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 (nobody)...and 129 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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i just wanted to disturb the triforce this thread had going on. |
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GOLD! |
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Fortunatley, Me, Dave and Mastah made a thread of exactly 100 posts, before curbcreeper tried to break the flow :) |
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Questions for Dave, but open to anyone with any ideas: I bought a cheap old PA amp (sort of small club/mobile DJing one) so I don't have to take my whole setup apart for parties. I'm pretty happy with it, but two questions. 1. It's a mono one, so I've just plugged the two speakers into the same pair of ports. Is that the right way? It seems to be okay... 2. It emits a low hum (not unlike a toaster or pylon), not through the speakers, but the actual amp itself. If I push the volume dial "in" firmly or press down on the top of the case, it greatly decreases. It's not a huge problem as it's only really noticeable when no music is playing, but it's annoying enough to make you want to turn off the amp when not in use. Extra info: It has an aux/line port that I'm plugging the mixer into, but it also has a phono port, presumably for plugging a single turntable directly into it. There's also a grounding clip like on a mixer, but as well as that, an extra port on the back that's roughly about the size of an XLR one, but with 4 holes arranged in a "Y" shape. It's labelled "negative GROUND 12V". Any ideas? Many thanks. |
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"1. It's a mono one, so I've just plugged the two speakers into the same pair of ports. Is that the right way? It seems to be okay..." eh..? two speakers into one terminal? |
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Yeah, each speaker has two connectors on the end (bare wire- not barrels, they're just cheapo hi-fi speakers) I've just put both black wires into one slot and both red into the other. It seems to work fine, just wondering if there was anything wrong with doing that/if there was a better way. |
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I think that'll reduce the power input to the speakers, and thereby the sound-quality. the low hum could be a transformer.. they often hum for no apparent reason... But if it stops when you press down on it, it could also be a fan... it's just that PA-gear more often has cooling-ribs than fans to reduce noise... |
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It has cooling slots in the top of it. The hum appears to of almost stopped completely now I've moved it to another room (maybe it was the surface the amp was on?). |
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maybe.. or maybe conflicting electro-magnetic fields (I've actually had a problem with something like this.. a mixer that made a loud hum when it was close to a power outlet...) of course, you may have had to "break it in" as well... but who knows... |
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Come to think of it, it was right next to a mixer before, now it's a couple of feet away with a few inches of fibreboard between them. |
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that COULD have been the issue, yes. Try moving it back near the mixer, and see if it starts making noise again. If not, it was just a matter of breaking it in... |
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I don't think it's breaking it in- it's at least second hand. I bought it from a pawn shop downtown and it looks like it was used for in store demos before whoever sold it to them got rid of it. |
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So, you have your speakers connected in parallel to the amp. According to the maximum power transfer theorum, the load impedance must match the source impedance. In other words, its best to match the speakers to the amp, i.e. 8 ohm amp output to 8ohm speaker , 4 ohm to 4 ohm, etc. Now if you connect two 4 ohms in series, that is 8 ohm(R1+R2), but if you connect them in parrallel, it is worked out as Rtotal=(R1+R2)/(R1*R2). in this case(two 4 ohm speakers) it would be 0.5 ohm Basically what I'm trying to get at is that if you drive a 4ohm from an 8ohm output, it is more likely to go bang, since its getting twice as much power as is nominal, especially if the two speakers are connected in parallel. also if 8ohm speakers are driven from a 4 ohm output, it will only reach 50% volume. AMP----Speaker-----speaker--| series |---------------------------------| *-----speaker------* |---------speaker---|------amp parallel |_________________________| If it works ok as it is, leave it. Its probably ok, if not, you would have noticed by now -------------------------- As for the hum, well it sounds like mechanical hum probably from a transformer or something in the power supply, which is fed by 50Hz mains. And will physically move at 50Hz and produce a buzz sound if loose/old/badly designed/other. (like streetlamps at night-very loud 50hz buzz I'm sure you've noticed.) |
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Thanks for the explanation Dave. The speakers both ask for 4 ohm impedance 20 Watt power. The amp is 20 Watt and there are (among others) a 4 ohm and 8 ohm port on the back. I should use 4 ohm, right (speakers only have connections to be linked in parallel)? |
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yeh, that matrix 3 really sucked. ;) |
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So, you've got a mixer? Or you've just had a go on the matrix3? :) BTW, hold off on the cart order from HTFR for a day or two, they're being evasive with me about a recent order they messed up. If they don't sort it, you might like to order from somewhere else (I can give you URLs)... you don't want to be trying to sort out an international order via email with them if they don't respond. |
