http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/20/the-sound-of-touchdown/ I see no link. Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active

I was listening to a piece on Inside Science yesterday, and they were speeding up and slowing down animal sounds. When they played one at normal speed it seemed to me it had a kind of beat effect that would not be heard in a real bird. Indeed when they slowed it down it was even more obvious. Nobody commented on that at thetime, but it reminded me of the old days of biaoscillators that were...

At the moment in xp, I use a program called quickmix, which allows one to set up mixer settings of the sound card as you want, and then save it. That file with a qmx suffix can then be run any time to recall that specific setting without having to go to the audio settings and put them back as you want them. However this software will not work in Windows 7 and up due to the different way...

Got an odd problem. Sound from TV goes to an external setup via Toslink, and the volume can't be adjusted on the TV - ie a proper line out. TV set speakers switched off. Have a BT STB (Humax) fed to the TV by HDMI. The volume on that can be adjusted by the remote in the normal way. Set both to an SD channel - say BBC1 - and adjust the level from the STB so it matches the TV when you switch...

On BBC Radio 4 this afternoon, the 2003 surround sound version. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076htk Anyone had any success with listening to BBC radio in surround sound? -- Eiron.

I've noticed rather high levels of rumble on BBC Radio 4 recently. e.g. Saturday's 'Today' http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04kzz5p at about 1:53 and 1:57 onwards. What's going on? Don't they roll off the bass on speech? It was painful through decent speakers.... -- Eiron.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/technology-topics/11138572/Bose-at-50-beyond-sound.html

Ok newbie hear ..hello......I have a pair of of old technics SB400 speakers,I wondered if anyone knows what cable/connectors I need,they have 2 'male' connections +/- and these are threaded?. I know they are very old but they look good and I want hear them lol. Many thanks for any info...Paul.

Nice to see all those BTR2s. For once they made a reasonable fist of re-creating a period recording studio. -- *How's my driving? Call 999* Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound.

I've been trying to contact Brennan with an embarrassingly simple question (wouldn't dare to trouble this august NG about it!) but my email to tech support bounced, a telephone call had a recorded message directing me to their website and said website tells me it is a "parked domain" - whatever that means. Anybody happen to know if they've gone bust? Geoff

Picked up another pair from a deceased friend. I already have a pair. These are distorting. The bass units appear fine, and I've had the HF 1300s apart to look at the coils - again ok. Any ideas about checking the STC units? The distortion is most noticeable on some types of speech - mainly female. If I roll the treble off it all but disappears. -- *When the going gets tough, the tough take a...

Anyone know if or where you can get replacement bulbs for the Technics a1000 power amp - and can you fit them yourself? Thats the bulbs that light up the meters on the front.

I've recently been experimenting with using Audacity to deal with clicks in digital recordings made from old LPs. I suspect I'm not the first to do this or encounter the following! Hence I'd be interested in feedback on what follows... LPs in very good condition only have a few clicks, and these can be easy enough to find and fix. Particulary if they are loud 'rifle shots' that stick out clearly...

An impulse purchase on ebay - a pair of KEF Cantata G4s, very cheap. Now in the garage so I can listen to the BBC while tinkering. But listening to some Thomas Tallis was a very similar experience to a visit to the dentist - not actually painful but not pleasant... http://www.kef.com/html/gb/explore/about_kef/museum/1960s/Group_4_Cantata/index.html Are the original B139s worth selling on ebay...

From the Wikipedia page on KEF: "As Laurie Fincham, Cooke's successor as chief engineer, later revealed, the only reason the B139 was vertically mounted ovoid-shaped was that the British tax code at the time penalised products above a certain arbitrary width." So now we know! Still don't know if the early ones are worth selling on ebay though.

A mate has asked for my advice on an amp and speakers. They're for a newly built extension, 5m x 4m x 2.4m(h), concrete floor/rugs, lowish ceiling, lots of glass on 2 sides. He listens mainly through Spotify, and classical, and has a turntable and CD player. He's seen a Yamaha AS500 amp and Dali Zensor 3 speakers at Richer Sounds, so a £500 budget. He has some stands. He also has first...

Looking for a 3-band 4th order Linkwitz-Riley crossover. The Behringer DCX2496 looks perfect. Anything else available that does something similar? How about multi-channel soundcards and software? -- Eiron.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/mp3-cd-24-bit-audio-music-hi-res Not quite as daft as usual... -- Eiron.

Can anyone explain the Quad 405 internal grounding? On all, the 'power' ground is via the heatsink to chassis. On the DIN input ones, the 'signal' is grounded to chassis at the DIN socket. With the board removed, there is 10 ohms between signal to power ground - as expected due to R2.

When the election comes are you a floating voter? Brian -- From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active