DCC Archive Fess Up Time

..... not sure if I should be doing this but .....

There are a few DIY (Do It Yourself) people on this board. Well, OK, that's cool. Then I learned of an inexpensive way to upgrade speakers. You have pro cables running from your amp to your speakers, right? 10 gage, whatever. But when the sound gets INTO the speaker, the wires from the cross over to the driver(s) are really thin - like 20 or 22 gage. So I upgraded the internal speaker wires, hoping that the maufacturer was just being cheap. They were! Much fuller sound, etc. Very easy to do if you do it ONE wire at a time!

Then I decided (I had an abundance of speakers at the time - well I still do, actually!) to try to upgrade the sound in one of my spare pairs (brand shall go nameless, thank you - but they were 20 years old, British and sounded crappy. No base. Dull highs. Even mono sounded crappy through them. But great imaging!) Well I drilled 2.5 inch holes beneath the bass driver to give it more bottom end. Nope. Tried inserting plastic tubes in the holes (to make the "hole" opening at the REAR of the speaker). Nope. Stuffed it with fiberglass to eliminate vibrations. Nope. Reinforced the inside corners by glueing blocks of wood to give the box a more sturdy stance. Nope. This took weeks. Then, I contributed to the landfill. *sigh* What a waste of time!

Of course the classic stuff is when I got all excited over the new remasters. Traded in old CDs. Could not figure out why the new stuff sounded so lifeless.... still had highs! Maybe too bright sometimes! Bass was there! What was wrong!?!

Duhhhhh.... donno.

Then I picked up DCC's Band on the Run (What a REVELATION!), discovered this board and the rest is history. Luckily I did not... err... upgrade(?) (although it really was a downgrade!) too much of my CD collection.

What you think to be Heaven could turn out to be Hell! My fav. A. Cooper quote!

 

Back in the 1970's, there was a way to get free Quad from your stereo. Of course I tried it:

Get a third speaker, put it behind you, wire it up this way: Attach the + speaker wire to the - of the left channel receiver, and attach the - sepaker wire to the - of the right channel. Ta Da! Instant "Difference" coming out of the back. In other words, the information from the left and right channels, but NO center information at all, just the stereo echo from the vocals. Combined with the two front channels, it really sounded neat, hearing the vocals come from the front, and the stereo echo of the vocals coming from the back....

Well, I just loved that to death. In fact I disconnected the two front speakers for a while and ONLY listened to the rear channel. Just music and echo, no vocals!

I finally got over it, but those of us who had our systems set up like that really were the forerunners of Dolby Surround, eh?

 

Filtered: No. Menthol: Yes.

 

Fascinating read, Metralla! Worth checking out as I really do not want to replace my original vintage power cords! The power cord for the CD player is another matter, though!

But I wonder where I can find one of these outlets locally. If I can't find any place that knows what I am talking about, is there a place on the web that I can find these?