o   Listen patiently to the caller.

o   Avoid doing any other tasks while talking – the person on the other end can make out that you are preoccupied.

o   Do not give any personal information.

o   Ask the name of the caller and the person s/he wants to talk to.

o   Take down a message incase the concerned person is not available.

o   Do not interrupt the caller when he is talking.

o   End the call with a polite comment ‘It was nice talking to you’, ‘Take care’, etc.

The Friday Class article is published in Young Times.

Condenados pela era digital a virar artigo de baú, os antológicos discos de vinil não só sobreviveram como voltam a acelerar a rotação no mercado.

Reprisando tendência que já vem embalando o setor na Europa, as vendas de bolachões nos Estados Unidos - a maior praça fonográfica do mundo - embalaram 36,6% em 2007.

Numa onda retrô, os americanos compraram 1,3 milhão de unidades de vinil no último ano, gerando receita de US$ 23 milhões.

Na Grã-Bretanha, a HMV, maior rede de lojas de discos do país, alega que há dois anos assiste a um boom de procura por vinis. Há registros de artistas para quem o formato já chega a responder por até 40% das vendas de álbuns.

O CD ainda resiste ao tocador de MP3, uma boa solução para transportar música de um lado para outro, mas ouvir música não é só colocar fones nos ouvidos. Informação é importante: quem canta, quem compôs, a proposta do cantor e do compositor, a aventura que está por trás da criação de um álbum, quem faz aquele solo notável de sax, quem toca aquela guitarra feroz. Nada disso vem no tocador de MP3, você mal consegue ler o nome da múisica.

Melhor que a resistência do CD, é esta volta do vinil. Os discos de vinil estiveram décadas no mercado e de repente preciosidades de muitos anos viraram sucata.

Agora, volta com força pelas mãos dos DJs e, mais importante, por iniciativa da indústria, que voltou a fabricar as boas e velhas picapes (pickups).

Lurdete Ertel/ wiki Olimor

Summer is fast approaching and I though back to my childhood. We didn't have social networks or iPods as a kid. All we had were AM radios and summer camp. Summer camp should have been titled 'My Parents Work So All I Got Was This Trip To The Y So I Don't Get In Trouble.'

AM radio led me to what was playing on the popular stations in the late 70's - Soft Rock. Music like The Carpenters, Barry Manilow, and the like. I didn't discover groups like Black Sabbath until the stoners were playing them in the early 80's at my friend's house. I was in awe when I heard my first song on FM radio. No more of the crackling when lightning struck or cosmic calamities were set to destroy my listening pleasure on the AM dial.

It is funny how I have seen all facets of technology evolve in the span of 30 years. I remember my first JC Penney vinyl/cassette player that I got for Christmas one year. Funny thing was that record prices were hovering around $8.99 when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I can now download an album on iTunes for around $9.99. How is that for the price of inflation. The sad thing is that I do not get to read the lyrics that came with vinyl and now have to do a lyrics search. There was just something about taking of the plastic and pulling out the record sleeve that usually contained the lyrics.

I don't think I owned my first CD player until I was in my 20's, so I marveled at my friend Grant's that played Sig Sig Sputnik without skipping. I made do with a cassette player during teenage years. I didn't get my first iPod until I was 34 years old. I understand that every kid now has an iPod by the age of three. I don't know how I existed before I had my first IPod. I mean for a music lover to have his entire catalog at his fingertips is like a dream come true. Purists (audiophiles) will say that vinyl gives a more realistic sound. All I want to do is listened, so I will leave that debate up to them. I love being able to just listen to what ever my heart desires at that moment. No having to search for a record or to fast forward/rewind a tape.

I don't mind e-mail or social networks, but I do miss the connection that is made with a face-to-face meeting. It is nice to use the social networks to see how everyone is, since everyone lives all over the world now.

Change is a double-edged sword for me. I loved those days where life was simpler, yet I love the technological advancements that I have seen.

I guess I'll go back to reading the paper now.

Vor drei Wochen hatte ich beim türkischen An- und Verkauf um die Ecke einen CD-Spieler von Sunstech mit Radio und Kassettendeck für unsere Küche gekauft. Bei 25 Euro konnte ich nicht wiederstehen, zumal das Ding sogar MP3-CDs abspielt.

