That would certainly have been the case when spectrum analyzers were in their heyday. Of course, these days, tape loops aren't a thing anymore, so these days it is probably more likely to be used with a preamp out. But that's where Automatic Gain Control (AGC) becomes important. It was easily overlooked as a tiny toggle on the back of this unit. Hopefully Amir gets around to trying it out.Wouldn't this be something intended to be used at fixed line level outputs? I.e. like the old tape monitors, not volume dependant. That would take care of the majority of sensitivity issues.
I basically intoned that it is not for me, but for others go for it if they like it. In 1971 I had a huge wooden box with blinking, colored incandescent light bulbs and a plastic cover that served as a diffuser. Psychedelic room lighting, while as a teen I blasted King Crimson or Grand Funk Railroad. LEDs are better and it relates to the signal. No harm, no foul in the signal path
Weird, in 1971 we also moved from SoCal to NJI knew nothing of electricity or circuits at the time, and in 8th grade bought it for $25 from two single guys who lived in an apartment in the complex we were in before our house was ready. They partied and used it, but got tired of it. It must have been 3 feet long by 20 inches wide and a foot deep. Those bulbs were large and got hot, but the circuit never failed, and I have no idea what in 1971 sent the signal to the various bulbs. We moved from Cali to New Jersey a year later, but I have no recollection what I did with the thing. Maybe gave it to a friend. It was in a stained pine box. Groovy. The plexiglass had a tight prismatic pattern which added a stellar sparkling effect. Clearly, Amir, I was not alone in my 8th and 9th grade coolness -- or was it madness?
An aside, the Yamaha recievers with that faceplate, they are surprisingly strong and rich in sound. I say that from having had a few.Here is clip showing how it looks:
I'm not gonna lie, I don't like it at all.
This is how my Technics was designed to work. You ran the tape out on the amp out to it and then it out to the cassette deck.Wouldn't this be something intended to be used at fixed line level outputs? I.e. like the old tape monitors, not volume dependant. That would take care of the majority of sensitivity issues.
I think a slope control would be useful. For example, when set to -3 dB/octave it would show flat with pink noise input.So who is interested in a perfectly executed one and what features would you want in it?
That would be neat.So who is interested in a perfectly executed one and what features would you want in it?
This is pretty cool!So who is interested in a perfectly executed one and what features would you want in it?
By flickering, I mean PWM strobing. I'm pretty sensitive to that stuff, but maybe they fixed it in the years since I tested. That was really the only deal killer issue for me. Made it look chintzy.Amir didn't get to try the poorly marked AGC, but I tried it and it works as expected.
I connected it to preamp signals and for any reasonable listening volume, the display works well, showing full range deflection. For volumes suitable for background cocktail party, it's too intermittent, but I doubt anyone here will listen at such volumes with this device.
The AGC has an annoyingly bright LED next to the back panel switch, but I guess that's easily covered with some masking tape.
The "time" controls provide a lot of control over the rise/fall speed of the bars as well as the hold time for the peak hold indicators. It was fun to dial that in.
The sensitivity control behaves more like a noise gate. I left it at 10, but it might be useful for noisy sources such as vintage recordings or vinyl.
I didn't notice any LED flickering that rcohen noted, so it might be individual or unit specific.
Do you mean flickering of the top-most segment (perhaps inherent noise in processing, could be mitigated by slowing rise/fall speed or setting display for dual spectrums)? Or general flickering of all illuminated segments (potentially from brightness being set to less than full)?By flickering, I mean PWM strobing. I'm pretty sensitive to that stuff, but maybe they fixed it in the years since I tested. That was really the only deal killer issue for me. Made it look chintzy.
I mean the entire display strobing together. If you record it on your phone in slo-mo mode, you can see it clearly on many PWM displays. It got worse when you turned the brightness to the middle and better when you crank the brightness all the way up. For me, the PP-131 had visible PWM, but not the PP-31, which had a stable display. I am on the sensitive side for PWM.Do you mean flickering of the top-most segment (perhaps inherent noise in processing, could be mitigated by slowing rise/fall speed or setting display for dual spectrums)? Or general flickering of all illuminated segments (potentially from brightness being set to less than full)?
Seems like a potential combination of design and person-specific sensitivity in your case? (I didn't notice anything but I am not sensitive to LED PWM control.)
