 125 mW per Side into 32 Ohms 15 mW per Side into 300 Ohms 4.4 mm Balanced: 340 mW per Side into 32 Ohms 50 mW per Side into 300 Ohms
Click to expand...
EDIT:- mind you that's only about 3db ...

Edit:-
Even with my shaky understanding I spotted some misinformation on YT with regards to balanced headphone outputs (not that I have it 100 percent) - confusion with XLR signal cables etc... I'd forgotten the key limitation of portable kit - the 3.7 volt Liion cell and the voltage drop of semiconductors.. and size limitations even even with low voltage tantalum caps..people talking about "noise" pickup in the cables - but it's presumably the effects transferred back to signal stages...

Some actual engineers online used the term "bridge configuration"...

Should I one day find myself wanting to own and listen to very expensive and demanding headphones in a garden, doubtless I will have upgraded to a serious full-size HP amp...
In the meantime I am relieved to find that I can expect maybe 8 hours' battery life if I don't use the balanced output.
I am in any case going to need to invest in a good power bank - even the phone itself doesn't appear to have spectacular battery life - in a garden setting of course I will have easy access to power...

You can reasonably expect 1 Volt or 30 Milliwatt.
(an older iPhone I tested topped out around 0.6 Volt / 10 mW).
Click to expand...

From www.reddit.com/r/audio/comments/173mq7x/what_level_do_devices_such_as_smartphones_laptops/
 
Last edited:
I couldn't sleep because that transfer speed to the NAS was doing my head in :D
This is more like it.

Screenshot 2024-06-19 025635.png

That's transferring to an SSD in my Home Assistant server. It's more like the sort of speed I'd expect.
I'm definitely going to decommission that spinning metal when I get a bigger SSD.
Next job is a Cloudflare tunnel to the NAS drive on the server.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chz
UnderOpenSky said:
Why does it matter so much for films?
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter but something like a 4k/HDR/Dolby Vision rip of Dune comes in at over 21GB and it's annoying enough to transfer over at full gigabit speed. Yes, we IT types are just impatient fuckers. I'm looking at a 2.5GBe switch and card for the NAS next year. Which will undoubtedly result in me getting some faster (but still spinning) disk for it.

The stupid part is that the ethernet port on the telly is still 100Mbps. Not that 4k Netflix exceeds that.
 
Thanks for the advice about the laptop people - I downloaded a Windows iso and installed it on usb stick using mksub (rufus is for windows only). I don't actually know whether it works though because when I came to look at the installation I realized that I also don't know whether it was nicked or not, so without knowing that I don't really want to go anywhere near it.

I've said elsewhere that my own laptop (must be 10 years old or so by now) is falling to bits. My mate laughed when he saw it because I have to use a usb keyboard since a few of the essential keys don't work.

More seriously, though, the battery is fucked as immediately became the replacement battery I got for it, so I have to keep it plugged into the mains. His laptop works for a couple of hours from the battery alone so you can ... move it from room to room without having to unplug the adapter, carry it with the latop, and find an easy place to plug it into wherever you're going. This was a revelation :eek:
 
UnderOpenSky said:
Why does it matter so much for films?
Click to expand...
It's the bottleneck that was bothering me. I'm OCDAF about things like that. But I do do a lot of moving things around, and, like Chz said, even gigabit is too slow when you're waiting for a TB to transfer, and a terabyte doesn't seem anywhere near as big as it did a few years ago. It's easily accumulated.
But mostly I'm OCDAF, and hate bottlenecks :D
 
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Reactions: Chz
Saul Goodman said:
It's the bottleneck that was bothering me. I'm OCDAF about things like that. But I do do a lot of moving things around, and, like Chz said, even gigabit is too slow when you're waiting for a TB to transfer, and a terabyte doesn't seem anywhere near as big as it did a few years ago. It's easily accumulated.
But mostly I'm OCDAF, and hate bottlenecks :D
Click to expand...

Chz said:
It doesn't matter but something like a 4k/HDR/Dolby Vision rip of Dune comes in at over 21GB and it's annoying enough to transfer over at full gigabit speed. Yes, we IT types are just impatient fuckers. I'm looking at a 2.5GBe switch and card for the NAS next year. Which will undoubtedly result in me getting some faster (but still spinning) disk for it.

The stupid part is that the ethernet port on the telly is still 100Mbps. Not that 4k Netflix exceeds that.
Click to expand...

I can understand that. I'd still like 10GbE or even 2.5 at some point, I had the house done with Cat 6a, but the cost of new network cards and a more expensive switch was a little rich for me. If money was no object, then a NAS with NVMe drives would be nice...

Actually, since I've started downloading much bigger files, it's changed the way I do things because of transfer times between drives/devices. I've still got a dedicated torrents drive, but anything larger goes straight where it's going to live. Downloading at full speed is almost as fast as copying stuff across the network.
 
Saul Goodman said:
My old monitors were looking... old, so I treated myself to some new ones for next Christmas... but the stands wouldn't fit correctly on the monitor shelf, so I had to buy 3x VESA mounts.
It's not looking tea bag now.