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it was just an oportunity for me to bust neo's balls, sicne i finally saw that pile of dog vomit they called a sequel last night. |
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Damn, for a second there I mistook you for drunken mastah! (It's only usuaully me, dave and him in this thread :) |
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hahahaha no harm, no foul. btw: that 3rd matrix real WAS crap. |
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Just use the two 4 ohm speakers connected in series with the 8 ohm output. 4+4=8 :) or you could do one 4 ohm speaker to the 4 ohm output, but not both in parallel, cos in parallel, they would be 0.5 ohm total impedance. |
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How would I go about connecting them in series? Just for clarity's sake, here's a quick diagram of the back of the amp. Basically, each of the 5 places to put a speaker wire in (com, 4 ohm, etc.) have only one space, as opposed to the two you'd have on a similar thing in a stereo system. Where exactly should I put the wires (currently both black in the COM, both red in the 4 ohm)? Also, whilst it's obviously not essential, can you throw any light on what that grounding thing is? Thanks a bundle for the help, sorry I'm being so slow to grasp this, I always was poor at electronics (reason I only scraped a pass in physics ;-) |
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"How would I go about connecting them in series?" don't ask the wachowskis, they aparently had no clue how to either. ;) |
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He he, very good! :) Dave: I'm pretty sure connecting them in series is where one speaker has "piggy backing" ports to connect the other speaker's wires into it, so only one speaker is directly connected to the amp. I just wanted to clear up that by connecting in parallel you didn't mean each speaker to left/right ports of the same ohmage on the amp. |
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Ceri, I'm dissapointed you can't remember such a simple bit of physics! ;P Ok, here is what you do in SIMPLE terms: Red wire on first speaker goes to 8ohm socket. Black wire on first speaker goes to red wire on second speaker. Black wire on second speaker goes to COM socket. You have now connected the 2x 4ohm to make 1x 8ohm speaker effectivly, by putting the speakers in series. Now the load impedance matches the source impedance and you will get maximum power transfer. |
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Ah! thanks Dave :) (In my defense the guy who taught electronics was totally inept and most of the class did badly at it. I was great at waves and forces ;-) I've got it set up now so that I've got my amp and speakers out of one master out, the PC out of the other. Means I can still record/sample to HD, but don't need my PC turned on to use the tables- best both worlds. BTW after a week of using it Flare/Butchwax's Hee-Haw Brayks has become my favourite scratch record. I never realised the female, high pitched, cadent "Argh!" on Dizee Rascal's "Fix Up, Look Sharp" was a sample. |
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lol. Fix up look sharp is the number 1 comedy record of all time. I really wanted to do a mickey take remix of it, but after listening to the section I downloaded, I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. BTW, you might also like Bionic Booger Breaks by Qbert, on Dirt style records. Thats a good one too. The only problem with these is that cos they are us imports they are more expensive than you DJ peabird "shoddy breakz" or white label poo. Anyway, I'm glad you've finally got it working, just don't try and rewire your house or anything. |
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"Anyway, I'm glad you've finally got it working, just don't try and rewire your house or anything." You wouldn't believe it, but I've CAT-5ed my house myself and it all works perfectly ;) The UK prices can be annoying. I mean, Needlethrashers - Alpha, cost me £14 and that's really just 6 fairly short instrumental tracks. Sure, there's an unskippable beep-cha, two very small skits and an unskippable scratch section, but I already have copies of the unskippable bits/won't use the skits. I certainly didn't mind paying £11 for Hee-haw though, the layout of that is fantastic and I shudder to think how much time/how many dub plates he must of gone through to get it like it is. My other criticism is that my local store has a (extremly retarded) policy of ordering in single copies of battle records. So, you might well see Peanut Butter Wolf for £12, but there's no guarantee you can get a second copy unless you buy it from mail order or another Cardiff store that absolutely rapes you on the price (More likely to be about £19 there). |
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YEEE! just got word: the cartridge (+1 extra stylus, I think) has arrived! *does that silly victory dance that sit-com-writers think is funny* |
