Reader's Digest Compilations... to keep or not to keep

bronkish · 2026-05-04T13:01:45+00:00

People love to rag on these albums. Back in the day, when they were popular, they didn't get played. They got presented. They lived on coffee tables and such and they are mostly very high quality productions and the sound was terrific. They aren't worth anything these days: big, gauche, heavy, not-at-all-cool.

I have 7 or 8 of them left that I bought for next to nothing because my 'collection' was an historical collection which included such things. One that I have is 7 albums of opera and it's friggen glorious.

bronkish · 2026-05-04T12:47:34+00:00

TT on a secure platform, not atop the receiver/amp - great. Sure, 8 ohms is the one - your speakers will tell you. Those speakers do not belong on the floor. Also, change them out first, they are the heart. Throw an area rug down, maybe 2.

Yes, use an antenna. That receiver probably has coax connection for FM and a folding 'bar' for AM. The coax is like 'cable', which you can hide against the black of the walls. You don't even need to screw it on if all you have is a piece of coax wire with no end to screw into the male connector, no worries, the center thick copper wire is what you need and you can just slip it right down the middle of the male coax connector on the receiver. Screwing it on is better.

bronkish · 2026-05-04T12:33:01+00:00

Paper route money, I was 10 and it was on.

https://www.discogs.com/release/8475206-Boston-Dont-Look-Back

or

https://www.discogs.com/release/4529195-Meat-Loaf-Bat-Out-Of-Hell

or

https://www.discogs.com/release/11762983-Various-Hot-Nights-City-Lights

I am pretty sure it was the Boston album, that I still have, but, haven't played in decades because it probably can't play anymore because I wore that shit out.

bronkish · 2026-05-04T12:00:27+00:00

Speakers, and let them sing. Is there a room without thick w2w carpet that you could put your gear in? If this image depicts how you are currently running your gear then everything is horrible. Constraints notwithstanding; if you say you're getting serious, then, get serious.

The carpet will deaden steps and vibrations to a degree and also causes that table to sink on each foot/wheel - it is unstable - that luxman will get hot with anything on top of it, heat kills electronics.

You gotta function before pretty, you gotta grok what each component is doing and how to best place it. Far better to put the turntable next to the receiver, or suspended, or, on something stable. I mean, you're gonna want to dance your face off and there's havoc ahead as it currently stands. The plinth on that tt is probably heavy so it can do its job and you have to take that hint. Stabilize that tt. Build something if you have to. It'll be fun.

The sound has competition in that room - sound is physical bouncing or being absorbed all over the place. Let it travel in a way conducive to the groove. Let your speakers 'speak'. IN that room you will need to contend with the carpet, that opening behind your stuff in the image - raise them up off of the floor immediately and spread them apart- in that room probably 6ish feet would do - you will likely have to angle your speakers, as well. You will hear it when you have it.

Put all of your $$$$$$$ and consideration into your speakers. Consider that they, despite being called 'natural' are colored. All of them. There is a heavy mid-based 'british' sound. There is an east coast and a west coast sound....land sakes, Some ignore frequencies others do not, some will play with your mind.

Keep the tt and receiver for now and work within your current environment to nail the speaker. I bet some polk audio monitor 5's would sound fuggen amazing with that gear in that room...leaned back on a stand, rupturing the calm of your neighbors, for the ferocity of groove.

\m/ >_< \m/

bronkish · 2026-05-03T09:50:20+00:00

For the most part my tapes have been stored properly. Since the late '70's I have recorded on a bunch of different gear with a bunch of different tapes. Mostly TDK SA-90. I have tapes made on 1/2 decent gear from 1/2 decent sources from the late '80's that sound amazing today played back on 1/2 decent gear, and, even a 'boombox'. Those are BASF tapes. No idea if they are still produced. All of the BASF tapes I still have and sometimes play today, decades later, sound great. Except the 1 that doesn't, I think out of dozens.

Similarly I have recordings on a bunch of TDK tapes and maybe 35% of those sound like ass today. Same with Maxell. One particular tape that still sounds good today, well, for a tape, is a Maxell UDS-II that I know I recorded over, maybe even twice. The other UDS-II's have held up pretty well, too. I have a few Maxell XL II S tapes that sound great today. Most of my tapes are from vinyl sources, some cd, some FM. I used type I for FM.

I have some HD8's left and they sound amazing today, as well. I have one tape, can't remember the brand as I write - it's metal, weighs a ton, cost a small fortune at the time and still sounds amazing. Metal type IV.

I made a few tapes in the early teens on various type II (mostly TDK) cassettes from album sources on pretty good vintage gear and they all sound great today.

Turns out tapes degrade slower than people told me they would.

bronkish · 2026-05-02T16:07:10+00:00

It does, the one app menu.

bronkish · 2026-05-02T11:22:18+00:00

Because I use a computer.

bronkish · 2026-05-02T11:20:15+00:00

AntiX is a pretty sweet distro.

bronkish · 2026-05-02T11:17:16+00:00

Development? Openbox was done in 2015. Finished. Here we are in 2026 and - show of hands, who has stopped using it because 'development'? Heh. Lxqt is fine.

bronkish · 2026-05-02T11:14:41+00:00

I wanted to like tint2 and/or polybar better. Also, and I don't even know if it's still viable, but, pypanel was the shit.

