January 2022 Patreon Exclusive VIDEO Oddcast (Re-uploaded)

I think you get too much worked up over the comments. We like you. Hope you will improve your QoL ❤️❤️❤️

FYI, in the U.S. the term "senior citizen" generally applies to people age 65 and older. But some companies offer a senior discount to people as young as 55. Or if they don't want to ask your age, they just consider anyone with gray hair to be a senior citizen.

I still see those few people complaining that an audio component doesn't meet the German government's official specifications for what can be advertised as "Hi-Fi" even when neither the manufacturer nor anyone else is actually trying to call it "hi-fi"! In the U.S., the term fell out of favor in the 1960s when it became a euphemism for monaural sound. Many album jackets of that time referred to the record as being "available in stereo and hi-fi". Mono records insisted that "this hi-fi recording cannot become obsolete!" Since then, "stereo system" (or just "stereo" for short) has been the generic term in the U.S. for any audio system, sometimes even if it's not actually stereo.

Psst Mat... I see you crossed into that 1.2M subscribers 🥹💥

The VR thing is SO COOL!

Thanks for the candid chat, Mat, and best wishes with the medical trial.

Hat tipped to another diabetic. I'm T1D too since 14 so a bit of an old hand now after a few decades with it. Also tick the mental health and dodgy eye boxes too so you're not alone. Keep up the great work. Your videos are as always a great escape.

When I grew up (in the US), the generic term for a music-producing device was "stereo" (e.g. "I got a stereo for my birthday").

Thanks for being so frank about your mental health, men need to talk about it more often and it's something we all suck at.

I enjoyed that Mat and hope your trial goes well, I got my diabetes diagnosis around 40 as well! On a different note, have you seen the new stamps which you can record messages on the barcodes! Has anything other than the cartridges or paper that has music on ( think that’s what the vids were both about 👀)

Hi, Mat, Interesting as always and some of the best laughs for ages in there. A couple of comments . . . Regarding posterity, we do make a yearbook every January of last years pictures (mainly phone-cam ones these days of course) so those at least are preserved. Also, I am a huge fan of archive.org and often make a donation to them. I have archived personal notable audio and video files. I reckon it's the best option we have these days for preserving anything digital. Anyone here is welcome to see what I have put there: is.gd/MatLink and anyone can upload anything they wish to preserve, video, audio, or digital documents. Worth remembering. Your final words about helping other people who may not be 'in a good place' were poignant and yes, I agree, regardless of being a Techmoan patron - or not - we all have to try to help each other if we can. Well-spoken, Pal. Cheers, S.

You got mentioned in Ben Heck's latest teardown review in the first five minutes or so. "The kind of radio Techmoan would do a review on." 😎 And then later when he's discussing mains.

If I could only reach through the telly and grab your coffee 😂

It seems like there's a lot of people commenting on your videos who have no idea why they're watching your videos, given all the comments about "why don't you stream instead of MP3... why don't you use MP3 instead of CDs, why don't you use CDs instead of tape... etc etc". Further erodes my faith in humanity. Anyway I continue to enjoy your videos for what they are. I might be the weirdo exception, I also enjoyed the puppet bits, though I totally get why you stopped doing them.

I bought one of the clear plastic CD players from a recent crowdfunded project. I quickly realised that the laser would operate without a CD on top whilst it tried to detect a CD. It's the only example of a unsafe CD laser I have ever seen but shows some companies are not making things they way they should. (Unknown Chinese brand). Thankfully very rare and only a risk if looking straight at the laser and accidentally hitting play at the same time. Nether the less I won't use it. Heard first hand what even a laser pointer can do to your eyes.

it does feel like something should be rotating if music's playing

"its probably the caps". hahahahaha

I neglected to comment prior, sorry to hear about your Pioneer R2R. I'm always shocked by the cost of those on eBay. But thanks to your inspiration, I bought my little Akai GX-215D for an absolute bargain - and I love it. https://ibb.co/9V07RNJ You don't lie when you say the sound quality of R2R is brilliant. Max reel size is 7" but that's ok by me.

Talking of children toys which look really good, but end up disappointing, I remember for one birthday (1978 maybe) I was allowed to pick a new board game from the local toy shop, and saw one called 'Tank Command'. The box was really exciting, and I had visions of tiny battery-powered tanks roaming across the board blowing each other up. The reality was a crushingly dull game which, of course, was none of these things...

