You Know You Are Old When

[DFB]

And...?

 

[DFB]

Funny what you do hang on to over time.
Then again I have some tools from my teens.

Interesting comment

I still have a Metric SK 3/8" socket set I bought off my younger brother when he joined the army

I think that was like 45 years ago now

 

[sixdogs]

Exactly. Everyone knows you need a stack of components in a glass-front floor-standing cabinet, about chest high, and at least one pair of enormous 3-way speakers the size of small filing cabinets.

Put The Wall on the turntable, turn up the volume, and turn down the lights...

View attachment 2907545 View attachment 2907546

How very true. Coming off the mono-sound of the 1960's and before, the stereo component system and 5 ft speakers of the early 70's gave a definition of sound that kids today will likely never know. I still have my system in the basement because nothing tops that sound. You can hear every string bend and every note was clear and crisp. The sound was magic.

 

[WinterDeere]

...it's like all wireless BT speakers now along with online streaming and satellite radio.

Yep. My house was done before the wireless BT speakers became a thing, and I suspect those probably have too many lag/phasing issues when trying to arrange as many as we have in this large house, so ours is all hard-wired to the utility room in the basement. Miles, and miles, and miles of wiring, to two big banks of impedance transformers, to match the 4 ohm output of each amp to the much lower impedance of many paralleled speakers.

If you have the ability to pull wire, I'd still favor that over going wireless, even today. Our system was actually set up by a local pro audio company for the prior owner of the house, but I've since expanded and improved it. I haven't counted speakers recently, but it's roughly 30, with about 20 indoors on one WiFi amplifier and another 10 outdoors on a separate WiFi amp. Bulletproof, no pairing or drop-out issues between speakers, etc.

The app that drives them allows us to run them together or separately, and they take streaming or wired inputs, so we can still play a CD or old iPod if someone brings one over. Mostly, we drive it thru Amazon music, and have something different playing out by the pool versus indoors.

My state of the art CD collection is pretty much boxed away.

Mine have been sitting in four large (20" cube) boxes in the basement. I started giving some away, because I'm not even sure they're worth selling. I think there were close to 800 CD cases, many of them doubles or even the occasional triple album, when I boxed it all up.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

I have at least four sets of stereo speakers stored away as the power units all gave up the ghost (cd player stopped working etc.), I kept all the speakers thinking I wire them up through out the place one day

Ya right it's like all wireless BT speakers now along with online streaming and satellite radio. I just replaced my SUV and no more CD player.

My state of the art CD collection is pretty much boxed away.
Gone the way of old vinyl it seems.

And, if you're an engineer, you will design and build your own Bluetooth receivers to power the old speakers rather than just buy Bluetooth speaker sets.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

Yep. My house was done before the wireless BT speakers became a thing, and I suspect those probably have too many lag/phasing issues when trying to arrange as many as we have in this large house, so ours is all hard-wired to the utility room in the basement. Miles, and miles, and miles of wiring, to two big banks of impedance transformers, to match the 4 ohm output of each amp to the much lower impedance of many paralleled speakers.

If you have the ability to pull wire, I'd still favor that over going wireless, even today. Our system was actually set up by a local pro audio company for the prior owner of the house, but I've since expanded and improved it. I haven't counted speakers recently, but it's roughly 30, with about 20 indoors on one WiFi amplifier and another 10 outdoors on a separate WiFi amp. Bulletproof, no pairing or drop-out issues between speakers, etc.

The app that drives them allows us to run them together or separately, and they take streaming or wired inputs, so we can still play a CD or old iPod if someone brings one over. Mostly, we drive it thru Amazon music, and have something different playing out by the pool versus indoors.


Mine have been sitting in four large (20" cube) boxes in the basement. I started giving some away, because I'm not even sure they're worth selling. I think there were close to 800 CD cases, many of them doubles or even the occasional triple album, when I boxed it all up.

I'm well past 2000 CDs, and occasionally buy more, if Amazon will "auto-rip" them to my digital library. And I hang onto the CDs so I can argue "fair use doctrine" for all of the mp3 files I ripped from them.