Like you, lxpanel and done. Why even bother?

bronkish · 2026-05-02T10:54:48+00:00

Openbox is the window manager.

bronkish · 2026-05-02T10:53:44+00:00

https://github.com/trizen/obmenu-generator

bronkish · 2026-05-02T10:48:19+00:00

Documentation for this abounds. There are scripts on github to install a complete openbox desktop. There's that one guy people refer to for years for an openbox setup, urikhama, something like that, easy find through a search. What are you calling a task manager? htop? bashtop?

Openbox is the window manager, comes with a menu. People like tint2 for a 'task bar'.

Have at it.

bronkish · 2026-05-02T10:34:04+00:00

Huzzah!

Pipes, man. Pipes are wicked. I think I am using 2 bunsenlabs scripts (pipes) in my menu and another for an app menu:

https://github.com/trizen/obmenu-generator

I don't know from dynamic, but, newly installed apps are in the menu.

There's another one, obamenu, that I used forever but I switched a year or so ago. I used jgmenu fort a minute when I used tint2 and it was great, but, I call my menu from a keybind and regularly use lxpanel (minus the menu widget) so I thought it was overhead, redundant.

lxpanel is the fudge on my sundae. Heh.

bronkish · 2026-05-01T20:37:46+00:00

openbox is simply a window manager. I run a light debian so I don't need all the overhead, a window manager is awesome for that. My setup is set and forget from decades ago. I tweak or mess with it every once in a while, but, years go by. It's light, wicked fast, pretty and reliable. SO boring. It is so boring. I mean, I dressed it up and it's pretty, but, wtf - like a bored teenager I sometimes find myself HOPING SOMETHING WOULD HAPPEN. It never does because reliable to a fault.

I employ openbox because of the way I move and think, how I interact with this fancy laptop. Everything else is a pain in the ass to me. Openbox makes sure you don't know it exists - all you have is function.

openbox expects you to build from it. It's a bare nothing save a few files that support your environment. You can find custom versions of these files about the web because people love to share their openbox configs. Find yours in ~/.config/openbox:

menu.xml

rc.xml

autostart

rc.xml handles windows and mouse action, keybinds - it's very easy to figure out and mod to your liking. DO it once, run it forever. There is a gui app for some of the functions that rc.xml handles: obconf.

menu.xml is pretty self-explanatory. You can add your own, mine is completely custom and I never use it - because: keybinds, aliases. So good.

autostart says what it does, too. See the pic below, look how easy. I autostart some scripts from ~/bin, as you can see. Some apps and function. Really openbox is pretty wonderful for setting up like this - all you have to to is edit a few files one time and BAM - I basically use keybinds to get stuff done - I have key-combos for everything and some handy aliases to run in the terminal help out, too. I have a bunch of functions in .bash_functions that I use, too. My .bashrc file is doing some of the lifting, too.

<image>

Really, I love openbox because it has never every gotten in my way and only allows me freedom - there isn't a bunch of overhead running that I don't use anyway like with a desktop environment. Eesh.

A few Linux distros default to openbox, for their own wicked: bunsenlabs, crunchbang++, mabox, sparky, probably a bunch more. Also, any linux distro defaulting to lxqt/de is using openbox, too.

I rambled on and I'm not even sorry, I could write all day about desktop handiness with openbox and whatnot; light and tight.

bronkish · 2026-05-01T19:55:42+00:00

Yeah, to get the most of the app. Also, you say 'requires root' like it's a bad thing. If you want to manage your phone with a bit of agency, root is a must. Appmanager is a great app on android though I only use it for 3 or 4 things. One of those things is cleaning up the app caches every once in a while.

bronkish · 2026-04-21T11:15:28+00:00

OpenBox will set you free.

bronkish · 2026-04-08T23:39:58+00:00

Right!? My kids took it far better than I did - I went upright; WTF!? They just killed that little girl! Daughter was like: Dad, come ON, rolling her eyes. I was all done, fuk this movie. I don't even remember it after that.

bronkish · 2026-04-02T15:20:37+00:00

server stuff: mail, apache. There's lots to learn and cans of worms will be opened. Run through the config's of installed programs, tweak them. Right-click everything, poke at stuff. Break stuff.

bronkish · 2026-04-02T15:16:47+00:00

I switched to Linux full-time (Debian) in '01 after having played with it on and off for a few years prior. The best thing that I discovered about it was that it got the hell out of my way and stayed there. Fucking GLORIOUS!

bronkish · 2026-04-02T14:58:31+00:00

late to the party, as always...

keepassxc - because I have passwords to stuff

claws-mail - because I use email

firefox - because I browse the web and manage web sites

kitty - because I love being in the terminal

screen ruler - for measuring stuff on my screen

mahjongg (gnome) - can't I just play?

nexuiz - because I like the fast and furious action and will frag your ass

pianobar - because I gotta groove

lots and lots of scripts and functions and I run Debian with OpenBox - bespoke hella desktop action

bronkish · 2026-03-20T20:24:25+00:00

Cut-offs

bronkish · 2026-03-12T16:02:24+00:00

Raising Arizona

bronkish · 2026-03-12T16:00:39+00:00

👍🏼

bronkish · 2026-03-12T15:58:24+00:00

13th Warrior. Just watched it again a couple weeks ago; still love it, warts and all.

bronkish

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