Vor paar Tagen entschied sich das Gerät, altersschwach zu werden und CDs nicht mehr zu starten.

Nun muss ich, um eine CD zum Laufen zu kriegen, sie bei offener CD-Klappe per Hand in Fahrt bringen, zuklappen und auf "Play" drücken. Nach bangen Sekunden und komischen Geräuschen läuft die CD meist, begleitet von einem ständigen "wwhp, wwhp, wwhp, wwhp, ..."

Heute wollte ich das betagte Teil umtauschen, aber es scheint ein türkischer (oder islamischer) Feiertag zu sein, denn auch der Handyladen, das türkische Brautmodengeschäft und der Copyshop hatten geschlossen.

Etwas ärgerlich ist auch, dass der Laden keine Barauszahlung macht, sondern nur gegen Warengutschein tauscht. Dürfen die das überhaupt noch?

And i'm having trouble recalling all that i've done and the exact date of stuff i've done just over the past week. My memory is failing me!

Let's see, i'll start with the day after my last paper. Forgive me if i get any dates mixed up or seem incoherent.

6th May 2008

Hmm, i think baby and i watched a korean movie titled "the longest 24 months".

It's a show featuring 4 couples and how they manage being apart for 2 years as the guys enter army. It was more of a sad show as there was cheating, fighting and breaking up so couples, both guys and gals, watching this movie will definitely feel the pain, especially those who've experienced being separated from their loved one due to army.

Imagine if your other half has to travel overseas often and for long periods in future due to his job requirements.

You'd really miss him/her so much.

Then imagine if your other half has a really gorgeous/hot colleague around your age who has to work closely together with him/her and always travels overseas with him/her.

And imagine if that colleague is the kind with looks and peronality that you're sure will attract most people - including your other half.

Just imagine.

Anyway i seriously can't remember if we watched or did anything else.

7th May 2008

We took a bus down to ikea and after such a long time, i finally had ikea's hotdog and ice-cream! Heh here's baby enjoying his hotdog :)

We were quite unfortunate though as ikea's renovation works started that day so quite a few of their "room exhibitions" were empty and even worse, their cafe was also under renovation. So baby and i didn't get to satisfy our meatball cravings.

I think their renovation work finishes end of may so we shall visit ikea next month and have our fill of their meatballs.

Alright, after an unusually fast walk through ikea, we decided to head for great world city as i was kinda bored with town area and vivo.

Baby said we had to cross the overhead bridge to the bus-stop on the other side and i was whining away as i hate climbing stairs or doing anything that increases my average heartbeat rate actually. And i asked him if he was really really sure we had to cross over to the other side cos if we crossed over and find out we should be taking the bus from the side we just crossed over from then not only did we climb all that stairs for nothing, but we would have to climb the stairs a second time!

Lo and behold, we had to climb the stairs twice :\

Anyway, i remembered from my previous visits to great world city, there's this magic shop stocked up with tricks and unusual stuff. Sadly the shop's not there anymore, we looked all over for it but to no avail.

We had japanese food for dinner at ichiban boshi and baby decided to order us sake!

After that, we were deliberating if we should join our friends later on at zouk but we decided to give mambo a miss as neither of us felt much like clubbing. In addition, we were not dressed for zouk so we just headed back to hall and watched "strange wilderness".

It's a show by adam sandler's happy madison production company but adam sandler's not acting in it, unfortunately as i like him. Some parts were kinda funny in a silly, retarded way.

8th May 2008

We went to suntec city to catch the movie "what happens in vegas". The storyline's cliche yes, but it has it's funny moments, romantic moments and sad moments so all-in-all it was a pretty enjoyable movie for baby and i.

Ok i was quite amazed with the size of one of the toilets which had so many sinks and huge wide mirrors so i camwhored while baby was in the gents.