I'm currently going through the deceased Brother in Laws CD collection, of over 3,000, because he would get cash from the bank, and hide it inside the cases. Over $1000 so far. We didn't figure out he did that until we had boxed up about 1500 and dropped one on the floor. It popped open, and three twenty-dollar bills fell out. We started checking others and were over $500 in the next few hundred cases.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

Interesting comment

I still have a Metric SK 3/8" socket set I bought off my younger brother when he joined the army

I think that was like 45 years ago now

I have a Stanley tenon marking gauge, I bought at a hardware store which was closing when I was about six, would have been 1961 or 1962. I had carved my initials in it, before Dad took it from me. When we were cleaning up after Mom died, one of my brothers wanted to claim it thinking it had been Dad's. My initials, my tool.

And, I still have the 3/8 metric socket set, I bought in 1973 so I could work on my typing teachers Toyota Corolla. It is however missing the 12-mm.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

I knew I was old when:

I was walking through a mall, up ahead was a fine-looking young woman with a toddler, and her mom pushing a younger one in a stroller. She looked really familiar. After a few minutes I realized that Grandma was a cheer leader I went to high school with. I knew I was old.

 

[DFB]

And, I still have the 3/8 metric socket set, I bought in 1973 so I could work on my typing teachers Toyota Corolla. It is however missing the 12-mm.

HAHAHA so was mine missing the 12mm deep

I sneaked in a replacement one from TSC...markings are so similar almost can't tell the difference

You have to wonder where do they go?


These days its always seems it's the 10mm that goes AWOL

And they sell those in multiples now

 

[LouNY]

Don't think so, but until last year I still had a full USAF uniform hanging there for no reason other to remind me how much thinner I used to be. Been there through many homes over the last 40 years. Funny what you do hang on to over time.
Then again I have some tools from my teens.

Just noticed I have some military boots from those days I wear when all else is too wet to wear.

Carried a Marine Class A uniform around for many years and not a chance in heck that it would ever have fit again.

 

[goeduck]

That's why I own three basin wrenches... View attachment 2905536

I inherited my wife's grandfather's tools. He hoarded things and could never find anything. So I ended up with about 15 hammers, about 8 hack saws, about 12 electric drills,,, you get the point. He kept adding garage bays since he had a deep city lot to keep everything in. I think the original house had 2 bays and he ended up with 8. The apple does not fall far from the tree and it doesn't skip generations. My wife and her mother both have the affliction. There is not a place for anything, so nothing needs to be in its place. The concept of putting like things with like things never occurred to them. I like organization, so now similar things are together, but there are way too many of everything. You should see our scissors drawer, 35 of them. Any attempt to reign things in ends up not going very well. I hope I go first.

 

[Jstpssng]

He hoarded things and could never find anything. So I ended up with about 15 hammers,

We are cleaning up the family homestead and have found at least that many hammers and tape measures. In my father's case it was planned though. He got tired of always running for tools so had a hammer in each greenhouse, one on each floor of the barn, another in the shed. Then one each for the house and garage.
Also one in the ATV and another in the truck... you get the picture.

 

[BravoXray]

I still have my Dual 1212 turntable, two Sanyo cassette decks, Marantz receiver, 2 BIC speakers, probably 1000 CDs and at least as many 60s and 70s era LPs. I want to rip all the LPs to MP3s, just have to set up the equipment and do it. Soon, maybe.

 

[goeduck]

lol...

I still have big speaker stacks, but they're touring / stage speakers, since I was in a band and my house was the practice studio. The big home stereo has been replaced by a cluster of WiFi streaming amplifiers wired to about 40 tiny speakers scattered throughout the house, porches, and patios.

Is there any latency between the different brands of speakers?

 

[goeduck]

And, if you're an engineer, you will design and build your own Bluetooth receivers to power the old speakers rather than just buy Bluetooth speaker sets.

I still have my old JBL L100 speakers waiting for me to do that. I never saw who took this picture back in the day .

 

[WinterDeere]

Is there any latency between the different brands of speakers?

Interesting question. It'd take 20,000 miles of wire to hear even a 0.1 second delay, so you'd never hear anything like the delays you get out of some wireless solutions, using a hardwired system. A small phase distortion at higher frequencies takes much less delay though, so let's run the quick numbers on that:

If we assume you might hear phase distortion when one speaker is 10% (i.e. 30°) out of phase with another, and we assume primary (non-harmonic) tonal content is mostly below 1 kHz (e.g. open high string on violin is 660 Hz), then a 10% phase shift would always require a phase difference between speakers of more than 1ms/10 = 0.1 ms.

