A bit of a dud
I feel that this video doesn’t really gel, so since shooting it a few weeks ago I’ve been bumping it down the release schedule in favour of videos I was happier with. I could really do with getting it out of way though to free up space on my SSD and clear the decks for other more engaging projects - so here it is warts and all.
Comments (90)
Here in Sweden there is a lot of Auna gear on the market at low prices, kitchen radios and the like. In spite of the German Company name on the back of yours, I would guess they are el-cheapo Chinese things, and you paid about £95 too much for them. Good job about the refund.
Completely unrelated to this, but I'm wondering, the Buttkicker! Still using it? Long time thoughts?
I’m still using it every time I watch an action movie. I swapped out their transmitter and receiver with a wireless sub transmitter set because theirs wasn’t reliable. I’ve also added an attenuator to the input from the receiver to the transducer amp as whenever the butkicker amp powers on it defaults to an inappropriate intensity level. Now I have the attenuator dialled into the level I like and it defaults to this. The fact I still use it tells you that I still think it adds something that I don’t want to give up.
Hi Mat, Do you have any recommendations for similar vintage/odd tech channels with high production quality? I watch the usual suspects: LGR, 8bit Guy, EEVblog, Tech. Conn. I've seen some of Nostalgia Nerd. Love the topics databits covers, but couldn't get into his videos. You have a wonderful speaking style and delivery, which I haven't really found elsewhere. I think your video on the Sony Ruvi is one of the videos most emblematic of your unique character, especially the climatic monologue where you open the Sony video cassette.
Well first of thanks for the positivity, I suppose in the great scheme of things the production quality isn’t way up there but a lot of time is spent on this editing. I think the same goes for LGR and the 8-bit Guy, and Technology Connections, there’s a heck of a lot of work done first that’s then carefully condensed down. A lot of channels just record everything as it happens, doing the voice over at the same time and when the camera stops recording their shoot is done and they can upload the video. I sometimes wish I’d taken this approach when I’m on day five of a video edit - it also seems to work well for a lot of people, and those kinds of channels often get big views, but it’s also all a bit throwaway. So to answer your question if I think about other retro tech channels that make their videos this same way, the time consuming, heavily edited, retroactively voiced over method....I don’t have any others in my subscriptions. That said I don’t have many tech subscriptions either, so there may well be some out there.
I liked it. I also know not to buy those speakers now. Thanks Techmoan!!!
I enjoyed that. Certainly it dodged about a bit and covered a few subjects, but as usual, I learned something new. I would not classify this as a 'dud'. Like David Fulton and a few others I'd have liked to have seen inside the awful speakers, but in fact, overall, I'm glad you got your money back! :-)
I enjoyed that, it's somehow nice to know there's still bad speakers out there, they remind me of the days when I used to build my own and they sound about as good. I did start using the old Hitachi Ht-L33 linear tracking turntable I had in my loft when I started playing vinyl again and it worked for a while before the cartridge started distorting. I used it with my Audioengine A5+ powered speakers which are in a higher price range but sound great, plus a preamp. After the Hitachi went to the Great Car Boot In The Sky I added an Audio Techica LP60, which has it's own pre-amp. It's great for the price but I do miss the cool linear tracking action.
Bit of late comer to this video but it’s a excellent video. Shame about the speakers as you say less wires is nice to have. The turntable though looks excellent.
I found this a very entertaining and interesting video. No warts detected :)!
That speaker grill is literally the vinyl seat from a patio furniture set. Not even the good ones LOL.
The patio seats would definitely have more bottom end.
I liked the vid , though it would have been nice to see you in it a bit more. It also gave me this feeling part of the impetus to make it was to "correct and justify" the previous hifi system build.. which is not a good jumping point. I love the decisions you make regardless of if I would do it or not. If folk were griping or questioning some of the hifi build, that's their problem more than yours. Doing up a video for alternate componants is kool but this felt... like you were on the defense with much of your description and reasoning. I also wished you took those crummy speakers and showed what was inside (if you couldn't return them). I am always curious when getting cheap/misrepresented crap as to what is actually in it. but thats just me :D Long story short.. stop listening to your fans :D hahaha
I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to concoct interesting ways to open a video. I thought posing a question and answer would have worked as an in, but I guess not. Next time I may just skip any intro and go straight to the item. “Here’s some speakers - let’s have a look at them”.
Great video Mat.. One look at the wire hanging out the back of those speakers suggested 'car-park bargain', but once you tapped the case... cringe!!
No need to apologize, this was an important and entertaining video nonetheless. It's good to know what to beware, and no one better to reveal this than you.
I always learn something from your videos and am entertained. Who could ask for anything more!
