What's the last thing you bought for your PowerPC Macs?

[bkellytech]

Cinema HD Display

[OS923]

D-Link USB extension cable base, 1 euro in the second hand store. It doesn’t have to be always a new SSD.

[lepidotos]

Not exactly Mac, but I just got the ball rolling on my RCS Blackbird build (which... is close enough to a G5, right? It's PPC64...) by throwing money at the most critical element: a Compaq MV920 19" CRT. I know I ought to have waited, but my eyes absolutely detest any refresh rates lower than 75 Hz, and it can do 1600x1200 at that rate. Flat panel or CRT, doesn't matter, I can see car headlights strobe. Plus, infinite color depth, so I can make use of the new fancy 10-bit-per-channel color output of the new graphics cards once I get around to getting them, and go onto 12-bit once that's available.

[IIO]

hdd case #4 arrived.

so, i have 12 now, but still only 7 of them are currently in use.

i could not resist and added another one - but this time the NAS version.

now it is 3x3, 8x firewire and 1x ethernet, and i promised myself to stop.

two functioning and one broken in reserve.

[teroyk]

damn, the floppy drive does not support external power, so i cant use it in OS9.

I have used two USB-Floppy drives  that does not use externat power in OS9 and they works fine.

[Bolkonskij]

In a way, I bought some caps :-)  just got my MDD PSU and Sonnet upgrade card back from a recap service here in Germany. Both work fine from a quick test and I'm just very excited at the prospect of getting another 15 years of use out of the "wicked fast" OS9 machine I'm typing this on :-)

[IIO]

I have used two USB-Floppy drives  that does not use externat power in OS9 and they works fine.

mine said it consumes 3 watts, and while the quicksilver should theoretically allow that for 0,5 seconds, it starts to beep as soon as the drive spins a disk. i had to use a powered usb hub finally.

[OS923]

Trust Zoid design speaker set, 4 euro. The cable has 2 connectors, USB and 3,5 mm and you have to use them both because the USB is for power only. I had to replace the internal speaker, and I found a replacement, but the Zoids are a better choice because they are stereo. They write everywhere that this is a 14 W system, but the information on the speaker says 5 V, 500 mA. How could this be 14 W?

[DrNo7]

They write everywhere that this is a 14 W system, but the information on the speaker says 5 V, 500 mA. How could this be 14 W?

Despite the main usage of Watt for electrical consumption (W = V × I × cos Phi), it can be used more generally used to quantify power/efficiency (see examples here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt#Examples).

However, I cannot tell how to exactly measures/explain Watts in audio, but usually the more, le louder it can become :p

[robespierre]

They write everywhere that this is a 14 W system, but the information on the speaker says 5 V, 500 mA. How could this be 14 W?

Performance figures for hifi products have been a pack of lies forever... in this particular case, the manufacturers have a shoddy concept called "peak maximum power" that represents the instantaneous power level during a loud transient (like a bass drum hit). There is energy storage in a powered speaker (capacitors) that can supply greater power for a short time. It's common to quote 8-10x the continuous power rating for peak power, just because it looks better on paper. So the true (continuous) power rating of a "14W" speaker is closer to 1.4W.
The actual sound amplitude is not measured in watts, but dB SPL, another thing entirely, because loudspeakers are not 100% efficient in transforming electrical energy into sound. A system with lower power output, but higher efficiency, can be louder. And human hearing does not have a uniform response to sound amplitude (the famous Fletcher-Munson curve), so different frequencies will not sound equally loud, another source of confusion.

[IIO]

the lie already begins with the idea that more power consumption would be something good, because a good quality loudspeaker is distinguished by a high efficiency. (naively put: pressure per watts @ frequency range of n to m)

i guess it is the same for vacuum cleaners, but there it is only interesting in order to save energy.

the average earth inhabitant probably still thinks that electric machines would produce power. "that speaker makes 1000 watts!" no bud, it eats them up. often for nothing.

this small $350 set "has" 1000 watts, if you believe their advertising.
i can assure you that you can destroy it by feedign it more than 250 watts after only 10 minutes.

this bigger set of stereo speakers, which were around $3500, is the one i use in my living room. they are roughly around 300 watts per speaker, and at full power they literally blow your mind in a small room... between 10 and 30,000 Hz, btw., while that "hi fi" kind of "cinema" nonsense kind of only gives you mids.

and this is not even professional high end gear - not at all. (unfortunately they are very noisy, whatever the good power2pressure ratio they might have.)

if my non-musican friends ask me if they should buy some super hifi nonsense from braun or rather from teufel, for listeing in the same sitting position, i point them to a pair of yamaha NS-10 from 1980, which cost 50 euros and are at least as good.

[IIO]

btw, i have recently destroyed the speaker of my quicksilver for the second time.

they seem to be quite sensitive when it comes to DC offset or high gain in general.

while i have external speakers for the mac, too, i hesitate to use them because of the requried external PSU.

does nobody offer replacements for the internal system?

[Protools5LEGuy]

if my non-musican friends ask me if they should buy some super hifi nonsense from braun or rather from teufel, for listeing in the same sitting position, i point them to a pair of yamaha NS-10 from 1980, which cost 50 euros and are at least as good.

