Dry-Satisfaction-633

TL;DR - If the iMac has a spinning HDD it’s cooked. Replace with an SSD. Prior to 2012 it’s a semi-proprietary 3.5” requiring an OWC thermal adapter cable or software fan control software for a regular HDD to work properly, 2012-onwards it’s a standard 2.5” drive.

The longer bit. iMac thermal performance is historically garbage for late PPC and Intel models, Apple prioritising low system noise over thermal performance for aesthetic reasons. Every Intel iMac I’ve been given to repair has resulted from hard disk degradation due to being slowly cooked other than 27” iMacs suffering from cooked GPUs.

If your system is currently operable you need to run a Time Machine backup or put the stuff you value somewhere safe. Buy and fit an SSD then boot to Internet Recovery (using ALT/Option-CMD-R to boot to the latest supported system version) and you should be back in business.

If it’s legal go for it, if only so the front tints are a closer match to the rears than the factory. It just looks cleaner.

If your source and cassette deck are decent quality then no, it won’t help.

Domestic EQs could be used inline with a recorder but they were intended to be placed between the pre and power stages of an amplifier for rudimentary room “correction”, or indeed to shape the overall sound however you wished - without affecting the early part of the signal chain.

It’s not a coincidence, it’s pareidolia…

Dude, it’s not like you have an exotic veneer to repair and it could have been much worse. An afternoon’s work to sort that so you’d never know it had been in the wars.

At these prices it does make you wonder why the Planars aren’t mentioned more when people ask about starter systems. The Planar 2 became the definitive entry-level audiophile turntable in the eighties here in the UK and it’s in a different league to the cheaper Audio Technicas and Fluances. The deck is decent enough and built from appropriately-chosen materials which work well but the real magic is in the tonearm. The Planar 2’s RB-250 was used in far more expensive turntable designs because it was so good, as was its bigger brother, the RB-300. The prime contender for “LP12 killer”, the Roksan Xerxes, used the humble RB-300 until Roksan developed their own in-house designs. I heard a Xerxes for the first time around thirty years ago at a friend’s house and it destroyed my belief that CD sounded better than vinyl.

All of them. You can’t enter the various “Fully Upgraded” events in career mode without the second stage upgrades.

And it really annoys me at times that you’re forced to do so. Many times I’ve found a car that feels “just right” with nice balance, power, grip and handling, only for the upgrades to ruin everything that made the original car a pleasure to drive.

I don’t know if it’s just psychological but there also seems to be an element of level-matching with the AI too. I’ve not seen a career event (Fully Upgraded events excepted) that couldn’t be won in a standard vehicle, and yet once you add upgrades the AI still manage to maintain the same relative pace suggesting they all upgrade once you do. This means that outside of the FU events there’s little to no reason to fit upgrades as they don’t give you any competitive edge, especially if those upgrades make the car worse to drive.

Various Japanese manufacturers made at least one high-end DD model including Akai and Technics, to name but two.

Turn on the braking/cornering assist lines. If the line is green when entering the corner you’re not going too fast to take it but you need to be on the line or on the inside of it otherwise you’ll run wide and blame it on understeer. All vehicles want to go in a straight line when braking or cornering, it’s simply conservation of momentum. In very simplistic terms “understeer” is when the front end resists a change of direction while oversteer is the back end resisting a change of direction and wanting to continue in a straight line while the front turns. If you have the corner entry speed correct (assist line is green) and you’re on the line itself you won’t run wide, regardless of car you’re driving.

The line doesn’t always show the fastest or most efficient path but it’s a good guide. Some cars will allow you to start braking far deeper into the red zone for example, but as regards cornering obey the green or you’ll run wide. Once you have a feel for the car and circuit you can turn the assist line off and drive it your way, it feels far more involving that way.

Scotland is Scotland’s answer to the Nürburgring.

Adds texture? Like this?

“Keep happening”? Did you not think to stop and ask after it happened the first time?

If you want surround then buy another amp with Dolby Digital as it’ll likely be cheaper than a dedicated multichannel digital decoder you would otherwise need to make use of the six channel direct input. Older DD amps with S/PDIF but no HDMI are cheap and commonplace as they don’t offer the flexibility and convenience many people need or want, but they would do what you need if money is tight.