When people talk about hi-fi, it reminds me of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to-VGfdCiuo (Song of Reproduction · Flanders & Swann)

Regarding the shipping woes. I live in the USA and send a few things over to the UK where I'm originally from. I would say the US post office is not the place to ship. There prices are all over the place. I would suggest using Fedex, UPS or DHL. However why don't you arrange the shipping, and then just send him the shipping label to stick on the box ? You'll just need the size and weight ....

Mat - thanks for the video. I hope the trial goes well. I was on a medical trial for something cancer. It worked for me. I sincerely hope the trial works for you and your quality of life improves. When I die somebody will inherit a shit load of Slade on vinyl. Talking vinyl sales I buy used vinyl on Discogs its not part of the stats. Cassettes I want a old Japanese cassette machine. Scope clock I like it but my Sonic Bomb is loud I am hard of hearing. US postage I paid US$43 for a 600 gram package. HIFI - I built my own HiFI amplifier age 15. Better sound than shop bought. Burned CDs it won't play 80 min CDs but the older 65 min CDs fine. Early players can't play 80 min CDs the pitch is the problem. My 1982 player plays burned 65 min CDs fine 80 mins no. CDs - I am a DJ I play backup copies of my pressed CDs. Suicide - I tried loads of times, Got help and still alive. I look forward to the next video. Tez/

I for one have always enjoyed your segments featuring the carefully curated comments that utter nutters send you and we all have a chuckle at their sheer absurdity.

The horizontal format hifis of the 70s were called Music Centres. Always stared at the new offerings from Sharp etc with awe in my mum's Janet Frazer catalogue.

Wish you good health! I like how you make fun of strange commenters in the Patreon updates haha hope you bring it back in the next one. Sure are some strange people on the internet. I think we all have a good laugh about them so it isn't negative. Thought you were going to comment on the new TASCAM Type II tape, I bought some and they arrived. Nice J card, not a very nice sounding tape. The cassette itself looks alright, I wish the reels were real metal... There are also some rumors about a new high quality cassette deck in development, but it's probably not worth your time commenting on thin air.

I ended up buying a tape deck in the US that is a UK model. I wonder if someone moved back to the UK and couldnt be bothered shipping it back.

Funny that you should be talking about "hi-fi." I recently realized that the term for "that one particularly-nice audio system in the house" has permanently fractured. I feel as if I need to differentiate between "a soundbar/amplified speakers plugged in to the TV and fed mainly by a streaming box of some kind," "a tuner/amp with speakers connected to it that switches between various source components" and "an absolutely ridiculous setup where every component with a motor in needs to be called a 'transport' and even the Ethernet cable is made out of some sort of Narnian ur-metal so that each data packet is conveyed in luxury and safety."

Are you getting reacquainted with your stack of stereo components now that the missus is only working from home part-time?

Regarding the use of 'hi-fi' as a generic term, one thing that irrationally-annoyed me back in the day was the use of the term 'MIDI systems' in the UK for (usually crappy) erm, hi-fi's, that were designed to look like small separate systems, but were just cheap, plastic blocks with fake ridges in the mould to appear modular. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface - still very much a thing used in electronic music) is and was a 1980s buzzword, misappropriated by Amstrad et al for flogging old toot at Christmas.

I always wanted a RX-505 after seeing it in the movie 9 1/2 weeks...I couldn't afford a 505, but I got a cheap 202.

Back in the day, the only time I'd burn CDs for playback in CD players was when I wanted to listen to CDs in the car. They were handy for mixtapes and as backups of my original CDs. I didn't really fancy carrying hundreds of Australian dollars worth of original CDs in my car just in case they got stolen. I stopped doing that about a decade ago when I bought my first brand new car in years. It had this newfangled Bluetooth thingy in it. As others have pointed out, the main reason I can think of as to why you'd listen to a burned CD on a home stereo system would be small-run independent releases by unsigned bands. I ended up with quite a few of those when I was in community radio.

Mat, instead of any old R2R - you should invest in that 24 track Sony machine I sent you 🤣 *a link to, not the actual thing

Thanks for using chapters. Took your advice and skipped the "Snot update". 😳 Wish you the best of health and a speedy recovery, of course! 👍 Detritus: "You'll own nothing, and you will be happy", Klaus Schwab says. Yeah, don't think so. I'm not eating the insects either. Bit of a digital hoarder. In the CD-R-era, I did splurge on the Azo dye variety. Cyanine are the cheap ones that die off. Sure enough, whatever I had stored on the discs was still there once the time came to migrate to harddrive. So, Nakamichi didn't want a "flippin' 'ead", you say? 😁 Prayers for your e-mail friend, and all fellow Techmoan fans.

