What did you get today?

Two Prestige pressings via Craft Records.

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Actually got the frame/mat today. The print a few days back.

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How’s the Starlink working out? Looks like it may be available in our area sometime - would be great to get off the cell-phone internet service.

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Fried chicken, sweet potato french fries, and cabbage and corn slaw with tons of dill.

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Good and bad. Good in that it does exactly what they claim. Bad in that it is a lot of work to get permanently mounted unless you have a flat roof or live at the very peak of a mountain. If you have a large area to cover or a somewhat complex home network more hoops. Their mounting solutions are backordered.

All the negatives above will just be short term pain for long term gain. For the first time EVER I can stream movies/shows. Been trying to put it through the wringer and other than a few minor hiccups for a few seconds no real complaints on performance.

I’ve tried just about everything available in my area (traditional satellite and several cell “things”). Starlink is way faster than Sat. and with no data caps (at least for now) if you can swallow the price it is a must have over every other option. If you had traditional broad band available, there would be no reason to go with Starlink given the install hassle and cost.

FYI, the new Gen 2 systems don’t have any RJ45 connection. It is an all in one box, wifi/router, solution. You need their add on ethernet dongle a few posts up of mine if you want anything hard-wired or to use different networking hardware. Order that ASAP (again backordered) so you have it on hand when the rest of the hardware shows up. They will probably iron out the add-on pieces eventually. I’m on month two of billing and just about getting to the point where I have a permanent solution. I am in the IT Biz so know a thing or two and it has still been a bit rocky. That said, if you had a small, single story house, flat roof and could get total coverage with their WiFi only solution - it would be very straight forward.

Having only satellite service for TV all these years I was a bit surprised at how much of a clear view Starlink needs. It needs a clear view 360*. Unlike fixed satellite that only needs one clear path for the fixed mount. Makes sense once you really think about how starlink works. Their mobile app is The Bomb for testing locations. Fun to see it in action. Worth downloading and playing with even if you don’t have any plans to use it. Lots of neat diagnostics on the app too…but you lose them when you put their router into bridge mode and hook up your own network equipment…which they flat out tell you they don’t support.

It’s been an interesting and frustrating 6-8 weeks but I’m starting to reap the benefits. After 20 years of “nothing” I’m pretty happy where I landed. FINALLY. I never dreamed when we build the house 20 years ago the outside world would have not come crawling to me. Pretty disappointed in my local government. Zero empathy for people living in the sticks even with mega-dollars paid in taxes. I’d understand if I lived on a 5,000 acre ranch in Montana, but I’m 65 miles from the Capitol of the U.S.A. Crazy! Sorry for the longwinded rant. Its been a frustrating 20 years. Not quite but seemed at times like not having indoor plumbing.

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Sounds like it will be great in the long term as long as they don’t do anything crazy with the bandwidth caps and prices.
Must be nice when you have had really poor connectivity up to now.
It holds a lot of hope for many rural populations, so lets hope they can keep the progress going

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Total first world problems for me…but it does seem like the solution for populations that it could really help. Having tried everything else this is an order of magnitude better. In the year plus I waited for it, the price for both equipment and monthly service has gone up. I know the guy does not need any more money but it does seem like for poor communities, this would be a good place for the gov. and big business to be in bed together. For probably the price of one years aircraft carrier’s maintenance the entire planet could be served. :smiley:

Gov does not seem that interested, and big business wants to make money.
For Musk this seems to be a win win as it also helps develop Space X services, so I imagine it will continue to go up as long as costs rise.
But still it is a market that did not really exist a few years ago, and the prices are a fraction of sat phone and sat data of days gone by with real high speeds. It has huge potential for the world exactly as you say, so my hopes are high, even though I trust big business to look at their self interest.

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Thanks for the detailed review - glad you have a workable solution, despite the obvious hassle. I totally agree about governments blowing hard about rural internet and then doing absolutely nothing about it - we are literally a 40 minute drive from downtown Vancouver, not the middle of nowhere. Hopefully Starlink will be available here at some point.

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DIRAC dialling in!

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Which system is this one for?

It’s the one in the conservatory that will be going in the garage when it’s converted. NAD 658 pre and quadral aurum actives. Oh and vinyl of course.

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You could have taken it easy and left the last part off :face_with_symbols_over_mouth::innocent:
What’s the timeframe for the garage conversion?

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Well if you serve them up I’ll bat them back haha.

Windows ordered and got a brickie coming round to quote blocking up the doors. Hopefully three months knowing how long it takes to
A get a tradesman
B get a quote
C get them to start!

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Some more Prestige via Craft Records

On yellow vinyl -

Two of the three are mono. If this keeps up, another TT with a mono cart is due.

Damn.

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I have a tone arm with detachable head shell. If you get same weight/range cartridge they can interchange without faffing by just keeping them attached to separate headshells.
I wouldn’t think I talked anyone out of getting more turntables though….

Yeah, my VPI doesn’t have a remove-able headshell.

I’m afraid I’ve caught the bug.

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Can’t argue with that. We could start a club.

You mean this club? :slightly_smiling_face:

BTW - My life has changed since I posted there.

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That’s the one. I’m in there somewhere. Same set up too.
We all have the right to see the light.

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