weird time bubble

This is one of those weird mornings. I went to bed at 2:30am, 2 hours later than I should have, and 1 hour later than usual (for a work day). But I woke up an hour early and couldn't fall back asleep. I got up and checked my email, so that by the time I started getting ready for work, it was around the usual time. But when I finished washing up, it was only 9am! Then I ate breakfast, and spent a lot of time replying to an email, and now it's still only 9:45am! Usually I'm rushing out of the house at 10:15am (especially if I did anything like answer an email), wondering where the time went.

oddiyo yo-yo

And then I almost went to work without my laptop. But luckily, I noticed before driving off.

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Yesterday I wanted to play some internet radio through my stereo system's speakers, via the audio cable I usually use for that purpose. The cable connects the laptop to the equalizer. The equalizer connects to the receiver via another cable with phono connectors. The speakers are connected to the receiver's speaker outputs, which are the spring-loaded kind that you stick the bare speaker wires into.

I noticed how much white noise was coming from the speakers, before turning the music on. There was also an annoying intermittent rumbling sound. With the radio playing at a low volume, the noise is still audible.

So then instead of listening to music, I messed with my audio system for a few hours. In the process, I came across this term: audio nervosa, which seemed amusingly apt.

The problem seems to be the receiver's speaker connections, not the speakers themselves. I cleaned all the dust out of the receiver's case, but that didn't help. Now I'm using my older set of speakers, which have phono connectors, connected to the equalizer's main-out jacks. The receiver's tape-out jack is connected to the equalizer's audio-in jacks. The laptop audio cable is connected to the equalizer's tape-in jacks.

This way, the speakers are blissfully silent until I turn the music on. A down-side is that I can no longer turn the receiver's radio on with just my remote control; I have to walk over and turn on the equalizer too. Before, I wasn't using the equalizer for the radio.

Another problem is figuring out where to position these speakers. I had been using these to prop up the other speakers (which are smaller and don't have a flat top) up higher, rather than them being directly on the floor. As a temporary solution, I now have the left speaker balanced on an open drawer, to put it at the same height as the other speaker, which is on the same table as the receiver.

A more significant downside is that the receiver's volume control doesn't control the radio volume at all now, and it is fairly loud. How did I not notice this yesterday? Maybe I'll need to change things around again after all, or replace something, or get an extra volume control (amplifier?) box.

Or sheesh, just put it back the way it was to begin with. Maybe.



Update: I now had the idea to connect a cable from the receiver's headphone output to the equalizer's input, as that should be controllable by the volume dial. I'm pretty sure I had done it that way before. But today, I'm not getting any sound that way. Although the sound does work with actual headphones plugged into the jack, but only the left channel... because I'm using a mono 3.5 to large jack adapter instead of a stereo one.. where did I put the stereo one...

Update #2: All fixed now. Found the stereo adapter. Laptop connects to receiver's CD-In jacks. Receiver's headphones-Out jack is connected to the equalizer's Audio-In jacks. Equalizer's Main-Out jacks are connected to the speakers. The receiver's volume control (including the one on its remote) can control the volume for everything. I can even still switch between the laptop audio and the radio with the remote, like I was able to do before. The big speakers are now sitting on top of the smaller speakers which are on the ground; they do have a flat enough surface after all. And no static noise coming from the speakers, woo-yeah!

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