Sunday, February 28, 2016

Audio Product Review: AmazonBasics Speaker Wire from Amazon

I was having issues with one of my vintage Technics stereo receivers and was hearing a bit of scratchiness coming from one speaker.  Since my speaker wires were in sad shape, I opted to get some new speaker wire from Amazon.  I chose a 50-foot spool of AmazonBasics 16 gauge speaker wire.  If you really want to go to town a 100-foot spool is also available.

AmazonBasics 16 gauge Speaker Wire

My Amazon Ordering Experience


I hadn't ordered speaker wire from Amazon before.  However, since I didn't want to trek over to Best Buy or Walmart, I figured that I would give it a shot.  Since we have an Amazon Prime membership, I thought I would get free shipping. I did. I got amazingly fast free shipping.  I placed my order on the evening of February 22nd and I it was delivered on February 24th. 



Amazon Speaker Wire Installation

The 16 gauge speaker wire was a little thicker than the wire I was replacing.  Even though one of the two wires has a white stripe in the case, I found it somewhat difficult to distinguish between which was the red wire and which was the white.  However, I have that trouble with almost all speaker wires.  Since I was only using a short length of wire for each speaker, I managed.  The wires fit into the back of my receiver without any issue and I confirmed that the receiver had an issue.  Fortunately, I still had my Technics SA-160 on hand.  So, I simply switched out to this more compact receiver.  I still had no problem attaching my new speaker wires to it.

Amazon Speaker Wire Performance

When it comes to speaker wires and other stereo wiring, there is a lot of hocus pocus in the audiophile world.  AmazonBasics products are just basic electronics commodity products and no astounding claims are made.  As far as my ears can tell, my JBL Northridge speakers sound just fine with the 16 gauge AmazonBasics speaker wire installed.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

200 Disc Multi-Changer - To Buy or Not To Buy

On a recent thrift store foray, I ran across a Sony 200-disc multi-CD player.  It seems very tempting to be able to store a quarter of our CDs in one easy to access machine.

Sony 200 Disc Changer
But, thrift store multi-CD changers can be finicky.  Our last couple of thrift store multi-changers were total failures.  One made crunchy sounds and the other didn't work at all.  It would be a risky purchase.  There's a good chance that $30 or $40 would be wasted outright.  Still it was tempting.

Ultimately, I left it on the old Sony CD player on the shelf.  One day, I may pick one up.  But, for now, someone else can take the risk.