I can see what you mean about not everything going smoothly. But that's the way life is most times. I'm not someone who gets hung up on videos that don't show perfect results, so I think this was all worth it just from seeing something I'd never seen before in that record player. I'm almost considering getting one despite not having a Hi-Fi
I believe the problem was this was one and a half videos mashed together. There was the complete turntable video that could have stood on it's own, and then the speaker review that felt more like the short videos you've put out in the past. I really enjoyed the video- but I think I understand where your criticisms are coming from.
Good stuff, I thought it was great. If you really feel like it doesn't gel, you may consider moving the shit speakers bit over to a shorter video or mix in some other bad purchases with that footage.
I’ll be releasing it as it is - it’s been finished for a few weeks now. The funny thing is that the videos I thought were much better haven’t really done anything either - so it’s more than likely it will do as well or as poorly as those whatever I do to it.
Really enjoyed the video, being a fan of vinyl always find these kind of video really interesting. Amazing how right speakers can make such difference, know in past I've made bad speaker choices. Thanks for your hard work
I enjoyed the video. It's an art to keep "failures" in your video (in your case buying bad speakers) and make something nice of it. I would be curious how much 2 seconds of demonstrating ghost busters would cost. And if it would be practical to arrange stuff like that. About the enhanced intro: could you make the first 2 seconds a bit longer? Most of the time I hardly see it. And it looks absolutely freaking stellar!
I do like linear tracking turntables. My main turntable in my house is a Sansui P-L51, which actually operates a little differently to the SL-6, but still has the track selection feature. I think I'd prefer it to the Technics because the tone arm isn't in the lid, which means I can lift up the lids for even more accurate control if I'm setting the needle down manually. Word of warning though - my P-L51 came to me malfunctioning, and it took the better part of 6 months to chase down all of its gremlins.
I agree- nothing at all wrong with the video- very much enjoyed it and loved the look at the turntable. Keep up the awesome work.
I thought the whole thing was rather enjoyable Mat. As usual, you are your own worst critic. Not only was it entertaining, but it also could help people avoid some bad equipment and point them towards some very good devices. It's both fun and informational.
That was good Mat - focused on the decent turntable and moved on quickly from the crap speaker. They even sounded iffy through my iPad speakers! What a pain those content matches are.
Well, I really enjoyed it and regarded the detailed look at the turntable as an added bonus since the speakers were a little disappointing. btw I ordered a Rega Fono MM Mk3 preamp - it's a bit cheaper than your Cambridge Audio one, but isn't as well featured without an MC setting nor headphone output. I read recently that you should aim to spend as much on your pre-amp as on your cartridge, which was new to me, and sounds sensible since pre-amp prices range from about £10 up to thousands and there is little advice as to which price band to look in. I really enjoyed your video as always - Thank You , Mat, have a good weekend.
So are you deleting footage after publishing a video, or did I misread that? Maybe you want to invest in some HDD RAID.
Enjoyed the video immensely. Keep up the good work.
Lovely video, thank you!
I really missed, that you didnt put it on top of the cassiwa and tested that out, just for the looks if anything, and perhaps the cassiwa support that rec sync feature?
Not a bad video, stuff doesn't need to progress according to plan for the video to be enjoyable, this went places and stuff was learned and that's good as well, now people know what not to buy.
It's so strange how the people of today don't seem to appreciate good speakers anymore, they apparently only need to be cheap and sound "better than the speakers of my phone"... Thanks for warning us again! The turntable looks really nice, I might think about trying to get one as a 2nd turntable, to play records elsewhere than in the living room :-)
I bought another one of these for myself as well - if you’re seriously considering getting one, send me a message as there’s a specific model on eBay at the moment that I’ll send you the link to and give you a bit of information as to why I’d pick it.
Love turntable videos. 🙂 This was a Beautiful video. 👍👍👍👍👍
I thought this was great video. We enjoy your rants by the way.
going forward... Anytime you feel a video won't work..just add puppets and VIOLA! .. great video..... lol!!!
This became a journey of "guys-in-a-van" speakers. As you tapped on the hollow plastic outer shell, I literally cringed. Techmoan: You do the adventurous purchases so we don't have to! And thank you for that! And the linear turntable...I saw a few of these in the 80s, and the people who owned them tended to absolutely love them.
Great video!
I don't mean to intrude, but perhaps you're being a bit harsh on yourself! Or maybe it's the very British self deprecation that doesn't quite click with Americans at times ...
Thanks Mat. I really enjoyed the video. I personally do not think the video was a dud. I own a SL-Q33 and love it. Best wishes.
