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I do wonder, if without a rinse (or a vacuum) you're just pushing the crud around the record with a cloth, rather than removing it. Anyhoo, there's no right or wrong, as the long as the record sounds fine, it's all good.

Best be quick, January is nearly over

Annoys the fork out of me that January is the vegan promised land on supermarket shelves, only for half of it to disappear for the other 11 months.

I’m tempted to give them a go, they have 12 positive reviews from what look like genuine accounts.

Thoughts on https://www.discogs.com/seller/DubStoreUK/profile ?

New seller, have dumped 250k records onto Discogs. They say takes 3-6 days to ship; I presume they're importing them from Japan before onwards shipping within in the UK? Discogs lists them as having 11 copies of one of the albums I'm after!

I wonder if they do actually have 250k records, or if they're just buying them from other shops in Japan as needed.

Nope, pretty instant for me (M2 Macbook Air, macOS 13.1).

Brushing, playing, brushing the stylus ... Generally after twice it's alright. A wet clean with a microfiber cloth does help though, particularly with the static.

Yeah, that's what I do for new records. Play it, and clean off any paper/plastic gunk that get's stuck to the needle. As you say, it's normally fine after a couple of plays.

Used records get a spray of water/isopropyl alcohol (with a tiny squirt of washing up liquid), scrub with a soft nailbrush, and rinse under a tap.

Reasonably priced bluetooth earbuds? Picked up a set of Belkin ones from Argos for £25 but they're basically useless for calls according to everyone I've tried to call!

I think that's pretty much every bluetooth set of headphones. Dankpods does mic comparisons and bluetooth ones always end up sounding shit in comparison to cheap wired headphones.

If you don't need noise cancelling, the Sony WF-C500 are nice for £55. With the caveat that the mic won't be as good as wired headphones.

Incoming old man shakes fists at clouds - Are the crowd in this typical of clubbers now, or is this just a Boiler Room thing? Seems more like a gig with everyone facing the DJ and people recording it on their phones.

Anyhoo, Kerri Chandler awesome as always and mixing on four reel to reels. Atmos mix of it on Apple Music also.
https://youtu.be/K6XiDub2Wc4

@HousecatHST After a particular frustrating day where my HomePod Mini's refused to play as a stereo pair, I brought a TP-Link wi-fi router and put my Virgin Superhub into modem mode to feed it. Night and day difference, the Mini's work really well now. A combo of the Superhub being a crap wi-fi router, and the Mini's being finicky over their wi-fi connection probably.

I've been listening to a fair bit of Atmos mixed Jazz over the Stereo Mini pair lately, and really enjoying it. Coltrane's Blue Train in particular sounds fantastic.

Second Camilla George.

Also recommend cktrl. Whilst he plays sax, he's also a multi-instrumentalist. His records are quite ambient verging into classical at times, highly recommended.

Yes! The music sounds so compressed, with no dynamics. Tried vinyl, cd and streaming with no difference. I'd imagine they're great live, shame the LP doesn't potentially capture that.

I like a stereo pair of HomePod Minis a lot, however, the software is buggy and confusing . They often get confused between the home app and the music app on the same phone, and thinks they’re different sources. Often best to just use the AirPlay thing in sources rather than faff around with home, or placing your phone next to the speaker to transfer music.

In no order

Ron Trent presents Warm - What do the stars say to you
Myele Manzana - Crisis & Opportunity vol.3 Unfold
Wu-lu - Loggerhead
Little Simz - NO THANK YOU
Contour - Onwards!
SAULT - 11
Dezron Douglas - Atalaya
Makaya McCraven - In These Times
Various Artists - Touching Bass: Soon Come
Soil & 'Pimp' Sessions - Lost in Tokyo

Others - Doomcannon, Kokoroko, Plaid, Shabaka, Comet is Coming, SAULT (all of the their other albums), Neil Young, Lambchop, Kaidi Tatham, Danger Mouse & Black Thought, Camilla George, Anteloper.

Listend to a load of new music this year.

If you're looking at older models (i.e. used) you also need to factor battery wear into account.

Or add on roughly £70 to the cost of the second hand phone for Apple to fit a new battery.

I've got one of those. Helps with stuff like Cauldron, as others have said, as that's a fairly 'wet' tofu. Doesn't do a whole lot with dryer stuff like Tofoo, though.

I have a carpenter lined up to produce the fronts for the Tannoy Eatons to make them cat proof.

In other cat-related audio hi-jinks, it appears a cat paw standing on top of a Homepod Mini turns it on. Which is great at 4am.

Publicity stunt from London Dungeon to ban vegans during 'Vebanuary'

It's only made it as a press release to local news sites and isn't on their socials. So hopefully, they've realised it's: A, Stupid and B,Ilegal to ban vegans.

What should I buy to stream from Tidal on my iphone to my old amp with phono/rca inputs?

Looks like I’ll get better quality from Airplay than Bluetooth, right?

Apple AirPort Express. No longer made by Apple, but can get used from Cex for £30. Gives a combined 3.5mm analogue/digital out that you can stream to via Airplay. I use a 3.5mm to RCA cable into my analogue amp and very happy with ease of use/sound quality streaming lossless from my iPhone or MacBook Air.

Irks the fuck out of me that journalists never challenge people who bring up the woke agenda/woke debate/tofu wokerati as to what they mean by 'woke', and why being woke is a bad thing.

Disappointing from van Aert.

£1,393 at John Lewis with 18 months interest free credit, if you want it.

I brought an M2 Air with 256GB and haven't noticed any issues with SSD speeds, as a fairly light user. Only gaming I've done on it though is iOS Ridge Racer and Pacman CE DX.

getting satisfying low end, especially at lower volumes can be tricky

That's what the loudness knob is for. The owners manual on Hifiengine explains how it works. Looks as though you can adjust up to +/- 10db, which should be plenty.

If you can't get good bass at +1odb at lower volumes, then something else is probably the matter.

I shall stick with a sub-200 MM one then for now.

I don't think you can beat an Audio Technica VM95ML at that price range

Yeah, Regas aren’t flimsy.

Something like this Denon DP-29F is probably as small as you’re going to get new, outside of things like the Soundburger. Looks to be the same turntable at the Audio Technica LP-60, which you can get for more money than the Denon variant.

They’re not going send as nice as your Technics did though.

Really digging this end of year list from the great Rush Hour record shop in Amsterdam.
https://www.rushhour.nl/top-25-albums-2022.

Some excellent Jazz and Jazz-ish stuff (amongst others) on there. Touching Bass had passed me by until I checked them out from this list. The comp is ace, Neo-soul, hip-hop and jazz (with a Nala Sinephro track) to techno bangers. Contour is future Neo-soul, and cktrl (not featured on that list, only ep's so far) is recommended for lovers of the aformentioned Sinephro, and Floating Points Promises album.

Also on the list is Ron Trent's 70s/80s fusion meets Kraftwerk LP. Tumi Mogorosi's (Shabaka & the Ancients drummer) acoustic jazz with choir album, that actually works better than Kamasi Washington's stuff.