Light travels at 983,571,056 ft per second, and maybe up to sqr(2) slower than that over PVC-insulated matched-impedance cabling. Let's say 700E6 ft/s.

So, a 0.1 ms delay would require 70,000 feet of wire length difference between two speakers, to even hear it at 1 kHz. Longer for lower frequencies, e.g. A = 400 Hz above middle C yields 174,000 ft of cable length difference. Harmonics might be more easily distorted, at say 7000 feet of wire, but my system is less than 5% of that length... and how many can really even identify harmonic distortion by ear?

My speakers are all on cable runs of maybe 60 to 200 feet, so no problems with delay. Our bigger issue is actually attenuation causing differences in the volume projected from different speakers on the same volume control, due to long cable lengths. Speakers are a relatively low impedance, and thus draw a lot of current from a small voltage.

That big fat Monster Cable guys use in 10 foot lengths for their stereo speakers is a totally pointless marketing gimmick at 10 feet, but big O2-free wire gauges become very useful when trying to make your speakers sitting out at 200 feet project with similar volume to those at just 40 or 60 feet. If you've ever wondered why they make high-impedance speakers (16 ohms and more), this is probably one of the reasons.

 

[mjarrels]

Interesting question. It'd take 20,000 miles of wire to hear even a 0.1 second delay, so you'd never hear anything like the delays you get out of some wireless solutions, using a hardwired system. A small phase distortion at higher frequencies takes much less delay though, so let's run the quick numbers on that:

If we assume you might hear phase distortion when one speaker is 10% (i.e. 30°) out of phase with another, and we assume primary (non-harmonic) tonal content is mostly below 1 kHz (e.g. open high string on violin is 660 Hz), then a 10% phase shift would always require a phase difference between speakers of more than 1ms/10 = 0.1 ms.

Light travels at 983,571,056 ft per second, and maybe up to sqr(2) slower than that over PVC-insulated matched-impedance cabling. Let's say 700E6 ft/s.

So, a 0.1 ms delay would require 70,000 feet of wire length difference between two speakers, to even hear it at 1 kHz. Longer for lower frequencies, e.g. A = 400 Hz above middle C yields 174,000 ft of cable length difference. Harmonics might be more easily distorted, at say 7000 feet of wire, but my system is less than 5% of that length... and how many can really even identify harmonic distortion by ear?

My speakers are all on cable runs of maybe 60 to 200 feet, so no problems with delay. Our bigger issue is actually attenuation causing differences in the volume projected from different speakers on the same volume control, due to long cable lengths. Speakers are a relatively low impedance, and thus draw a lot of current from a small voltage.

That big fat Monster Cable guys use in 10 foot lengths for their stereo speakers is a totally pointless marketing gimmick at 10 feet, but big O2-free wire gauges become very useful when trying to make your speakers sitting out at 200 feet project with similar volume to those at just 40 or 60 feet. If you've ever wondered why they make high-impedance speakers (16 ohms and more), this is probably one of the reasons.

Can't open any thing from a store.

mark

 

[scootr]

Can't open any thing from a store.

mark

You know you are old when your hands don't work. Can't open a pickle jar, a plastic package, a letter, your zipper, or an app

 

[masseyrider]

I still have my old JBL L100 speakers waiting for me to do that. I never saw who took this picture back in the day .
View attachment 2923871

I have Electro-voice concert grade speakers. 15 and 12 inch woofers. Tweeters for midrange and highs.
Built the cabinets with my High School shop teacher.
Huge things. Over 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide. Takes a hand cart to move them around. They're in the rec room which is 34 by 26. I can make your ears bleed.
For the living room I have Monitor Audio gold series speakers. 2 front mains, 2 more secondary fronts, sub-woofer and centre plus 2 rear for surround.
My receiver has a pink noise generator with a mic. that optimises the sound to where you are seated.
Let the kids try and match that sound.

 

[Eagle1]

You know you are old when your hands don't work. Can't open a pickle jar, a plastic package, a letter, your zipper, or an app

True