And i compared the photos to my previous camwhoring photos in february and i must say i'm really fat now! The additional 5kg i put on is seriously showing :(

Anyway baby was craving for kfc and so that's what we had for dinner. We ordered their "buddy meal" which at a glance of the picture advertising it, it seemed to include 2 pieces of chicken, a zinger burger, 2 mash potatoes and 2 drinks.

But after we ordered, baby took a closer look at the picture, reading the small print and realised that the burger shown was a zinger burger but it was a fish zinger burger. Well he ate the burger anyway, most of it but he didn't really enjoy it.

So we headed to donut factory to get his fav double chocolate donut and also bought bubble tea to wash down the fish. Then we had to visit carrefour to get some food stuff for the next day's chalet gathering which includes yellow onions, cucumber and can longans, and back to hall it was.

Baby loaded a korean show for us to watch, "innocent steps" which has the same main actress as another korean show that we've watched quite a long time ago "my little bride" - moon geun young - who was born in 1987 so she's my age. Though she looks really really young in both movies, that she can easily pass off as someone who's 15 or so.

9th May 2008

We had a chalet gathering at downtown east! Either there was a lot of food or most of the ppl were small eaters or on a diet as there were lots of leftovers.

These were the people who turned up:

There was another pfm girl (forgot her name but i think it's a chinese name - no wonder i can't remember) but i don't have a picture of her as she arrived quite late, a couple of hours after i took out my camera to snap pictures.

So by then i was too engrossed in playing poker, blackjack, bridge, uno and mahjong to remember to snap more pictures of everybody having fun. I'm sorry!

It was really fun, full of laughter and i stayed up all night playing mahjong. I was the biggest winner with a grand total of $15.70 profit but too bad we weren't playing for keeps though i'm happy knowing that my luck is way better than the other 3 players haha.

Plus it was great meeting up with all of them after such a long time, especially with cherie. Updating each other and gossiping about the scandalous stuff that went on during mambo.

All the desperate re guys and girls who wanna get hitched or laid, whichever.

Tsk tsk.

10th May 2008

We were so tired from staying up the whole night.

Thankfully baby's dad came to fetch us from the chalet back to hall in the morning if not i don't know how i would have ever managed to drag myself back. When we were back in hall, i quickly brushed my teeth (hygiene first!) then baby and i konked out immediately when our heads touched the pillows.

Then at 4pm, we had to get up and get ready to go for tsz ching's 21st birthday party. Her place was near great world city, so for the second time in the same week, that's where we headed to in order to get her birthday present.

We were already running late so we tried our best to hurry the choosing process but we still took quite long. In the end we bought tsz ching makeup since we both know that she wears makeup. We got her a multi-color lip palette and a multi-color eye palette.

I really loved the colors of the eye palette! There was no tester so i do hope the colors come out strong enough when applied. When it comes to makeup, i hardly know a thing since i've applied makeup only about 5 times i think in my entire life, including both sec 4 prom and j2 prom!

I wasn't feeling well so baby and i left halfway into the party. Though i'm sorry we didn't say goodbye to the birthday girl cos it was during one of the party games and all the guests were looking at her so it would have been kinda awkward, not to mention attention-getting so we made a silent exit.

After that baby and i had a small fight, but we made up the next day, so all is well :)

11th May 2008

Baby and i made up in the afternoon, then he went out to buy ban mian and bubble tea for my lunch while i packed up my room in hall as we were moving out that day. Then while i had my lunch, we watched the movie "speed racer" in his room.

It's a pretty average movie, with cliche parts here and there, no huge peak of emotions felt throughout the storyline but still, it didn't leave us bored. So i guess it's still alright.

Around 4pm my mum called to say they were on the way to hall so baby and i quickly went back to my room to finish packing the rest of my stuff before they arrived. Then it was the usual back-breaking shifting of everything back to the car like the past 2 semesters.

Then back home with the car weighed down with all my stuff, then once again shifting the stuff from the car back into the house and unpacking of all the stuff in my room.

I think i need to throw away or give away half of my wardrobe. My cupboards are really stuffed way beyond their capacity even though not all my clothes are in there since there are some in the laundry basket, some in the wash, some in the dryer, some yet to be ironed and also i gave away exactly 20 tops just two months ago.