We love your channel, I'm sure you can get it fixed, as you said Neil our mate might be able to fix it 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

My mate Vic fixes r2rs if your struggling. I reckon he watches the channel too.

Well you're certainly #00001 in my book! I know you added the line about caps as a joke, but I recently got an R2R on eBay which arrived not working, with similar symptoms -- power and lights turned on but motor didn't run. It turned out to be the "motor run" capacitor, which in my unit was a big, honking cylinder cap that at first glance I thought was a motor itself. Sorry if you already knew about these or have ruled it out, but I got a much smaller, newer replacement from this place if you want to try it yourself: https://www.vintage-electronics.net, It was an easy replacement. They also offer general guides to help you restore such machines. Not sure what it costs to ship to the UK, but maybe there's some place similar near you. Good luck with the trial and thanks for the content.

Forgot to ask RE: burnt CD fading out over time - does the same thing occur with DVR? Years ago I copied a video from Mini DV tape onto DVR, finalized and everything, and played fine. However, recently I tried to view it, and the machine didn't like it. It wouldn't even load the menu. I'm trying to source a machine to play the original tape, and they're outrageously priced. 😛

Oh dear, microwaving coffee's never a good thing. Thanks for the video!

I'd never thought about the Hi-Fi term. Yes, of course, Hi-Fi is short for -- and probably someone's trademark Back In The Day -- high fidelity ... but it was a "Hi-Fi" when I was a kid growing up in Canada ... or at least at our house. Dad had one before I was born (and, I think, the amp was actually from Pye) cobbled together from components but we didn't get a modern one until the late 1970s. Another component system, but sold as a set. I think, generically, a "hi-fi" usually referred to a console stereo, the adjective there to differentiate from a component stereo which by the late 1970s was all you could really get. I know the one we got new was not actually high fidelity and I have no idea the specs of the amp with the "valves" as they'd be called if it really *was* a Pye ... but I doubt it was truly "hi-fi" ... except in comparison with what had come before it. What about "radiogram"? That's what Richard calls them on his You Tube channel. He's near Ancaster in Lincolnshire. The one he just serviced is sort of like what was common as a "Hi-Fi" or "Console Stereo" when I was a youngin' but lacked the space for a television set that most of the North American ones seemed to have.

There is a german video channel called Zerobrain. Every few months the chap does a video called "Subscriber scolding" where he comments the most silly comments in a funny way. And this is so always so good, because you can't make this stuff up. You did something similar in the past which was very enjoyable.

Sorry to hear about your RT-909. The one I inherited didn't work either and I had to replace the drive belt that runs the two capstans. Also replaced the pinch rollers too because the old rubber turned to goo. Is your drive belt ok?

David's scope clock a unique work of art. From that perspective the price seems very reasonable. I placed my order the minute I finished watching your video. Now it is one of those things around my home that makes me smile every time I walk past it. It is hard to argue the price of a smile. My thanks to you and David!

I think a big reason why people care about burned CDs is that a lot of smaller bands only released albums on burned CDs.. Even some surprisingly big names released back catalog albums that were burned on demand.

Regarding the scope clock, David has actually increased the price since the video now by $100. Good on him since he obviously can, there were some for sale yesterday and sold out again now. He must have had way more than 250 orders by now given his current note on the website, apparently he hired someone to be able to build 50/month and still says it's probably going to take a year to fulfill everything... The good news is that the note about "only being a limited number of those NOS tubes available" has disappeared so I guess he found a new source or the price increase allows him to tap a new source that was previously too expensive... The software is getting nice additions by the community too.

Thank you for your kind words about that poor man who killed himself and anyone feeling hopeless in general. As someone who's suffered from those kind of feelings, you're 100% correct. Please - things do get better. You won't feel so hopeless and alone one day. People will miss you. Reach out to someone ... your can speak in confidence to your GP/Samaritans/Church/etc who can refer you to a specialist. Speak to a friend. Anything. Just don't do it.

Regarding commenters who offer their “facts,” I learned a term years ago which I think fits them properly. They are people who SPOAF (State Personal Opinion As Fact). Hope your medical situation improves soon. Best of health, success, and luck. Aloha and mahalo.

I am supposed to be working ... but Mat, your thumbnail reminded me of these 'artworks' I recently created for fun: https://ibb.co/s6W9RvS https://ibb.co/9pXk92W https://ibb.co/6W6tqdr https://ibb.co/rpR9Z59

I love what you've done with the place :)

I was thinking about the "the lasers in vertical CD players will blind people" statement. Engineers are not stupid and when you look at most of those players you will find that there is one non-transparent area on the window from the center of the CD to the outside. My guess is: The laser is always under that so it never leaves the device.

