www.lewiz.org

Seriously.  How has it taken me almost 23 years to figure out how awesome she is?

How is it that despite owning one of the better PC sound cards and having it hooked up to my pre-amp with decent cables, that CDs still sound a million times more awesome than the uncompressed audio files I ripped from them?

There’s a lot to be said for a decent CD player and ‘speakers.

Also, go buy the Guillemots.

Awesome. After killing the fairly crappy 3.5mm jack to 5-pin DIN cable I knocked up about two years ago I’ve decided to buy a proper one on eBay.

With any luck Friday should see me as the owner of two new interconnects:

• 4-pin DIN to 4-pin DIN to connect the 33 pre-amp to the 303 power-amp


• 3.5mm jack to 5-pin DIN to connect my PC to the 33 pre-amp

It would probably be worth pointing out that the thing on top is a Quad 303, while the bottom unit isn’t a 33… it looks like a 34, which would have probably sold with a Quad 405 power-amp.

I’m the proud owner of a nice pair of Shure E2c headphones.  They’re a particularly good in-ear style headphone that offer excellent tight bass and general goodness.  I bought them after my last pair of Sony in-ear ‘phones went the way of the Dodo.

The E2cs come with a choice of three different in-ear covers: the latexy black rubbery ones (ala my old Sony pair), the sexy-looking clear white rubber ones, and the funny orange foam ones.   Each type also comes in three sizes: small, medium and large.

When I first purchased the headphones I tried each style and size out until I settled on the medium-sized orange squishy type.  They offered the optimum comfort and noise-blocking qualities.  The only downside was that inserting them into the ear was a little more invovled: you have to squish it down all the way around and then insert them into the ear before they expand.  Once you get the hang of it it becomes straightforward, but it still requires more time than the other types.

Unfortunately my medium-sized foam covers had pretty much given up the ghost a few months ago.  They were looking really grubby and didn’t fit as well as they should.  Thanks to Shure and eBay, I’ve invested in five new replacements:

Here you can see the medium-sized clear rubber ones I’d been using in the meantime… but now I’m a very happy bunny.  £11 + delivery seems a little on the high side for ten pieces of foam, but this many should easily last me the year.

Good news, everyone!

The new 33 pre-amp has been hooked up and it sounds great.

Bargain!

My new Quad 33 pre-amp from eBay turned up today, along with my new sound card (cheap but good) and a pack of banana things for ‘speaker cable. I’m utterly blown away by the condition of the 33. I’ve not hooked it up yet but the internals of it really put my Grandad’s old one to shame. It looks so good that the original boards in the “new” 33 look better than the recently replaced boards in the original 33. The new 33 has the serial number 1996 and the old one 5078.

Here’s one shot to show you the difference, but head on over to www.fajita.org/personal/ and find a few more shots there.

I’ve just picked up a “new” Quad 33 pre-amp on eBay. Last time I returned my Dad’s 33 to Quad for servicing they charged me around £70 for a quick test and return shipping. There was nothing actually wrong with it but this time I know it’s a little wonky so I can expect the price to be higher.

Faced with a minimum of £80 (including my shipping costs) I decided to take a bit of a risk and pick up a second 33 unit from eBay. I came across one going for a good price—£95 including P&P and insurance. Here are the photos:

The risk here is that it may need a service from Quad, in which case I’ve just gone and doubled my costs. However, I do have three brand new internal boards in this current 33 which I’ve found to be non-faulty, so installing these in the “new” 33 should bring it up-to-date.

Interestingly the serial number is 1996, quite a bit lower than my Dad’s, which is somewhere in the four-thousands.

Let’s hope this all works out okay…

So, I’m back in Blackwater after a fairly uneventful four-hour train journey from Howden via LKX and Paddington train station. I’ve got my Dad’s Quad gear back in one piece, had time to confirm that the Quad 33 pre-amp is a bit wonky and set up my new 11Ls with the 44/405 system.

I’ve not taken any more photos of it now that the ‘speakers are on my desk, but here are two shots of them as I unpacked them on Friday afternoon.

I did say they were big.