Here's a glimse of my extremely full cupboards:

See how all the hangers are kissing each other, such that i can't squeeze in any more clothes so i've dumped the clothes that can't fit into my cupboard in another part of my room. And when i'm trying to find a particular piece of clothing, i have a lot of trouble moving the clothes to search for it and my arms are always aching after just going through a third of my wardrobe.

And the picture above doesn't show you the whole cupboard since picasa trims the borders when you do a collage. Hence quite a lot of the clothes at both ends are cut out.

Note: the clothes that are hung are from 2 different cupboards. I'm not that silly to post the same picture of one cupboard twice and yes both are my very own cupboards. Every piece of clothing is mine as i don't share my clothes. Not that i'm selfish, i just don't have a sister and my mum and i suit different types of clothings since she has broad shoulders and mine are narrow. And yes, the 3 drawers are so full that i have trouble pulling them open and pushing them close.

I think i'll need to get a second storage box for my bedsheets, pillow/bolster cases soon as well. Somehow they managed to tear my old box and my mum got me a new one last month but i can't fit them all in even though i squeezed them like crazy till they're probably all extremely crumpled now.

Anyway to all mothers and mothers-to-be: Happy mothers' day!

My family and i had our mothers' day dinner at jack's place - my brother's suggestion - at great world city so for the third time in the same week i was there again. And the 3 of them ordered the mothers' day set course which was $27 per person, rather worth it as it includes an appetiser, soup of the day, main course, desert, tea/coffee and a gift.

But we changed the appetizers to escargot and 2 soups to lobster bisque hence there were additional charges to the $27 per person.

There was a down-sized menu just for mothers' day so many of their usual dishes were not on the menu such as their local favourites and fish and chips but the manager made a special request to the chef for us so that i could have fish and chips!

The desert was fantabulous! White chocolate mousse with mango - yummy! I gobbled it down so fast my brother kept calling me a pig. The gift provided in the set course was the usual photoframe so we have 3 of them.

After dinner, my brother and i wanted to watch a movie. I wanted to watch "hansel and gretel" in particular as it has been a long while since i last watched a horror flick but the theatre at great world city didn't screen it and i've watched nearly all the rest of the movies. So we just headed down to the electronic store, best, to look at their cd players as my brother wanted to get one mounted in his room just like mine - copycat!

My brother did have a cd player, actually it's a stereo set which costs around $3000 but we shifted it out to the living room since my brother didn't use it at all then, after asking them to buy it for him when he was in lower primary.

He had actually been asking my mum if he could take my cd player since i stay in hall so i hardly use it but as i'll be home for the next 3 months, he can't have mine haha. And i really like my nakamichi cd player as it's really good (sound space 8!) and has a 5-disc cd changer - how convenient! Well it has to be for the price my parents paid for it 8 years ago - around $2000.

It's kinda funny how just at the start of this century we wanted cd players so our parents got them for us, then a couple of years later cd players were out and mp3 players were in so our parents got 5 mp3 players for us, including 3 ipods. Then 2-in-1 handphone and music player was in so they bought us those handphones and those mini cards that each cost nearly $200 for us to store music.

Then now it's back to cd players again.

Anyway my brother had even asked my parents if he could have my room! Cos my room's quite a lot bigger than his and during dinner he also asked me when's the earliest that i can get a house of my own and move out -_-

So eager for me to move out of the house just so he can get my room - such a nice sibling i have.

12th May 2008

It was baby's first day of his internship! :)

His last day of internship is on 31st july 2008 so for the next 3 months, i will only be able to see him after work on weekdays so i shall really treasure all our weekends together when we're able to spend the whole day together.

I haven't sent my resume to anywhere yet so i'm slacking at home, but not for long. Hopefully i'll get down to doing-up my resume by tomorrow and then i shall send it out and pray i get a great-paying temp job some place near my house. Then i'll be able to save up lots for our trip to bangkok before school starts and shop-till-i-drop!

Anyway in the evening i went out with my brother to visit the pasar malam (is that how you spell it?) at toa payoh and we bought lots of food there. Then baby met up with us at the interchange and my dad came to fetch us home.