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welcome, welcome, to another round of questionjs about turntables and stuff... the ortofons arrived, and I attached it and managed to playback a few records plus some lightweight test-scratching (but as I don't have a mixer yet and the slipmat is heavy as six tons of crap and junk and stuff, I'll stick to playback for a while). I was just wondering.. it says in the carts specs that it weighs 18g, and that the weight should be about 4g. In the turntables manual, it says that for carts weighing over 10g or something, I should apply the auxiliary weight. So.. I put it on, but then the tonearm became WAY to heavy, and when I made it float (for 0-align), the weight had to be so far forwards that it couldn't be turned to 3. That's the second problem.. the weight only goes to three while the cart says recommended is 4... also: playback works fine at 2,5. Are these specs fucked up or something? anyway.. I still want to have the right height-adjustment for the tonearm, and it says in the specs that that would be 20degrees. How the fuck am I supposed to know if the stylustip is in 20degreee angle to the record? and again: if you didn't catch it the other time: the audio-quality for pure listening with these carts is awesome! it beats both CD and MP3 with MILES of quality. Of course, it doesn't compare to a normal listening cart of the same price and quality, but when you pay 1995 nok (£ 157,11) (one cart w/ stylus + two more styli), you'd expect such quality. (this pack was real cheap, though.. in comparison, the cart bought separately costs 1450 and a stylus costs 5-600 (both in kroner)) |
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bump for ceri. and anyone else. "question my integrity, won't you?" |
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I was just wondering.. it says in the carts specs that it weighs 18g, and that the weight should be about 4g. In the turntables manual, it says that for carts weighing over 10g or something, I should apply the auxiliary weight. So.. I put it on, but then the tonearm became WAY to heavy, and when I made it float (for 0-align), the weight had to be so far forwards that it couldn't be turned to 3. You should bear in mind that the technics manual is probably taking the weight of the headshell (which most carts are attached to) into account in that... weight of Headshell + Cartridge (over 10g) is probably more than than 18g (the weight of ortofons) therefore, treat ortofons as though they are less than 10g. That's the second problem.. the weight only goes to three while the cart says recommended is 4... also: playback works fine at 2,5. Are these specs fucked up or something? Provided it's new (but worn in), well pressed vinyl and the turntable is set up properly (and a good one for anti-skip, like technics), listening environment is good (not too near speakers, turntables on stable base, etc) playback can be acceptably skip free, at a lot less than the minimum recommended weight. The thing to remember is that cart is for DJing- specifically scratching, so estimates will be comparatively heavy. anyway.. I still want to have the right height-adjustment for the tonearm, and it says in the specs that that would be 20degrees. How the fuck am I supposed to know if the stylustip is in 20degreee angle to the record? Are you sure that's height adjustment and not how it should be rotated on the headshell? I know 23 degrees is the "magic angle" for emulating straight arms (for scratching) on S-arm tone arms (like on Technics). NB, you obviously can't rotate a concorde cart in that way! Are you reading that out of the Technics manual or the cartridge one? audio-quality for pure listening with these carts is awesome! Good to hear! |
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The 20degree-thingie is from the carts manual. But you think it hasn't got anything to do with the arm-height? What SHOULD the arm-height be normally anyway? Is it just taste and trying + failing? |
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Your best bet is to ask somewhere like . Technics (did you get a mk2/3/5 out of interest?) and Ortofon Concorde Scratch is a reasonably common setup for "serious" turntabilists (probably only techs and Shure m-447 is more common), so you should be able to find at least one person with the same setup who can help you. |
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the technichs are 1210 MKIIs. What are the 1200s about? They seem exactly the same, and they have the same manual... |
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1200s are the original (silver as opposed to black) model. 1210s tend to be more common in clubs/listening posts for some reason. I've read (on the technics site no less) that the way they "feel" when scratching or queuing (perhaps the torque/platter?), but I've not used them side by side and have never noticed the difference (I've only used 1200s briefly though, and never for scratching). Re: 20 degrees. Ah okay, it probably is refering to the height then... best bet would probably be to ask at the forum I linked to. Personally, My tonearm is as low as possible (although the high platter on PDX2000s might make a difference) and works fine there. Bear in mind I've got "normal" carts (stanton 505s) on a normal headshell though as opposed to a concorde cart. You won't really damage you styli or records (provided you don't have it set up wrongly for weeks at a time!) by having an experiment with different heights/tone arm weight settings. |
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*the way they feel when scratching or queuing (perhaps the torque/platter?), is different to 1210s. |
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Ok. but that forum.. being a stanton-forum, will they care if I ask, and have NO questions whatsoever about stanton gear? btw: are stanton slipmats any good (the music-shop where I can get them right away only has stanton)? I want a slipmat thats not TOO slippery, but not as firm as the one that comes with the technics.. I'd like to be able to move the record easily when using the whole arm, but not at all when only using my fingers (as with those strange slipmat-ish things I mentioned earlier in this thread)... or at least that's what I think.. I don't want it to slip if I accidentally touch it, so... |
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There are plenty of discussions about other brand turntables, mixers etc. there, they won't ban you :) Re: Slipmats. Are you sure? You might find it hard to scratch (and the record might skip more) if you used very heavy, "grippy" slipmats. Perhaps just get a pair of generic ones you like the design on. Get mats that are marketed towards mixing as opposed to scratching, too... |