We had the topic "why do clocks use IIII instead of IV" in school when I was a teenager. The teacher claimed that it was more distinctable when you write "IV" and "IIII" instead of "IV" and "VI". I don't know if this is true, but it is what I have been tought and it kinda makes senst. But then: What about "IX" and "XI". Questions, questions....

Well well well - every day is a learning day/ how did I not notice that. Two watches and one clock confirm IIII rather than IV.

45:00 in exasperated swearing, top notch. I have a long running battle a few years ago (on newsgroups!) with someone who insisted I *couldn't* find 128kbps DAB audio streams acceptable for any reason, and saying I could made me an obvious paid DAB-industry shill. Happy days.

Regarding your point about people arguing against personal preference, modern society does tend to present the belief that in all things there can be only one "winner" and everything else is a loser and pointless and wrong. Along similar lines -- and I know you see this as a Youtuber -- nobody anywhere is allowed to make an honest mistake anymore. Any error is viewed as a diabolical plan to deceive people (meanwhile people, as you noted, post any old rubbish as if it is fact) and get lauded as heroes of righteousness. The terms, "I don't know" and "I'm sorry, I made a mistake" are so often seen today as admissions of failure rather than chances to improve oneself.

Who wants to stream when you can play mp4s? Seriously, internet connectivity sometimes fails, or you get into an area with no signal. My mp4s will continue to play just fine. (semi-humorous statement, but it is true)

The detritus thing is tricky... On the one hand I like stuff, on the other hand I have some recent experience of having to muck out a house filled to the rafters with stuff. It's a ton of work and a horrible experience, and a whole hell of a lot of it will end up in the skip either because it's not worth the effort to sort out (standards tend to drop a bit when there's 100+ more boxes to go through), or because people just don't see any value in it, real or imagined. I did find a few things that made me think, should send those to you, but between finding them and going home for the day, somebody else had thrown them out. Some 70s portable TV boombox things, JVC IIRC. (Cue "oh nooo..." Sorry.) So I try to keep the stuff levels down a bit, and fear the day my FIL goes...

With regards to the customs and declarations of value. I live in Finland and had to declare something from the UK. I made a mistake in my declaration and included the postage in the total value even though you also list it separately. So I paid VAT on the postage twice. I paid the VAT and didn't notice my mistake until a few weeks later. I phoned them and explained the problem and they offered a refund. Not only that but they sent me a six page explanation of the decision both in Finnish and translated into English. I felt a bit embarrassed since the mistake was only about 2e, close to the value of the stamp for the six page explanation. I am not sure UK customs would do the same thing.

Re: customs. I ship things for work Internationally and yes, there is a special code for "return and repair" ... different codes for each direction (so the repairer does not pay customs taxes on the total value and then the receiver is supposed to pay for VAT on the (no surprise) "value added." One sticking point is that I never figured out how to get the major shippers to *insure* it for the replacement value while marking the value-added as the repair cost. There is nothing easy about it, confounded further since most of the documentation refers to container-loads, truck-loads, or ship-loads rather than one little box.

I have to admit once you mentioned burnt CDs in the Technics machine I went to grab an old CD I had made years ago to try in my 1984 Braun CD player, and I was surprised that it worked. Probably not surprising that the CD was in a pile to shred, but the shredder broke.

I totally feel for you with the nose stuff Mat. I have the same problem of the dripping tap they can’t stop but am 15 years younger than you so I’ll “look forward” to all this in the future.

I just checked shipping via USPS to Sweden, 25kg, 60x50x40cm package, value $100 and get a quote of $246-$333 for this....3-5 or 6-10 days shipping ( I still have the original shipping box for my Nakamichi 582, and it's roughly that size, the 58x series was very wide.) And it didn't weight 25kg shipped. So that would be similar for UK I would guess. Sorry - and I see your dilemma with the whole deal. Edit: the RX-505 size and weight unpacked: Dimensions: 450 x 144 x 300mm Weight: 10kg Did a recalculation for 15kg and smaller box, got $170-$230 total. Plus VAX TAX TOLL.