As usual, my brother played computer games all night even though he has an exam the next morning. Laziness must run in the family, he didn't even bother to bring his textbooks home and he was out all afternoon after his morning paper, at the arcade and watched a movie with his friends even though his exams are not over.

And also as usual, baby and i watched a movie, jack neo's "ah long pte ltd" on dvd. The main actor, mark lee was good with his usual funny antics and being a "sissy" type of guy, but i still prefer jack neo's other productions like "i not stupid" and "home run".

Today

Baby left for work early in the morning and i couldn't get back to sleep after tossing and turning for an hour so i decided to finish up this draft and post it.

Hopefully when i'm done here, i'll do-up my resume and start applying for a temp job.

Actually i feel like going back to bed now, must be the thought of doing something productive and beneficial to me (like studying) that is making me sleepy.

Yawn.

Walking is an excellent form of exercise, but let's face it, sometimes it's not the most enjoyable.Its good for your circulation as well as contributes to losing weight.  Here are some handy ways to make that 20-60 minutes of exercise less torture and more fun. The more you enjoy your exercise, the more of it you're likely to do!

 Steps

Getting a friend or group of friends to walk with you is a great idea. Chatting away with others can make long distances seem like a trip to the mail box. Preoccupy each other and talk about things you would usually chat about on the phone or online. Don't let the conversion drift towards "Oh, my gosh that hill is huge."

If you don't have friends you can walk with, bring a portable CD player or MP3 Player (Flash based MP3 players are best for runners, walkers, or joggers.) while friends and music, are excellent distractions, they are not always practical or affordable. What now?

Try walking in a park or some place where you can enjoy the scenery. Change your routes so you don't get stuck looking at the same thing, again and again. Walk at different times of the day too. If you usually walk around mid-day, try taking a jog while the sun is setting in the evening.

If all else fails, bring a cell phone along and talk to a friend or someone else you can have a long, distracting conversation with (crush, maybe?) Just be sure that your cell phone plan will cover all minutes you may use up!

• If you buy an MP3 player be sure it's flash based if you plan to jog or run with it. Hard drive players can break if dropped or jostled excessively. Walkers can probably get away with a high capacity hard drive player, though.
• CD players may skip if you run with them. Be sure to get a CD player with skip protection.
• Enjoy your scenery and surroundings. Don't think about how you're trying to get exercise, think of it as a trip to see whats going on in the neighborhood.

• Do not run/jog/walk in unsafe areas, or at excessively late or early hours.
• Do not have your music volume up so loud that you can't hear what's going on around you.

http://stores.ebay.ca/BEAUTYJUST4YOU

If you still want to listen to CDs but also have a huge library of MP3s check out this dual music player from designer Yong-Seong Kim at Yanko Design. Interesting.

CD Player Portátil ultra-compacto programável, com intensificador de sons graves, trava e sistema interno de recarga de pilhas.

Fonte: Submarino

Compare os preços nas lojas online do Bondfaro ou do BuscaPé

Caracteristicas do Produto:

DADOS TÉCNICOS

• (sujeitos a alterações)
• · Alimentação: DC 12 Volts.
• · Potência: 50 Watts x 4 canais.
• · Memória de estação: 18 FM e 06 AM.
• · Peso aprox. do produto: 1,5 Kg.
• Peso aprox. com embalagem: 1,9 Kg.
• Dimensões aprox. do produto (L x A x P): 18 x 5,1 x 17,1 cm. (sem painel frontal).
• · Dimensões aprox. com embalagem (L x A x P): 23,7 x 26,9 x 11,3 cm.

Fonte: Magazine Luiza

Compare os preços nas lojas online do Bondfaro ou do BuscaPé

Everyone always asks me, "Tara, what's in your CD player or iPod?"

Well, right now, I've been listening to one of my fave artists, Kathleen Edwards. I was recently so excited to hear that Kathleen is releasing a new record!!!!!!!!! Her records are like opening Christmas presents!

Another great record that is so beautiful is Amy Sky's greatest hits. Her cover of "Wicked Game'' is one of my all time favourite songs. I actually wanted to do that song on Idol for Unplugged week but, the writer's wouldn't release the rights.

