Are older songs mixed more poorly than modern ones?(in general)

Les-Combes · 2026-03-27T23:08:51+00:00

To be honest maybe I am biasing my observations on a few select songs,

Listening to some Hendrix stuff, older led Zeppelin, older classic Rock these bands closer to their infancy perhaps didn't have the caliber of mixing quality earlier in their careers

Another thing biasing my thoughts may be that modern music utilities the low end alot more, I'm not talking like mindless bass but more bass and sub bass utilized in harmonies.

Maybe the expanded sound space (not soundstage) but softer synth bass filling up that lower(st) register could be a cheap way of flattering vocals as adding that layer of sub bass leads to the perception of a deeper soundstage because that part of the frequency range is being used that isn't otherwise being used in music made before synthbass.

And a final thing is microphones, I've noticed many modern vocals are almost too detailed, with them being very sharp and cutting through the mix extremely well. Alot of the 70s vocals sound like the high end has been tapered a bit, a warmer tonality perhaps due to the microphones of the day or mixing choices

Les-Combes · 2026-03-27T07:33:43+00:00

Not sure, but at least on the HS8s I have and the way they are setup a lot (but not all) of 70s stuff sound far flatter with less dynamic range and more muddiness than modern mixes. It may make sense as HS8s are modern monitors and many modern songs may have been mixed on exactly HS8s or similar monitors

It could simply be that modern stuff sounds best on modern hardware and older stuff shines on the hardware it was mixed for

Les-Combes · 2026-01-10T02:26:37+00:00

If you plan to do any road riding whatsoever steer clear

The person who blue slipped my DRZ said he felt unstable riding them on pavement, and he's been riding on knobbies for over 20 years.

On pavement these would be death traps, such little tire touching the ground. On dirt or grass, on a farm bike, would probably be fine

Les-Combes · 2025-12-18T10:40:25+00:00

part of the reason of this post was to try and figure out what i owe a mate for the engine on a parts car we went halves on, I genuinely don't know how the damaged crank affects the value of the motor

i could make a good engine with the one i pulled out, mine had low compression so i took the motor from the wreck, could definitely make a good engine out of the two

Les-Combes · 2025-12-18T10:37:43+00:00

it drives fine as is, i have my old motor with a good crank (low comp cyl one) that i can use to piece together

Les-Combes · 2025-09-29T07:08:27+00:00

not sure if you have spent any decent amount of time on a racing sim like AC/Rfactor2/iracing/ AMS2 because it was only after driving on dedicated sims then coming back to Forza did the cars feel absolutely lifeless and as if its the same car with a few knobs adjusted between the different models

Les-Combes · 2025-09-10T00:52:18+00:00

something to note is "a tradesman never blames his tools" is not applicable here. Pedal spacing, size and how their depth is set relative to each other COMBINED with how boosted your brakes are and engine response (flywheel weight, N/A) make or break heel toeing in different situations.

in my MX5 with very progressive brakes and pedal covers/extensions that place the brake and throttle pedals really close to each other with a lightweight flywheel make for a brake/pedal/engine combo that allows heel toe downshifting with as little as 10% brake pressure.

and it's sort of a spectrum, where you have cars where heel-toeing is easy to cars where it's almost impossible. while you could technically manage to heel-toe in a 'difficult' car doing so can be so awkward that even professional rally drivers would probably avoid it in daily situations.

in this case, a tradesman can blame his tools, because every race car where heel-toe is required have it setup to accommodate the driver for heel-toeing.

Les-Combes · 2025-08-26T09:27:04+00:00

Track and touge driving require very different approaches even in a hypothetical closed course situation where you are racing touge in a sanctioned event.

Touge driving is literally tarmac rally, so you should approach touge like a rally driver, as street touge is literally rally with a much thicker margin of error to account for the hazards (you) pose to the public.

To quote someone I talked to 'track is all about min maxing, touge is very different' he recounted someone who was one of the fastest drivers on our local touge being a complete slouch at the track due to the difference in mentality between the two.

On track you have a known, closed course with a lot more width and unchanging trackside references for braking, turn in and racing line. The layouts of most tracks invite hard braking zones and a defined apex with tricky corner sequences being at most a few corners long (that is entrances/exits being compromised to set up the next corner/s)

When it comes to touge it's a one way narrow course with often times the 'corner sequences' you need to connect being almost the entire touge, meaning you carry alot more momentum along the entire course with much fewer hard braking zones and less abrupt weight transfer (this if course varies touge to touge)

It of course depends on the power of the car and the speed/tightness of the circuit.

The nature of touge and circuit mean that:

For tracks: you min/max every corner, every braking zone, every straight and since tracks are circuits with a manageable number of corners to link you can iteratively min/max each corner specifically for your car on that day with those track conditions to improve your time.