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so you'd recommend very light slipmats really? I just figured that it wouldn't be that good it it could slip by a light touch... if so, I think I'll look into those butter-rugs and those magic carpet thingies.. the carpets were just something to put under or on top of the slipmat, right? |
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The only problem I find (for normal mixing) with v. slippy mats is that sometimes when you use the stop button they move a split second after the record platter has stopped and also that they take a bit of getting used to, to develop a gentle touch when nudging them backwards or forwards a bit to get records in time. I've got normal slipmats as well as butter rugs, but in reality, I don't even bother to put the normal rugs back on when I'm mixing (as opposed to scratching). One thing they're good at for normal mixing is that if you want to rewind or backspin, it'll go faster/longer if you want it to. If you get butter rugs, you won't need magic carpets- magic carpets are designed to make "normal" mats more like butter rugs. From what I can gather (and I know Dave agrees on this) they're not significantly different to cutting out a circle of the inside of a record's poly-lined sleeve a using that underneath the slip mat. Slipmats aren't very expensive (you can even get them as freebies at hip hop events, with magazines etc.), even butter rugs are only about £20 a pair, so if you do buy some and then decide you want to change, it's not really a big deal. |
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haha! if I get them at freebies, I'll be ok! I'm going to Nas later this month, and two days after that, it's Pharoahe Monch + Erick Sermon + Kool Keith + lots of div. artists! But still.. I think I'm going to order some butter rugs then. since they'll only set me back £20 (=244,48 kroner). That's two-packs right? |
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Yes, you only need to buy 1 pack of butter rugs they (and all slipmatts I've encountered) come in packs of two :) The only thing to bear in mind if you get them as freebies (I was talking more turntabilism events like Skratchcon, DMC, ITF, etc. but you might get them at gigs like those) is that they tend to throw them on their own into the crowd (you can throw more rigid ones quite far), so unless you and a mate work together you'll only end up with one ;) It's not impossible to do though, I got a pair of Technics ones (I gave them to a mate with techs) at the local DMC heats. |
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haha! I know about that throwing into the audience stuff.. I caught a ralph myerz vinyl plus a drum-stick and almost a water-bottle (which almost hit me in the face) at a ralph myerz gig! once again; thanks for all the help. there will surely be more questions later, though. |
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ok. the butter-rugs aren't sold by any place I can find here in norway, so I'll have to order from UK, I think.. I'd like to know if you've ever shopped , or if you have any recommendations as to which shop I should get them at (since they don't cost that much anyway, the price doesn't matter.. what matters is that they arrive). On that page it says that that's the price for four pairs? that makes 8 mats.. could that be correct? |
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I've not bought from them myself, but I looked into it (I was going to get my mixer there before the price hike) and they seemed reputable. 8 mats = Yep- you have to bear in mind those are flying carpets you linked to... not butter rugs! |
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did I? damn. that's what work'll do to your head, kids! don't ever get a job! It seems that shop doesn't even carry butter rugs, nor does it deliver outside of the UK! HAHA! I've been at the office for too long today! do you know of any other place where I might buy it? |
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I believe lot deliver worldwide. They're usually pretty good, but they cocke dup my last order (although to be fair, they've agreed to sort it out, free of charge). |
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Ok. I'll try them. |
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btw: MK.. I'm guessing 2 is the worst and 5 is the best, but what is the difference? When I look at the specs on the page, it just seems that they've taken different specs, but they are the same... like, the mk2 doesn't have "detachable lid" in the specs while the mk5 has.. both of them have detachable lid in reality... the "adjustable stop break" is new, though.. probaly handy for making those "whjEEEeeeeuuuwwww" sounds when slowing down the record more easy... Also the pitch reset button (which I doubt I'd have any use for anyway...) the "stylus pressure adjuster"... isn't that just that weight-thingie? that's on both as well, but not in the specs... the long-life LED needle light is on both, but only noted in the mk5 specs... strange... the mk5g seems good, though... more pitch-range and stuff, but in the specs for that, they've just put the specs in x2... weird page... |
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nah, noticed the difference.. the wider pitch is on the mk5 as well.. didn't look at that earlier. But the other things are just weird... I've been praticing some beatmixing now, and I'll probably keep doing that until I buy the mixer... Have you got any songs you've done some turntablism stuff on? Like doing the drums on one deck, or scratching or something like that? |
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