You guys should check out Kathleen if you haven't. =)

I'm off to play some guitar-a! lol (Nicole, I put that in there for you!)

xo

T

I once had a band-mate that swore on his life there was no way you could possibly identify the difference between a CD and a compressed audio file format. This seemed absurd to me until I found out that his only reference was his laptop speakers or if lucky some $20 PC speakers. An entire generation has been brought up to believe that these dreadful formats sound good because it's all they've ever known.

I fully admit that it's a generational phenomenon and one that even I experienced. I thought my parents were crazy for keeping vinyl until I actually sat down and listen to a couple of records on a nice turntable. The dynamics, warmth and full bodied rich sound was unlike anything I had ever heard.

So where will this lead? Will the major labels stop fronting artists with huge recording budgets because they know it's all being done in vain? Why bother with thousands if not millions of boutique and state of the art recording equipment and facilities if it's going to be regurgitated as an overly compressed and converted to a squashed file through laptop speakers or a set of $9.99 earphones?

by Jason Levert

Gemini-Seite

Einige Neuheiten seien hier kurz erwähnt:

• Neue Lautsprecher in der GT- und GSM-Serie
• DJ-CD/MP3-Workstation: CDMP-5000
• Neue CD/MP3-Player der CDMP-Serie: CDMP-1300 und CDMP-2600
• Neue Table-Top-CD-Player CDJ-202 (CD/CD-R) und CDJ-505 (CD/CD-R/MP3/USB)

Alle Gemini-Produkte gibt es auch hier .

Gemini-Seite

Einige Neuheiten seien hier kurz erwähnt:

• Neue Lautsprecher in der GT- und GSM-Serie
• DJ-CD/MP3-Workstation: CDMP-5000
• Neue CD/MP3-Player der CDMP-Serie: CDMP-1300 und CDMP-2600
• Neue Table-Top-CD-Player CDJ-202 (CD/CD-R) und CDJ-505 (CD/CD-R/MP3/USB)

Besonders sei hier nochauf die neue Gemini-DJ-Software mit dem Namen Groove hingewiesen. Damit stellt sich Gemini als Partner für das professionelle Mixing und die Live Performance ins rechte Licht. Die Features und Funktionen sind vielfältig: Auto BPM Rechner, Vinyl-Scratch-Emulation, Sofort-Start mit Cue etc. etc. Highlight ist ein komplett ausgestatteter Mixer mit 3-Band-EQ.

Geminis DJ-Software GROOVE ist natürlich schon im Deejayladen zu ordern. Weitere Gemini-Produkte gibt es auch hier .

Always start with your speakers!!! This applies to any sound system pro, home, car, etc. Until you know what speakers you are dealing with it is impossible to determine what kind of power requirements you will need in an amplifier or receiver. The quality of your speakers will also help determine what caliber of CD player you purchase, your DVD player and any other source in you system that is upstream from your speakers. There is no sense in purchasing a $2k CD player if you can only afford an $800 pair of speakers. Once you have picked out speakers that you like you can then audition any other components you may purchase on those very same speakers. This will give you the most accurate representation of what you system will really sound like.

CD Player: Cambridge Audio D500 SE - £22

First came the CD player courtesy of eBay. The item was advertised as a Cambridge Audio D100 which I was quite happy to pay £22 for. However what arrived was in fact a Cambridge Audio D500 SE! It did start to behave oddly soon after I got it, but a bit of fiddling around inside with a screwdriver seems to have sorted the problem. I think this has to rate as my best ever value eBay purchase.

Amplifier: Cambridge Audio A300 - £77

Next came the amplifier. Originally I purchased a Cambridge Audio A500 for £40, but to my great disappointment it was DOA. So I sold that and bought a B-stock Cambridge Audio A300 from Richer Sounds for £77 complete with 12 month warranty. It doesn't have a remote control like the A500 did (so I can't watch the volume wheel move up and down remotely :D ), but in every other respect it's an amazing buy.

Speakers: Large 2-Way Celestions - Free

Finally, the speakers came courtesy of a neighbour. A guy three doors down from me had an incredible pair of vintage Celestion speakers gathering dust in the garage so they form the output side of my system.