Enjoyed the video but I can see why it might not feel like it’s quite coming together - the point of the video was to try to find a cheap set of speakers with a phono preamp, but the star of the show turned out to be the Technical turntable that you just happened to buy bc you had bought the Cassiever. :)
Currently trying to plough through all remaining cassettes in my library to get important content safely in digital storage.
Your videos are always honest, amusing and entertaining. You shouldn't hesitate to post anything, even if the product is disappointing.
Still enjoyed it 🙂
I very much enjoyed this. As I've said before, you have yet to make a video I disliked.
Well thanks for saying that. It’s definitely not my best - but it’s also not one I’d delete.
Being a patron means getting ahead of the Techmoan effect :P But as with your hifi build video, matching components maybe needs aesthetic considerations and since record players are wide, receivers are wide so not much is that narrow. I note that you can't like every product (like the Anki Vector - did you hear about them going under btw?) so featuring something in a video is ok if the result is poor because that's still a valid outcome. And yeah I might need a video on pre-amp/amp/needle types. The video you had on cartridge types, tracking force and checking the stylus angle did blow my millennial (? do I have to use that term? born in 83 so...) mind for how much a pain in the ass audio was :P
I do feel quite vindicated over the whole Anki fiasco. I was the only tech reviewer YouTuber who bought the product before launch (I was offered a freebie but turned it down). So I made the first non sponsored review and said that it held extremely short and limited interest. I got a lot of criticism for that - ‘why are you the only person who doesn’t like it’. I can tell you why...honesty.
Yeah I have the Kanto YU6 speakers and another set of the YU4's for my bedroom. I really like the feature set and the sound. I was glad you included them as an option. I have a record player in the front room and a CD player in my bedroom, but I also really like how well the bluetooth works on them. I hope you are able to get a refund on those garbage speakers.
Yes after a bit of confusion I got a refund - I don’t blame the sellers though, they just bought something from China that seemed like it would be a good idea. I feel sorry for them getting lumped with such horrible junk.
Question: how does a linear tracking turntable know when you've changed the record? Does it "re-set" whenever the lid is open?
This one resets whenever the lid is opened.
Anyone know if linear tracking turntables are guilty of unequal pressure on groove walls? Seems to me that the force to move the arm along (if it's not driven by a motor) would be higher on the outer wall of the groove than the inner. Now, on your Technics, the spec sheet says the tone arm is driven by a DC motor - which implies some means of telling that motor how hard to "push" the arm along - as well as a motor that might be a source of electrical hum, or might respond incorrectly to the servos pushing it on, say, a slightly warped disk. Those concerns have stopped me from buying any linear tracking turntable for the past few decades.
The advantages of a linear turntable are often overstated. They only really come into their own when you spend more on your turntable than the price of a new family car. At that point my ears would pretend they could hear the difference just to justify the ludicrous expense. At £100 this turntable will sound as good as any other £100 turntable of the era...but take up less space.
I thought the video was fine but I think watching with a more critical eye I would suggest that perhaps the "narrative" was little un-focused. Is this a turntable video about speakers, or a speaker video about turntables? There is kind of a lot going on, although on balance it does seem to be mostly about the turntable. There it got a little anal about the model numbers. Some of the energy was lost, I suppose. But then again, I don't know if I would have had my feelers out for those shortcomings had you not prompted me with your title! The dry humor (humour) is still there... the meticulous attention to small details... the fun digressions... the mild passive aggression... all the things I turn to Technomoan for! One thing I would say that was a legitimate gripe is that I wished you had done some dissection of the Auna speakers to investigate why it sounded so rubbish. I was curious about the internals. I've seen in some of your videos you do like to "dig deep" (literally!) into the guts of the things you buy when there's a problem. But perhaps you were concerned about having your return request rejected. Understandable. So, overall, I thought it was average to above average, which, for a fan, means it met expectations!
Yep - there’s no false advertising here - it’s *a bit of a dud* and *doesn’t really gel*
This was actually an excellent video. We were treated to multiple product reviews, plus a mini-rant on the unfairness of music copyrights. The only thing that could possibly make it better would be a Mission Impossible sketch starring Mat as our hero Jim Phelps with the Baddies portrayed by The Moans!
I liked the video. It goes a bit back and forth between reviewing speakers, reviewing the record player and... Other stuff that I already forgot. I don't have a problem with that; I still felt adequately entertained and educated. Now let's see how much that record player and those speakers going to cost on eBay after getting properly Techmoaned. :-)
I enjoyed the video although I agree with you it "doesn’t really gel". Perhaps two separate videos reviewing the Technics record player and the speakers would work better.
It’s done with now. I’ve washed my hands of it. I hope I’ve learned something so I won’t repeat the same mistakes in the future.