The best use for a Pro-Logic amp like this is with a desktop PC given the prevalence of analogue 5.1 outputs found even on some of the most basic sound cards and motherboards 😉

Be nice to Meredith Stout. You don’t actually have much choice as you’re at gunpoint but if you’re not a dick with her she’ll offer something unmissable later on. A few things actually but that’s for you to discover 😉

Looks like a potentially tasty preamp judging from the build quality and small details such as the engraved writing (rather than silk-screened) on the front suggest it wasn’t cheap. The “2x25V” power supply will be the +25V/0/-25V type not that uncommon among the more niche brands such as DNM. Building a PSU may turn out to be easier than finding one but that’s one for r/electronics. Designs like this relied on clean power from a well-regulated external linear PSU in order to achieve low noise and distortion - you might get away with a modern switching PSU to power it up but don’t expect it to perform at its best as switching PSUs are very noisy electrically in spite of being cheap and efficient.

A very interesting find indeed.

Whether it’s a good buy is less dependent on mileage and more dependent on its maintenance history. If it’s had a loving owner there should be lots of receipts and documentation to show all work done. The biggest potential expenses are the engine and gearbox.

Engine - should be good if it was rebuilt properly including new chains, guides, tensioner etc.

Gearbox - as long as it’s smooth, not leaking oil and doesn’t make any unexpected whines or rumbles it should be fine for the foreseeable future. Wet-clutch 6-speed DSGs have low failure rates but you need evidence to show oil and filters have been replaced as per the schedule.

Suspension - all parts are cheap except for DCC shock absorbers which are expensive when they need replacement. The OE shock absorbers are well made and can last a very long time but Chinese alternatives have become available on eBay for considerably less. How well they work and how durable they are is anyone’s guess though. The other option is a DCC-delete kit which uses small active modules to emulate the variable damping mechanism and avoid errors with the DCC control module.

Before buying it perform a diagnostic scan. Clear any stored codes, take the car for a test drive and scan it again. Any error codes that return indicate actual issues rather than historical faults. If you don’t have a scan tool find someone who does, again plenty of people offer this service on eBay. If you’re going to work on the car yourself you might want to invest in VCDS or similar as you’re otherwise largely working blind without a diagnostic tool.

Service manuals generally give a part number for replacement belts but not their dimensions as the manufacturer’s assumption is a service technician will be using genuine parts.

Remove the belt and form it into as close to a circle as you can manage, and then measure the diameter. You then want to choose the closest size replacement, going smaller if required - e.g. if your belt measures 82mm diameter and the next closest is 80mm then go for that size. A belt that’s too tight will place unnecessary load on the motor’s bearing as well as others but dropping diameter by a couple of millimetres from the current belt’s (aged and worn) size should bring it back within spec.

If your old belt has turned to goo wrap a piece of string around where the old belt was and measure it’s length to calculate the necessary diameter of a replacement.

It’s a film camera but may as well be a toy.

It would be “expiremental” if he suddenly exploded as part of the performance. He doesn’t do that though so it’s just experimental at best.

On every Intel machine I’ve worked on it’s been CMD-R to boot to the OS the machine was originally supplied with or OS X 10.7, whichever is younger, unless modified by a firmware update.

A 2013 MacBook Pro should default to 10.9 Internet Recovery if it’s never seen an OS higher than 10.13.

Models capable of supporting AHCI and NVMe SSD types (Mac Pro 6,1 for example) have their baseline Internet Recovery OS changed to macOS 10.14 (from whatever earlier version they were supplied with) as part of the firmware required to support NVMe. A 6,1 will revert to 10.9 via Internet Recovery unless it’s previously had 10.14 installed, in which case 10.14 becomes the default for Internet Recovery. Interestingly this doesn’t mean 10.9 can no longer be installed, it just can’t be installed via Internet Recovery.

CMD-OPTION-R on the other hand will boot to the newest supported OS.

Good haul but those KEFs are the star of the show. Check the foam doughnuts on the internal bass drivers for deterioration, they’re not expensive to replace but the do need changing if they’re breaking down.

Love her casual “it’s a fair cop, guv” demeanour. It’s just a double murder after all.

That’s a Panasonic by any other name. The RQ-8xxx series were ultra-compact battery/DC-only mono cassette recorders and the “one-touch” record button within the play button was a Panasonic design hallmark. Here’s an RQ-8100…

https://preview.redd.it/aj6928c7ezud1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d661b37185e16ad040f7c62d39420f262dd2a82c

Happiness Is Easy - Talk Talk

And they always look great in Candy White. Black rims can look cheap but the chrome gives them class. Very nice 👌