The Problems

As soon as I put the whole system together a few things became apparent:

1. The speakers were very bass heavy (I prefer a more balanced sound rather than ridiculous overblow bass). Their original position on top of my desk was creating far too much bass energy and a really muddy sound.
2. The CD player output was far too loud for the amp's input. I could barely turn the amp volume past the 6:30 position before the sound became too loud. Not only did this give me no real control over level, but because the matching between channels isn't great that low in the pot's travel, I often ended up with sound only out of one speaker.

The Solutions

Every problem presents an incredible pain in the ass opportunity:

1. To combat the bass problem I enlisted the help of some regular builders bricks (courtesy of Homebase at £0.40 each). Their mass provides good sturdy stands for the speakers and acoustically decouples the speakers from the floor and table. Adding a blob of Blu-Tac (the original stuff, WHSmith's own brand isn't nearly as good), between the underside of the speakers and the bricks tightened up the bass end dramatically. It also helped the stereo imaging too.
2. I considered a number of different approaches to taming the output of the CD player, including various attenuators. Then quite by accident, I stumbled upon this eBay seller who provides a product especially for this purpose. I was a touch sceptical at the quality of his Hi-Fi attenuator plugs when ordering considering they were just £12.50 (and Rothwell make a similar product for £40), but to my delight they're really very good. They provide 14dB of attenuation and allow the CD player to be used at sensible volumes. They also took away a little of the harshness of the CD player (the D500 SE can be a little bright for some tastes) and mellowed out the sound a little. My only small criticism is that on fast paced rock, the sound isn't quite as dynamic as it used to be. This is illustrated by classic hard rock like Guns N' Roses and AC/DC, as well as newer stuff like <a href="http://www.mychemicalromance.com" title="My Chemical Romance">My Chemical Romance.
   But that's nitpicking and for £12.50, these plugs are an incredible buy. The seller is also very communicative and helpful, unlike some other eBay sellers I've recently dealt with (eden I'm talking to you!).

The Verdict

Considering my extremely limited budget, I wasn't expecting a world beating system. I wasn't worried about the sound being too critical for monitoring purposes, I just wanted a good quality home Hi-Fi system for kicking back and relaxing with. However, I never expected to get such a great sounding system for so little money. The CD player is punchy and dynamic, the amplifier provides a big solid sound and the vintage speakers can provide a vintage "British" sound which reacts well to all types of music without sounding harsh or brittle. This system is capable of a lot of volume without distortion yet is surprisingly un-fatiguing. But where this really shines is with the large soundscapes and dynamic range of classic albums. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon and The Wall can literally immerse you into a new world of sound and The Beatles' Love album breathes new life into Beatles' classics.

The Future

The one area I might consider upgrading in the future is the speakers. The Celestions are great, but their sound can sometimes be just a little sluggish and lacking in definition. They sometimes struggle with modern fast paced music that's had all the soul compressed out of it with a Waves plugin. Somewhere down the road I might look into some new speakers from the likes of Monitor Audio. I'd also like to revive the days of Vinyl. Not because I particularly prefer the format (give me a well mastered DVD-Audio or SACD disc any day), but just for the warm fuzzy feeling that handling a piece of vinyl gives you :D . Pro-Ject are the class leaders in turntables right now.
But that's all some way off, for now this system suits me just fine.

Why Am I Telling You This?

The whole system including bricks, Blu-Tac and cables from Studiospares cost me £112. Compare that to the kind of Hi-Fi system you would get from a major retailer for the same money and the choice is obvious. I guess this goes a little way to prove that:

1. Great Hi-Fi doesn't have to be expensive
2. The "micro" and "mini" systems sold by major high street retailers are a false economy and should be avoided
3. eBay is still capable of producing great bargains if you're willing to look for them

So I hope this inspires you to look past that "special deal" at Argos or Currys, and instead get a decent music system on which you can really enjoy sound the way engineers like me intended it to be enjoyed.

Now I'm going to settle down with Cambridge Audio, Celestion and Radiohead's In Rainbows...

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