I'm always intrigued as to how there's thousands and thousands of pop videos, or just the tracks with the album artwork, all uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users, some videos of which have been online a decade... yet they haven't had a strike, and the song is obviously in the video title! And there's poor you getting nabbed for three seconds worth.
I suspect they’re not monetised - but some do just seem to be ignored and not claimed by anyone.
I have a Techniques SL-Q6 (silver/gray) mint in box. Purchased in 1986 and used rarely. Love it, though. Always thought it was a great design.
I'd recommend adding a section that explains the difference between "conical" and "elliptical", so that viewers who don't know about it understand why you'd prefer the elliptical one. (Much like your description between "moving magnet" and "moving coil".)
Good idea but I’ll have to defer that until a future episode.
Again I enjoyed the video. I think that you are way too harsh on yourself, but that could be the reason you always manage to create such enjoyable content.
Bet those cheapo speakers didn't even have a proper RIAA correction curve in their "phono stage". That sounded terribly tinny!
Yes I didn’t think of that - I think you’re right, it might go some way to explain the horrible sound.
Great video! I was on the lookout for an SL-6 or Q6 for a while. In the end I managed to get myself an ex-BBC SL-1900 with a rather lovely Ortofon VMS cartridge on it. It needed a bit of repair (tonearm lifter solidified grease issue that VWestlife had with his too) and I needed to replace the audio cables, but once rebuilt it sounds amazing. Fully automatic - not quite as smart as the Linear tracking ones, but sounds fantastic.
The linear aspect of these definitely wasn’t there as a way to improve perceived quality - it’s purely a space saving feature. They didn’t even highlight it in the brochures. LT is something you see people arguing over the merits of - but here it’s all about compactness.
Techmoan with the marketing pitch of the week! I enjoyed it. ......
I've given up trying to understand what videos you consider failures. But as a viewer, there is no doubt that this video is just fine.
That's insane that you got copyright claims for such short clips. I have never had any problem as long as I've kept stuff down to under 10 seconds. Of course, for me I'm rarely using music but instead usually video clips.
It’s become quite a bit of a worry recently. It means I can’t demonstrate odd formats.
That worked out to be a good video. Ending on an up note works well, and reminds me of the video a while back where you couldn't repair the component, and ending on a downer didn't really work (for me). I think this one ended up being good is because it had a story arc (people respond to stories and want to see them through), and it ended on a high.
I love the little jab at the end about the links that no ones gonna click on. The same people usually don't watch videos until the end either before leaving a comment lol
It was good. Enjoyed it!
Your video is fine, it's up to your typical world-class standard, however, those speakers are a joke, unlike Q Acoustics, which are well made, I wouldn't give 1/4 of what you paid, for that trash pair of Chinese no-name crap!! - perhaps £10 per speaker at most!
The worst aspect of this video was you giving it a really bad introduction here. I liked it. Scientific and thorough as ever. danke :)
No problem with this video at all ! Completely up to the usual standard.
The casseiver is back! The only complain i got about this video is that you didn't gave us a view of the SL-6 on the top of the SA-K5L. 😁 Joking aside, as others said, don't be too hard on yourself. Let me give you another point of view: instead of thinking of this as a bad video, compared to your normal videos, think of it as an average video compared to all the others great ones you made and will make. It's stille better than probably the 99% of the 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. You can't always have a winner, anyway. You'll never know, maybe it'll be a hit, like some other videos you didn't think too much about when you uploaded them, compared to the ones which took a lot of time and resources to make and in the end had a disappointing performance, even if they were undoubtedly great. People are unpredictable. I, for one, found it interesting, like that turntable a lot and i'll consider it when i'll finally be able to assemble my own HiFi. Thanks for the video and have a nice weekend!
The only thing I’m completely confident about is I have no idea which videos will be a hit. The videos do seem to have found themselves in a bit of a ratings rut recently, which is unfortunate.
Enjoyed this as always.
The stuff that came out from K-Tel, Ronco, et al, in the 1970s would often have more than 10 tracks per side. That was the least of the problems with those ... :-) 30 INCREDIBLE HITS 30 INCREDIBLE STARS! *I* liked the video. Title was quite accurate!
Ditto - it works for me. Informative, comprehensive, and proof the carp speakers can cost over £90!
I did get my refund in the end, which was fortunate because they really did stink.
Don't be so hard on yourself Mat! I was legitimately watching your old Aldi cassette boombox review at the moment I got a the e-mail notification for this one. Needless to say, Friday made. job done.
You'd think Mat would get the hint from his rabid fans here that he really does do a good job with these. Even his "duds" as he calls them are better produced than 95% of the stuff on Youtube. :-)