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MC cartridge needs RIAA decoding + gain - MM stage is RIAA, gain can be step up transformer or amplifier based. Yep, there are high outputs MCs, like the DL110 mentioned.

Sometimes you can buy cartridges sold as with a worn out stylus and photos of it looking all blunt and rounded - once you've cleaned the gunk - you sometimes find that the diamond is mint. What played the sound wasn't the profile of the diamond, but the dirt itself. ..

I clean my stylus with methylated spirit probably every 4 sides - if you look at the diamond with a magnifying glass you should be able to see the gunk. Next thing is the tracking force (the force that stylus presses on the record needs to be matched to the cartridge specs). There's also low compliance/high compliance match with a tonearm. Then there's a setup of the tonearm - the angle of the stylus (tonearm) relative to the record (VTA - vertical tracking angle) and azimuth (if you have that control on the tonearm). The record could have been destroyed (so the sound is destorted). Then everything else in the chain. Your mm will have capacitance settings but that would only influence the EQ of the sound (I think). You don't need gain for MM - if you had gain turned on that would cause distortion. There's also the stuff downstream - but I'd think that your problem is in the cartridge/tonearm domain.

It's more of a fetish - but big stuff that's outdated can be had for little money and if space not an issue...

yep, a lot of money, mind you, probably good value still

this is the musical mess

has any one in particular striked you as being particularly melodic? it would be fun to find an early small broadcast console with RIAA inputs. even collectible ones cost only around 300 - which is way less than a decent preamp. Good eq, phase switching ... so much fun

I've just bought an old Soundcraft Spirit F1 for the price of 2 bottles of wine and it sounds better than any pre-amp I've got (valve, passive or SS). If I knew which other mixing desk has good pre-amps - it would be worth a punt...

Do line inputs go through a pre-amp and is that the some microphone pre-amp?

Is anyone using a vintage mixing deck instead of a preamp? What would be an old, high quality one to use with normal line inputs (phono stage, tape player...)?

Maybe the cassette is protected - there's a gap in the casing for a lever to go in and if that's blocked up - then the record button want actuate.

Have you seen this? https://cabin.city/
It's just one of many similar concepts.

the hiss that dolby adds can be easily heard. record without dolby, with dolby b and with dolby c and play without dolby - you'll hear the particular hiss associated with dolby

well, if recorded with dolby, yes

LOL, got the terms wrong - pinch rollers are the rubber wheels :-)
When I was young - the cassette hiss always annoyed me - I can hardly hear it now...

Back to an interpersonal protocol that would work without the "trusted" third party. Imagine we all have on our machines a customisable communication protocol that could broadcast and receive messages from anyone and we can set up various filters and challenges - so first we allow individual protocols to talk between themselves and find out whether there's a match - then move onto personal communication.

That' s how we could get rid of all the 3rd party portals FB, LinkedIn... and have total control.

But, there's a bit of psychological work that needs to be done - to establish rules of engagement so people know what to expect, how to protect themselves, how to communicate at the right level. That could be AI assisted.

yes, changing consciousness is one way to do it....

Those rubber wheels are called capstans and they pull the tape along. They can dry out or wear out and you have a choice of replacing them or cleaning with a special compound.

The heads don't turn - they just push onto the running tape and read. Grab a cotton swab and clean the heads with isopropyl alcohol. I normally clean heads every few days (if playing cassettes).

And one of the truly untapped powers of the universe is bringing individual consciousnesses closer to each other and establishing protocol for collaboration - or you could even call it a "love protocol", which at the moment exists only in a very specific way and seems underutilised.

I think that a part of the problem is this (blind?) belief in quantitative analysis and optimal systems.

I also think that the answer is partially philosophical, maybe even metaphysical or even religious.

Nietzsche touches on it in his superhuman concept - it's about reaching true potential, or new potential - through self transcendence and self overcoming - which pretty much means breaking rules, or ignoring consensus, ignoring facts and seeking new perspectives.

It's true, complex systems spend time suspended - waiting for the "leap" conditions. I'm trying to hint at those and I'm saying - the structure doesn't provide answers how to break out of the structure. It only establishes rules how to keep that equilibrium.

Again, it's always a temptation to "statistically, scientifically..." look for causality - but IMO that is not what it takes to break out of our predicament. Or, in other words, we should stop looking behind our backs and focus on what's ahead.

