1202 ALARM

Yeah, I've been driving everyone mad about the benefits of MiniDisc over vinyl ever since acquiring a bunch of old MD portables (for free) about 10 years ago, and then finding an MD deck in a charity shop for just £5 last year. Unfortunately it was not a standalone deck, but I picked up the matching amplifer-tuner for just £30 including postage on eBay so that was a bit of a win. A couple of the portables are Sony NetMD units which can link directly to a computer via a mini-USB cable. Some Wizards of the Internet ported the Linux MD software online as Web MiniDisc Pro, which runs entirely in your browder (as a PWA if you know what that means). Copying a CD to MD is a piece of cake, but what I discovered a couple of days ago is that you can also go the other way and rip pre-recorded MiniDisc albums to MP3. I have picked up a few of these free, cheap and not-so-cheap and have gone for albums I do not have on CD (why bother with that?), so this means I can play those albums in the car...

I've been planning getting the Toyota MR2 back on the road and one of the things I have been messing with for the last 20 years is getting a decent sound system without breaking the bank. The MR2 originally had the front speakers in the dashboard with an optional subwoofer under one of the seats, but the dash just doesn't provide enough baffle for a decent sound. In 2010 I built this speaker cabinet which sits between the seats and provides pretty good sound along with 'flux capacitor' visual effects! I have since recovered 2 of these weird speakers from a high-end plasma television I stripped out. The sound quality is frankly amazing for the size of the units. The internal baffle and reflex design is excellent. I want to see if these could be either fitted inside the doors or mounted as pods on the doors themselves. To go with these I need a subwoofer which can either fit under or behind the driver's seat and this little one came my way. It was part of a Hitachi s...

A kind Freegle user called Niamh (who owns a lovely bicycle) gave me this awesome retro Pioneer stereo system (YouTube video below).  Pioneer Stereo System The CD tray was a bit temperamental and one of the speakers might have a damaged wire, but nothing too serious and the unit was quickly back in action. I only ever came across Pioneer systems in classic cars so was keen to find out how this one performed. I hooked the stereo up to a heavy pair of speakers I got from Will on Freegle a few weeks ago and have been blown away by the sound quality. Real depth and bass. The tape mechanism and big tilt display are just things of beauty, I think I'm in love!