View attachment 429650
But i doubt it'll look that tidy for long :D
Click to expand...

Very nice. One of these days I'll have monitors whose colour profiles match. Although now I've gone ultrawide for one that might be trickier.
 
Saul Goodman said:
My old monitors were looking... old, so I treated myself to some new ones for next Christmas... but the stands wouldn't fit correctly on the monitor shelf, so I had to buy 3x VESA mounts.
It's not looking tea bag now.


But i doubt it'll look that tidy for long :D
Click to expand...
What's the state of play now ?
OLED ?
I currently have two 23 inch IPS monitors..
When I finally settle in a new place I will want some more screenage - at least two maybe three 27 inch - or perhaps a more exotic arrangement ..
Assuming I take my old monitors, I may want to use them for tertiary PC(s) ...
 
gentlegreen said:
What's the state of play now ?
OLED ?
I currently have two 23 inch IPS monitors..
When I finally settle in a new place I will want some more screenage - at least two maybe three 27 inch - or perhaps a more exotic arrangement ..
Assuming I take my old monitors, I may want to use them for tertiary PC(s) ...
Click to expand...

OLEDs are stilly money still sadly. Although I want a 34" OLED Ultrawide for gaming, it won't be for a few years

To me the sweet spot for budget monitors is 27" 2560 x1440 which start around £150
 
gentlegreen said:
What's the state of play now ?
OLED ?
I currently have two 23 inch IPS monitors..
When I finally settle in a new place I will want some more screenage - at least two maybe three 27 inch - or perhaps a more exotic arrangement ..
Assuming I take my old monitors, I may want to use them for tertiary PC(s) ...
Click to expand...
OLED is:
  • expensive
  • still has burn-in issues when used as a desktop
It's fine if it's the second screen you use for movies and games and set the wallpaper to black and hide the taskbar.

A good pair of 23" screens is still optimal for most people (okay 24" is the sweet spot now, but you wouldn't upgrade for it). 27s are nice, but a pair (or more) of them starts to get a bit unwieldy. I use a single 27" on the gaming PC because I simply don't have room for a pair of them. (I should have gone larger for just one, but I originally thought I could squeeze a pair in) Personal computer tech rate of change has slowed way the fuck down in the past 10 years.
 
I've got to use 2x24 at work (along with my laptop screen). It feels cramped and awful At the MSP I had 3x27 when in the office.

Just rub salt in the wound everyone's else had a 42" ultrawide (the network guy has two stacked). Your status is shown by your screens. :D
 
Realistically it's two or three years away so who knows ... I hope IT kit isn't as expensive in France as power tools seem to be ...
I will have a fancy TV and a data projector in my new place so who knows what will prove suitable for multimedia access and for managing my gardening / security drones and various IOT stuff...

I definitely need 3 screens for my main workstation.
 
gentlegreen said:
Realistically it's two or three years away so who knows ... I hope IT kit isn't as expensive in France as power tools seem to be ...
I will have a fancy TV and a data projector in my new place so who knows what will prove suitable for multimedia access and for managing my gardening / security drones and various IOT stuff...

I definitely need 3 screens for my main workstation.
Click to expand...
My limited experience is that IT kit is typically significantly pricier in France than here.
 
gentlegreen said:
What's the state of play now ?
OLED ?
I currently have two 23 inch IPS monitors..
When I finally settle in a new place I will want some more screenage - at least two maybe three 27 inch - or perhaps a more exotic arrangement ..
Assuming I take my old monitors, I may want to use them for tertiary PC(s) ...
Click to expand...

UnderOpenSky said:
To me the sweet spot for budget monitors is 27" 2560 x1440 which start around £150
Click to expand...
This :thumbs:
They're 27" QHD IPS @165Hz.


The ones they replaced were 28" but there's no noticeable difference really, except these look a lot tidier with no side bezel, so multi monitor games look a lot better than before.
 
I'm probably going to have to factory reset my old phone as it appears to have too much baggage due to having been on the same network before with a different activated SIM - doubtless GIFFGAFF / O2 will baulk at interacting with me though I have my IMEI number at the ready...

I don't know why but I want to export my message and call logs.

I should have done a FR years ago, but I bricked the SD card when I did it before because I didn't unmount it - seems to be "eject" on Android 7...

It's complicated by not having any viable USB ports on my PC ..
To be fair I can't name anything on my SD card that I need - having copied far too much of it to my PC over the years...

OCD / hoarding is a bastard.
 
I'm still trying to set up GiffGaff on my new(ish) 2nd hand phone.

Got SIM card but no reception in the house so I have to go up a nearby hill. Did that, got GiffGaff signal and tried to sign up but wanted a code so I came back, got the code, went back up nearby hill and tried again. No GiffGaff signal this time, only O2.

Checked on GiffGaff forum and it said you can sign up to GiffGaff on O2. Went up hill and got O2 signal but it just kept searching. Checked on GiffGaff forum and it said I'd need a new SIM card so I've requested that and will try again. This has been a couple of months now since I don't go out all that often :rolleyes:
 
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