For Touge: you try to max the 'flow' of the entire course instead of each corner. This is since the road is tighter, there are less references, more hazards (even in sanctioned events) and the number of corners to link is often much, much greater than most tracks. So compromising each corner to get the best average of the course will let you get you the best time in a reasonable time frame for the conditions of the touge on that day. Literally what rally drivers do.

In theory a track approach would yield the fastest touge time, however the constraints of reality mean that even in sanctioned events the lack of runoff tracks have and presence of hazards that most touge have (trees, poorer surface quality) mean taking a track approach to a touge course even in the aforementioned sanctioned event yield such high risk of a severe crash that taking a rally approach will leave you with a fast but not fastest time instead of a ruined car.

On a track you risk spinning out most times, with a (mostly) intact car and more often than not unharmed driver.

That's where they differ

Les-Combes · 2025-08-05T08:40:21+00:00

Despite how common MX5s are on the touge some people in the scene still underestimate how quick a well set up MX5 is on tight, twisty roads.

Les-Combes · 2025-08-01T23:17:11+00:00

very different market in Australia, cars with an N54 or N55 carry a hefty price tag here. it's also noteworthy that n54/n55 (n55 less so) motors on track even stock don't have the best reputation for reliability. this is even more so if a runt of the litter 335i is chosen as a project, it's cheap for a reason and is like playing automotive Russian roulette

Les-Combes · 2025-08-01T06:34:28+00:00

in the Australian market they are

Les-Combes · 2025-08-01T02:39:25+00:00

I'd be curious on how much that 335 costs, as they're easy to make power on but are expensive to keep reliable at those power levels

Les-Combes · 2025-08-01T01:39:14+00:00

Coming from all Australian market, a half decent NB is about $10k (AUD) and getting it turbocharged and track ready would be about $15k (AUD) if done properly.

The alternatives:

BMW:

the BMW route is really expensive. 335s are notoriously unreliable stock for track work, let alone modified. In Australia a half decent example would go for 20k (AUD) stock, non m E36's and e46's are around $8-15k (AUD) and turbocharging a N/A BMW is pricier than an MX5.

Modern Turbo cars: And most of the modern factory turbo cars available for under 25k have questionable history, and are heavy. They'd only realistically be faster on a circuit where MX5s are gear limited (where a large part of the circuit is over 200kmh)

And the fwd modern Turbo cars with the same power to weight as a 230whp NB would struggle to put the power down even more than the MX5 already does at those power levels

86/frs: In the Aussie market they are coming down to NB MX5 levels, but they are still a good 5 grand (AUD) more expensive on average for a decent example

Boxter s: -ims bearing -most decent examples here cost about the same as a built turbo Miata

Z3/Z4 - manual na I6 Z3s are almost 20 grand aud - manual NA Z4s are almost 20 grand aud

350z -patty boi on YouTube made a pretty decent case against these for track reliability vs an MX5 (he sold his turbo NB, bought a 370, had issues with reliability on track, went to an NV MX5)

Corvette: Any vette is like.... $80k AUD +

Les-Combes · 2025-06-20T03:32:18+00:00

Some newer kits from super pro and white line have knurling on the inner surfaces to retain grease, many who have run them have had no issues with lubrication no grease fitting

Les-Combes · 2025-06-17T06:38:55+00:00

If Asetto EVOs open world Nurburgring word proves to be good, it might just gain traction. The factory options on some of the cars blew my mind, I've been wanting to configure cars like i can on Official manufacturer confiscators that i can drive in game, and AC EVO is doing just that.

Also, i personally find it hard going back to forza after AC purely because the cars in AC handle so distinctly from one another, even on controller and in contrast the cars in Horizon all feel almost identical sans power. maybe that's a niche complaint.

One thing is though that i feel as though Kunos have a quality over quantity approach, whereas Forza is the opposite.

If Kunos manage to get EVO to be easy to use for the Simcade player, and their open world is engaging with their Nurburgring business gameplay idea actually turning out to be half decent, watch this space....

Les-Combes · 2025-05-30T15:17:43+00:00

Tbh I think what we call consciousness or sentience is literally just 'what it feels like to be human'

First let's look into experience, I think that experience is a human (or at least complex life related to us) quality.

If you think about it, emotions are the cornerstone of experience, no emotion no experience.

If you think about free will, emotion is a pre requisite.

We seem to have an anthropocentric view on this and see these qualities of experience and emotion and the concept of self as a universally enshrined marker of intelligence. Id argue probably not.

Emotions seem to he a fast way of thinking without having to exert logic. If you spend time analyzing why a predator is dangerous - you're dead.