Wow, what a great response, thanks! Exactly what I've been hoping for.
There are so many discussion topics here and we'll be drilling into those one by one.

There's one thing that I'd like to address first (as you've validly raised it) and that's our paralysis of thinking due to the sheer complexity of problems that are facing us and the infinite derivation of new emerging problems and pathways as a result of the indeterminate nature of the results of our tempering and modelling.

There's only one solution to it - Gordian Knot! When something is too complex for untangling - the proper course of action is to cut through it! Then, instead of looking for million cures to cure million diseases - you're looking for one magical cure to cure them all.

You still need to scope out stages and avoid overthinking in terms of looking ahead in terms hundreds of years.

But important thing is also not to fool ourselves that a revolution can change the situation with any permanency. Also not to blame rogue individuals for the predicament of the planet (Rene Girard's mimetic theory - Girard suggested that societies tend to transfer their collective guilt onto a single person or group, the scapegoat, to resolve social tension or conflict. This scapegoat is then expelled or killed, which temporarily restores harmony).

I have to disagree (respectfully) here ;-)
I've got experience with 1,2 and 3. Europiccola was crap at frothing and I improved a bit by blocking 2 holes (with tootpicks, of course).

The Izzo Pompei has 1 hole and is a professional 2 grouphead machine and the performance is much better than La Pavoni ... but

This Bezzera Strega has 2 holes and is a frothing monster! So, there's more to it than the number of orifices...

Midweek reflection.

It would be interesting to conduct a survey and ask people what are the most pressing frustrations (or factors that give them anxiety/angst and stop them from enjoying life as much as they could) and come up with an ordered list.

For example:
1) money problems
2) relationships problems
3) inability to buy house
4) work / business issues
5) lack of freedom / independence
6) psychological issues - anxiety
7) loneliness

The premise is that in a large enough pool of people - you'd have capacity to deal with all of those. There are people very good at doing admin stuff and there are people are very good at dealing with physical situations. There are some with alternative perspectives, deep wisdom, cognitive abilities...

That could be a basis for creating groups/clubs/organisations that wouldn't aim to be therapy groups, but try and actually remove the underlying (physical or psychological ) problems.

Those could be simply co-operatives - an organisation that would be projecting a higher consumer power (maybe) by, let's say, purchasing car or house insurance for 10,000 members and project a greater bargaining might.

There could already be a demand for something like this that wouldn't be subversive in terms of its relationship to the state, but help with the alienation problem and the lack of capacity/capability.

Another day, another thought :-)

This one is about friendships or about "meaningful" relationships.

What I'll try to capture here is how we're "holding back" from maximising the potential of connections with people because we're trying to minimise inter-personal risks and want to remain independent and minimally committed.

Important thing to bear in mind here is that we, as individuals, are at our weakest when it comes to our relationship with the outer world (nature, society), but the most sovereign when it comes to personal agency.

The modern society emphasises the importance of being independent financially and emotionally in relation to each other, but being totally dependent on the society (having a nominal value of 1 in terms of political, economical power).

This is a huge area and I don't want to go into details, just a taster or a conversation starter :-)

https://slantpositive.vercel.app/Friendship%20Reinventing%20Bonds%20as%20Cornerstones%20of%20a%20New%20World

Yep, this is pretty much one perspective on looking at the planetary/societal problems. That's the first bit that I addressed in the intro - it's this appeal to humanity that we're heading in the wrong direction and it's about 2 groups of people - one saying - how can the world not see that we're working against the clock to stop destroying humanity and the planet and the other who don't see anything wrong with the world - it's just a cycle and they get on with minding their own business and taking care of their families trusting that the system will evenutally get back into sync.

What I'm proposing is the 3rd way - where we acknowledge that the world is changing and that we, individually or collectively, are facing deterioration of our lives (or at least not improving) - so we think out of the box and start thinking of ways to create new relationship between us, nature and society and build "structures" to make ourselves less sensitive to the changes and more in control with what really matters to us on a micro level. A good word is making ourselves "anti-fragile". That also includes - not being so sensitive to overreacting to some negative things like climate change, far right rise... etc. :-).

I've had terrible clogging when spraying water on beans prior to grinding... Maybe just my bad experience, but from memory. -the grinder jammed