In article , Phil Allison wrote: 50V and below is called "Exra Low Voltage" as is regarded as safe to touch. So if there is any possibility of touching a live contact a connector will be rated to 50V in domestic use. For industrial applications, however, it is assumed that anyone using the connector is going to be...

Does SPDIF completely define the format of an audio souce so that all S/PDIF audio outputs coax or optical are compatible with corresponding inputs? If so then presumable DVB-S and DVB-T receivers that have S/PDIF ouputs must do some sort of conversion from MP2 or AC3 and is this a loss less conversion? If I have an amplifier with a good quality DAC am I likely to get better sound quality...

Tonight's University Challenge was St Andrews vs, Somerville College, Oxford - JLS* will no doubt be pleased to know (if he doesn't already) that St Andrews comfortably won the contest. I have just retired to watch a recent BBC proggie (recorded to DVD) called the 'The Great Ossian Hoax'.... Only a few minutes in and bugger me, the first 'guest expert' was/is Prof. Robert Crawford, St...

I have some projects with 300b SET amps built on two chassis - power supply and signal chassis. Right now I'm using amphenol 4 pin AP series connectors for earth and HT - which is about 440v or 490vDC off load. I'm wondering about a simpler coax option, since I really only need HT and earth (rest can be done with 4/5 pin XLRs and 4/8 pin speakons). The umbilical can be fixed at the PSU end and...

There was a company called EEI Australia that made the Elite EEI 500 moving magnetic pickup cartridge (and a moving-coil model) Does any one know what happened to them? It has been suggested to me that umless I am willing to spend £500+ on a pickup cartridge, I would do better to stick to the moving magnet ones rather than a moving coil one. Would anyone dispute this?

"Andy Evans is Brain DEAD " I have some projects with 300b SET amps built on two chassis - power supply and signal chassis. Right now I'm using amphenol 4 pin AP series connectors for earth and HT - which is about 440v or 490vDC off load. I'm wondering about a simpler coax option, since I really only need HT and earth (rest can be done with 4/5 pin XLRs and 4/8 pin speakons). The...

An interesting new approach to signal analysis is (sketchily) described on the following pages, it appears to be an attempt to apply FFT techniques to analysis of music signals. http://www.quantumqrt.com/submenu.asp?MenuID=3&ContentID=24 http://www.vertexaq.com/content/view/36/1/ Too complex for my hamster brain to grasp. Any comments?

I have noticed a worrying trend in power supplies. In them old days, there was a power brick with a transformer and some diodes and some capacitors and some series stabilisers in the unit. Now however we have a thing about the size of a plug, which does the job of the brick. Problem is, they chuck out both down the mains and radiating via the lead to the device, huge amounts of wide band...

So, after asking a simple question in the tv group, I thought i'd ask here, why did we go dab, and what of DRM and HD Radio, any chance of these coming to us? Brian -- Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email. graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them Email:...

On Sep 15, 5:21*pm, wrote: On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:16:23 -0700 (PDT), Andy Kirkham wrote: As far as I know, no heritage railway has yet restored a station to British Rail corporate style (e.g. with "See a Friend This Weekend" posters and buffet branded as Travellers-Fare). Is it just a matter of time? Is there a generally constant...

On 21 Aug, 11:32, James Harris wrote: My speakers have four spikes beneath them which makes it a pain to move the speakers even slightly as the length of at least one spike has to be adjusted to make all four rest on/in the floor. (The floor is solid - maybe concrete - and not wood.) Anyone heard of a kit to convert four spikes to three? It would...

What should I expect to get for: Arcam Alpha 8 and Alpha 8P, both boxed (11 yrs old) Monitor Audio Gold Reference 20s, boxed (5 yrs old) All working order of course. Probably plan to downsize to eg Arcam Solo Mini + Musos

Can anyone help with this - I'm on Google groups and in Firefox and Safari (I'm on a Mac) I get a sidebar down thew left which obscures the first part of the posts. Anybody had this and know of a fix? Happens on all groups, not just this. andy

I help run the local Talking Newspaper, and as I'm sure many here are aware, the compact cassette has been the mainstay of the distribution for many many years. Its plus points are. its easy and fast to duplicate. Its easy to use by the users. It has hardware bookmarking, by which I mean that if you take it out, it remembers where it was and can be inserted into any player and start from...

Audio is Latin for "I hear" It's not a very good name for the field of knowledge that includes everything we understand as audio. What's the Latin for sound technology? It would surely be better to call it that.

Hi, Please let me know if this is not the right place to post. I have a Yamaha Natural Sound Stereo Receiver RX-495 70W+70W. The tuner only works intermittently, I am think of disabling the preamp section and using only the power amp section, because I just acquire a valve preamp. I remove the dust cover and find that the preamp and power amp sections are on two different circuit boards, these...

Hi, We will be moving from Oxford to Dorset (BH20 5BB). At present I use a Denon tuner. I am concerned about getting good FM reception in this part of Dorset and am wondering about the relative qualities of sound derived from FM and from our digital TV (we will be using Sky). Both will feed into a decent amp and speakers. I mainly listen to classical music. Thanks, Gordon

I got my latest copy of 'Stereophile' yesterday and started to read it. I came across comments by Paul Messenger about some work that Russ Andrews and Ben Duncan have recently put onto the web. This seems to be taken by Paul Messenger as showing that Russ's claims re some of his products are "now supported by proper scientific analysis". But having looked...

Noted the other day a weird station on DAB at least here in London. The sound on there is like a loop of distorted crowd noise and a ticking metronome. Obviously, they have done this to annoy those who enjoyed the woodland sounds and wanted them back. Coming soon it says.. Good Grief, Rumour has it its another Absolute.. I think a station called Absolute rubbish might be a good name.

A pal phoned up the other day with a tale of woe - they'd done a house exchange with some Belgians and come home to find their speakers not well. Seems the visitors had teenagers. ;-) Went across with a test CD and sure enough both bass units are rubbing. Turned the cabinets upside down - no difference. Dunno if the HF 1300s have survived - difficult to tell until the bass units are fixed. ...