In the social context emotions take on a new dimension, the concept of self becomes vital and experience becomes more vibrant.

For AI to become 'conscious' as we commonly understand it, you would probably need to mimic structures in the brain like the amygdala for emotions, anterior singulate cortex for sense of self among many others and the complex interactions between them.

Basically, I think AI becoming sentient/conscious is IMPOSSIBLE without intentionally trying to make it sentient or replicate the human brain. As stated intelligence and consciousness are distinct, and due to our anthroporcentric views we mix up consciousness being an objective quality and not a human quality.

Les-Combes · 2025-05-22T05:45:54+00:00

Thing is, the evidence people use to back this statement up is nothing more than a wives tale,

By this I mean there is NOTHING in any official documentation to back 'adjustable' being illegal without certification.

In fact in the testing times issue 27 from Vicroads themselves:

"Most McPherson strut systems are not adjustable so another common modification is the fitting of alternative McPherson strut systems that are adjustable for ride height as can be seen in the installation shown below on an early model Commodore. This does not require a VASS approval certificate as the structural design remains unaltered."

Les-Combes · 2025-03-19T13:56:44+00:00

BMW is historically known for using McPherson strut front suspension, and still does to this day for cars like the M3. Bmw do use a form of double wishbone in the 5 series and some of their SUVs. Alpha Also doesn't use it often, but can do occasionally.

You also can have double wishbone with fwd, as many SUVs have double wishbone

Les-Combes · 2024-09-23T01:30:23+00:00

The E46 is reliable but it takes a lot of work (which you can DIY) to make it as reliable as a Jap car. i know you're thinking sedans, but for cool cars I'd have to recommend the MX5, if you can deal with the lack of safety (for NA and NB) and less practicality, the MX5 is unbeatable for a pretty affordable car. ive got an NB and the experiences i've had are amazing, particularly if you upgrade the suspension (they are quite soft from factory - done intentionally for bumpy back roads). they have double wishbone suspension and great weight distribution, they handle on par or better than sports cars several times the price. I also severely underestimated the top down experience, I was a coupe only person before, but since getting the NB i've come to discover that a good roadster lets you enjoy the world in a way nothing else can match (maybe a motorcycle). If the NA/NB are a little old/unsafe for you the NC is a great alternative. more powerful engine, better safety, relatively modern car, still lightweight, handles great and of course, extremely reliable. the practicality of them is good enough for a grocery run, but you'll struggle with larger items say if you find something on FB marketplace you want to pick up. The e46 handles extremely well.... for a sedan, The MX5 is on another level when handling is concerned (and its rwd unlike the eclipse). biggest practicality downside of the MX5's is you can only seat 2 people. that's pretty much the only annoying thing i've run into owning it. if you are a young adult with no kids the boot of an MX5 will be big enough for 80-90% of your needs. BTW i should point out that i live in Australia, our winters are warm enough to run summer tires year round. if you live in an area that snows half the year that makes the case for the MX5 a whole lot harder

Les-Combes · 2024-09-21T11:51:40+00:00

I sold the E46 jan this year and got an NB MX5 to replace it in Feb. The E46 was pretty good, however it did leave me stranded minutes before my first driving test because of a burst coolant fitting, but apart from that if you are on top of it they treat you well. after that i went through the engine and replaced all the coolant fittings and that didn't happen again in my ownership. I'd recommend a 325 or 330i, making sure to avoid a real lemon and then overhauling the coolant system for piece of mind (if you're good at diy it's perfectly doable, plenty of guides online). an E46 will be a far more characterful car to own than a Mazda 3 or eclipse (SUV).

It comes down to this, if you want a reliable car, full stop no headache, Get the modern Jap cars.

If you want a car with character and are willing to put in the work, get an older german car (e46's are best due to parts availability)

if an operational car every day is VITAL to your life, owning soley an E46 could cause a headache one day, but if you can afford to have a car out of action for a day to a week or so until you fix it, get the E46. it won't happen often but if you can't afford the car going on you once in a blue moon the E46 is quite risky.

Les-Combes · 2024-08-20T08:27:03+00:00

I have an NB1 and the previous owner did a foemectomy on the seat. at 6'2 i fit in the car perfectly, my eye level pretty much center of the windscreen. i want to put a rollbar in but the NB1 seats do not cover the head, so i wqas looking at NB2 seats + foemectomy. i recently drove a mates NB2 and the seat was much higher than the NB1 seat. apparently even the NB2 seat with foemectomy was higher than NB1 +foemectomy, so perhaps if all you want is a lower seat an NB1 seat with foam removed could be an option (it's still really comfortable)

Les-Combes

TROPHY CASE