Ahhhh, techmoan slagged off Americans because we deserve it! An absolute outrage! Cheers, Matt. Give us hell. 🤣

Something that made me laugh while watching this earlier... I thought... You know, we are paying real money to hear about nose polyps. I wonder what 10-year-ago Matt would think about people paying him money to hear him talk about his nose leakage, and they are liking it. Funny world we live in isn't it? :)

It was an interesting story (regarding currency), I thought you did a good job. :)

Thanks for the update, Mat - always a pleasure to hear from you like this. It occurs to me that unless social media platforms find some way to remove the accounts of people who've been inactive for a while, there'll eventually be more dead people on Facebook than live ones. At least the posts from the dead folk will on the whole be less stupid than those from the living. Sales statistics can be used in very misleading ways - our local recycling centre has a sign up saying 'Last month, we recycled X% of your waste' but they don't say whether that's by weight, by value or by volume. I guess in terms of saving landfill, volume would be the most relevant measure. But for music sales, I assume that the profits from vinyl records are very high because affluent middle-aged people are prepared to pay stupid money for what is a not-very-expensive-to-produce product. PS If you benefit from the Clinical Trial treatment you are on, ask about 'Compassionate use' when the trial ends - it is a real exemption that can be allowed for products that are not yet on the market. Have a great weekend, Mat!

Item 1 was very interesting to me as my youngster has a similar issue and may well experience some of these symptoms - it's always good to hear someone speak frankly about health so please know that it's appreciated and never a bore. Probably a good move re: dumping the aforementioned segment. I'm sure those of us who've noticed the light-hearted/tongue in cheek conversions in published videos have appreciated them for what they are and know perfectly the reasons for their appearance, so no further explanations required! Thanks once again for a interesting and varied update.

Raced through housework when I saw new video posted, managed to get the BT engineer to stop nattering about the old days .. grabbed a coffee, told everyone I ain't going Anywhere until AFTER I have watched Techmoan.. got comfy and it says PRIVATE! as it's either being uploaded again still or there is a pay per view adult version gone out for the ladies lol. Coffee going cold now! I shall wait in silence until it's back :)

There were a lot of things I wanted to say but I will keep it simple. Having worked in the Hi-Fi trade for most of my life, I have acquired a lot of Hi-Fi equipment. I recently spent £500 to a house clearance company to take it away. My main question though Mat is I sometime feel slightly guilty by not watching your videos on YouTube. If the majority of your Patreons did the same would it make a significant difference to your income ? and sorry but one last thing was I used to watch a man called Nick Adams who did some incredible videos servicing Technics Hi-Fi equipment. After seeing that he was no longer putting things up on YouTube I looked in the details about him and it said he had passed away. I have no idea how long YouTube will keep his videos up and what their policy is when people pass away.

Hope the trial goes well and you at least get some relief however short. In the UK I think any music system was just called HiFi due to most having worn tapes or awful quality Record players/changers. So I suppose coming from those, everything was HiFi in comparison. Great catchup. Love your outlook on things haha. All the best during the youtube slow months.

I have the same post nasal drip, polyps and a deviated septum. Thankfully none of the other things though. It's getting to the point were I'm going to have to do something about it as I'm always clearing my throat and that gives me hiccups. For $1400, you could fly out there and bring it back as hand luggage for less! Jeez, are they delivering it on a solid gold pallet? I've been looking at a Subaru Impreza to pick up truck conversion kit that delivers in a 210kg box, 8ft x 3ft x 2ft and the delivery is only $650 so he must have asked at USPS instead of Fedex or UPS etc. I managed to watch the whole video before it disappeared and I still don't know what was wrong with it that required an edit and re-upload.

Postage from America to the UK is absolutely disgraceful. There is a record company called Numero Group who; from my experience are the best label for reissues. They choose bands I have loved for years and release the most incredible boxsets. Bedhead, Codeine, Duster. All amazing. Then, once Trump came into power and started killing the USPS, everything got screwed up and now buying anything from them is basically a wallet sponge. They released a book on 90's slowcore music and it was 9 dollars. The postage cost me 20 fucking dollars. If you go on their instagram, every boxset they release is filled with people screaming at them because the postage is twice the price of the boxset itself. Its getting the point where companies are now doing those Japanese warehouse shipping services but for America. Its horrible.

I'm so digital, I thought "new R2R" was referring to some resistor-to-resistor DAC! 😣 (Depricated DAC-design, favoured by some — much like valve amplifiers)

How come you made the vid private? I was half way through and it went away.

So what you’re saying is that you’re setting yourself up for a real life Flowers for Algernon situation…

I thought the dollars thing was about the HumminGuru being sold in HKD from a HK website, but I didn't want to spoil it for anyone (or look like an arse if I got it wrong), which is why I didn't say anything in any of the earlier patron comments feeds. Although I suspect I'm not the only patron that made this connection shortly after you started having fun with currency conversions in your videos. 😂