I´ll send you 100 Euros for a pair of NS-10... 

More likely they cost 500 Euros, but give me a tip if a NS-10 single unit shows at less than 100.

They cost more today than 20 years ago. Not less.

https://www.thomann.de/es/avantone_cla_10a.htm

[Protools5LEGuy]

btw, i have recently destroyed the speaker of my quicksilver for the second time.

Check volts on PSU.

while i have external speakers for the mac, too, i hesitate to use them because of the requried external PSU.

does nobody offer replacements for the internal system?

I have seen listening to mixes thru a PM G4 to see how it translates to small speakers. That is not the listening environment any more. Or you try classics Auratones

https://www.thomann.de/es/auratone_5c_super_sound_cube_classic.htm

Or you use a Smartphone as the worst playing stage.

Probably today worth buying an iMac M1 as another listening environment to test mixes.

I see at 2nd hand shop unopened 5.1 setups at 20 €... It do not worth replacing the internal just to hear the bong... IMHO

And if you want to hear with detail you avoid using shity speakers.

[DieHard]

Probably today worth buying an iMac M1 as another listening environment to test mixes.

Yeah, the only problem is Apple is up to the same old bullshit, the stock iMac has 8GB Unified RAM and a stock 256GB SSD, and of course the RAM is NOT Upgrade-able after purchase... so add 8GB more... ? sure, price at time of purchase $200 (Give me a fuci*ng break, probable costs them $10) get at least a 1 TB SSD, sure
... add $400 (WFT!!!!)... so $400 for 3/4 of a TB more than the stock 256GB.

Now the price $2099 for iMac M1 with... 24" Flat LED, 16GB RAM, and 1 TB SSD... Don't get me wrong, I really would love to get an M1, for audio the tests on youtube (even in Rosetta 2) are off the hook, and Waves is finally M1 native; so it really seems tempting; but for now... I still recommend...

Twelve Core Mac Pro w/32 GB... $600 to $700
https://www.ebay.com/itm/353472116743?hash=item524c947807:g:nWgAAOSw20xghvdR

1 TB NVMe M.2 (2400Mb/s Read/write) $99
PCIe card $25

Dual 24 Inch Business LCDs, about $250

So for about $1000 you get a monster and can still burn DVDs

[IIO]

Or you try classics Auratones
https://www.thomann.de/es/auratone_5c_super_sound_cube_classic.htm

i dont think those would fit into a quicksilver.

[GaryN]

this bigger set of stereo speakers, which were around $3500, is the one i use in my living room. they are roughly around 300 watts per speaker, and at full power they literally blow your mind in a small room... between 10 and 30,000 Hz, btw., while that "hi fi" kind of "cinema" nonsense kind of only gives you mids.

and this is not even professional high end gear - not at all. (unfortunately they are very noisy, whatever the good power2pressure ratio they might have.)

From the original TOA 380SE brochure:

"The TOA 380-SE is a 3-way loudspeaker system specifically developed for the reproduction of electronic music. Analog and digital keyboard synthesizers, drum machines, and guitar synths require a speaker system with a wide frequency response, high power capacity and the ability to handle the extreme dynamic range these instruments produce."

I have owned those 2 separate times for SR use. It is very true that although intended for that purpose, the damn things are surprisingly accurate if properly adjusted, will literally put a live rock concert in your living room when supplied with sufficient (300w/ch min.) power but sound like a good pair of studio monitors at reasonable levels. They were clearly competing with TAD.

I bought my first pair in the late 80's as mains for a sequencer / live band we had then. With a sub, they handled every club we played with ease. This was very radical then… the DX7 was the new hot thing and hardly anyone even knew what MIDI was yet, let alone a sequencer. One of the times in my life I was a legit pioneer at something…

I wish I still had a pair although I downsized and I still do have a pair of 300SD's, a tricky design to get a lot of output from a smaller box.
I will now go and hook them up to my MDD and yank this thread back from the ozone. 

[IIO]

i never understood this SD design. are they smaller or of the same size? oh nevermind, you already answered that.^^

the general problem with the SE is that when used as monitors, living room studios are simply not big enough to place them, the hotspot is somewhere around 3 meters. frequency good, stereo bad.

[GaryN]

i never understood this SD design.

Nor does anyone else…
I suspect the idea was to load both sides of the driver with the slot thereby creating a quasi-bandpass box but still open enough to get up to the low mids… I can testify that they do work fairly well…especially after I replaced the woofer with an EVM-12L.

the general problem with the SE is that when used as monitors, living room studios are simply not big enough to place them, the hotspot is somewhere around 3 meters. frequency good, stereo bad.

True… but you gotta admit the red racing stripes make up for that. 

CORRECTION: After looking closely at the pic, I realized mine are model 30-SD. Same concept but with a protruding mid horn.

[IIO]

it´s not wrong to put the high in the middle, but i am a studio guy and if i see a speaker which is not symetric i am already like "wtf".
plus is somehow looks funny that the bass speaker is mostly covered with something. sure, for 30 Hz that is not an issue, but for 300?