I have to say that copying CDs, which I thought was going to be one of the hardest parts of the exercise (and yes some of it is is incredibly boring) has turned out to have some fun bits. Came across the first Dido CD and suddenly remembered watching Roswell High as though it mattered. Then the Diamond Dogs CD took me right back to setting up my "record player" (I won't bore you with the component parts but I remember them all) when I rented a room in the house of Modern Classical composer Eric Graebner. Good God alive, I played him Diamond Dogs and he "quite liked it". He probably didn't.

I use Asunder to rip on Ubuntu. I don't know if it's particularly fast or slow (which I think is mainly down to hw), but I just pop in cd's, it does the cddb lookup thing, I hit rip (with my presets for quality/format/folder), do other stuff, and then 10-15 minutes later (depending on length of cd, faster if I don't do flac) it pops it out and I drop in the next. It doesn't seem tedious, but I don't do it very often and never rip > 3-4 cds from [unnamed source] at a go anyway. Might feel more passionate about it if I was faced with 100s.

i've done about 200 so far and looking like the pile isn't even scratched

edit: which is a good thing - ho ho!

Gotta love how EAC gets really serious and warns about major read failures and how it FAILED to make an exact copy and then I play the track and it's fucking PERFECT! 

old ears...

It's in the name! Must like its bits to be perfect.

> Why is the concept of an inbox suitable for somebody who wants to play music?

It's useful for people that want to fix metadata first, rather than sullying their pristine collection with the insane shit some Internet people tag their music files with.

There is a configuration option to add direct to library and/or to automatically import stuff, but it sounds like your issue was something different anyway.

You're right that it's a useful feature. I would query the name choice though. It's not a terrible choice, but it isn't helpful for somebody trying to learn how to use it.

Anyway, it all looks far more promising now that it actually works. And yes, the stuff some people think should go into the metadata is just incomprehensible. And the problem is that with open metadata databases, it slowly spreads across the world.

I've been using MusicBee for sometime and really like it, but as you've eluded to there are some issues with the library/importing tracks. I've got it setup on my PC and newly ripped tracks appear after a restart of the software. My wife has the same setup - MusicBee looking at the share on the NAS for the FLAC files. I've been through the settings with a fine tooth comb and they all match, but there's a delay in her MusicBee finding the new tracks. It's set to discover new files in the assigned folder at startup and takes 2 or 3 reboots of the PC before it'll find them.

OK - now that I've got my little music PC working (and a heatsink on the M.2 drive mmmm, toasty!) I'm turning to step 2, which is refurbishing my Cyrus amp. One nice surprise was when I looked for the serial number to book it in with the service feller I discovered it's a Cyrus Two and not the One I thought it was. I'm not (totally) daft; they're identical to look at apart from an additional input at the back of the Two. Anyway, that's beside the point. The case work is part pressed, part cast aluminium and over the years it's picked up a few little peels and chips to the paintwork. The top shroud detaches and could be resprayed, but as the paint chips are tiny (pin head size), the finish is very slightly stippled anyway, and my spraying skills are not great, I probably won't. The mid section is attached to the massive cast base and spraying isn't really practical because of the stencilled control indications, logos etc.

My thought is to attack the damage with an enamel paint such as Humbrol with a suitable silk finish and a skinny modeling brush, using a polishing compound like T-cut if necessary. I think the stippled top shroud will be forgiving enough to be straightforward, but the smooth metal mid section is more of a problem.

Has anybody here done anything like this? Any tips or pointers?
 

Can you upload a picture or two, so we can see the extent of the damage there.

Here you go. Nothing terrible, just loads of missing specks. 

The undeneath view shows the base which is a huge die cast heatsink that extends up into the body of the amp. It's only a half-width amp but it weighs in at 8kg.

I'd let it wear the scars like a badge of courage. But I'm uber lazy. Fuck I don't even own an amp.

I had a nearly identical one 30+ years ago but it developed a fault and I sent it for repair under warranty. It never arrived at the repair place: missing presumed nicked from whatever railway platform the Post Office left it on. The Post Office gave me £20 by way of compensation.

This one was given to me by my sister-in-law's husband who used it for 25 years. 

If the case is disassemble-able then I'd be tempted to remove the whole shroud, or at the very least those bits that are visible when it's on a shelf/hifi rack, then fill, sand and re-spray the whole thing. If you're looking for a matt black hard wearing spray paint then you could do worse than this.
Aside from some minatures I discovered at my mum's house in a long abandoned cupboard which I've painted up just to see if I had the skills still, I've tried it out on some metal work I need to do for a fireplace surround and it's been brilliant.

 

OK, where I am now. 1) The Cyrus 2 amplifier is back from the repair man who has replaced all the key capacitors with "Nichicon audio grade replacements"* and cleaned and gold-electroplated the controls (inside - not the knobs) plus replaced various switches and resoldered bits and loads of other stuff.
2) Music all now in Flac form on my new tiny PC. About to add a wifi chip and antennas (antennae? Apparently "s" will do for the electrical sort) 3) Sadly decided to retire my ancient home-built transmission-line loudspeakers. 20 years is storage have not been kind. The drive units are failing along with the crossovers and replacements are eye-wateringly expensive. Plus I really can't be arsed to re-veneer two big floorstanding boxes. 4) Ordered some pretty speaker stands with bamboo feet and some new speakers. Boo! Phone call today - "Speakers out of stock and manufacturer says won't make any more. We have the replacement but it's an upgrade and an extra £250." As my tears start to fall, the sales human continues, "But my manager says you can have them at the same price." Hooray! These ones if you're interested. 5) Mrs WilliamA has told me that she simply cannot live with the clutter of stand-mounted loudspeakers next to the telly. Fair enough, but that means the music set up will move East into the extension (we've got a sort of open-plan thing going on) hence the need for a wifi chip in the PC as there's no nearby ethernet. Of course, that means I can't plug my PC into the telly any more. I've decided to go for an HDMI connected touchscreen. I only want something little to run a media player app + Spotify etc. so this Elecrow 7 inch thing should do. 

Question: the Elecrow 7 inch touchscreen thingy is reported to be quite good, but it's clearly pig-ugly with acres of exposed circuitry, casework, and mounting points poking out. Has anybody here got one and managed to find a decent case? I've seen this, which will do at a pinch. Failing that, has anybody got suggestions for a more cosmetically satisfactory screen? I've looked at pairing an old tablet to use as a screen, but I'd quite like to connect via HDMI because having a connected monitor works best for Anydesk, which allows me to control things from a remote phone or laptop (Anydesk likes the target computer to have a monitor connected).


*which I imagine is a good thing

What do you need in a case? Is it going be wall mounted or something you can tote around?

It'll be sitting next to the PC. I'm not intending to wall mount or anything. I just want something that can be picked up to choose music or check what's playing. I don't want a big standard sized monitor or one of the mini-monitors with stands (that tend to be ridiculously expensive anyway) which is why the Elecrow range is attractive. For a case, I just want something to cover up the exposed circuits and tidy away the mounting tabs etc. If it's reasonably decent looking that's a plus.

It's odd looking at this case. They seem to have deliberately made it not fit properly leaving ribbon cables and stuff on view from the front.

Anybody know how to fool a PC into behaving as though it has a monitor attached when there isn't one? Anydesk, my remote connection software of choice, doesn't work well, or sometimes at all, when there's no monitor.

I either have it boot up with an always on vnc server or start/stop the server via ssh.