Honda 5.1 Frankenstein 2023

[timbre4]

Long time listener, first time caller: Really good playback today, check the list. It occurs to me I should load up 5.1 mixes of current albums so that I improve my voting score. I also need to listed to endless DAT guitar jams to find nuggets. All it a day's werk.


Dec 13
Blow Up Hollywood - Fake
Blow Up Hollywood - Heaven or Hell
Joan Armatrading - One More Chance
Van der Graaf Generator - Childlike Faith in Childhood's End

Dec 15
Jerry Douglas Band - 2:19
David Sancious - Further In the Forest of Feelings
Blow Up Hollywood - Beyond the Stars
Joan Armatrading - Willow
Blow Up Hollywood - Burn
Riverside - Panic Room
Levin Minnemann Rudess - Ignorant Elephant
Edgar Winter - Jimmy's Gospel
Joan Armatrading - Figure of Speech
The Enid - The Whispering
Blow Up Hollywood - Just Before Dawn
Blow Up Hollywood - Waiting for My Ship
Brian Eno - Spider and I
Joe Satriani - The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band - Mighty Quinn (single edit)
Randall Bramblett - Garbage Man
Dixie Dregs - Hereafter
Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover
Blow Up Hollywood - Pilots of the Canadian Lights

 

[timbre4]

Everyone in home office left early yesterday so I did as well to maximize the limited daylight. It's always better when I can get about 90 minutes to appreciate a wider variety of music. I must say the FOOBAR did double and even two triple dips of specific albums. Since they are all great, no harm no foul.

These upmixes were made during 2021; my playback in the main office was underwhelming so they sat for a while. Then when I rediscovered how good (trustworthy) the sound field is in vehicles I put this system together to evaluate / enjoy these mixes. I didn't think they were any good until hearing them properly. Over this holiday break I plan to make some new ones to swap out some of these.

As stated previously, Blow Up Hollywood shows up so often here due to my friendship with Steve (vocals / guitar) and processing ALL BUH albums. I made some amateurish early SPEC DTS CDs that I presented to him on a NYC visit in 2010. In all the time in between, I hounded him about multi-tracks and mixing in surround but it always seemed to be too complicated to take that on. Now I can share some lovely Penteo mix moments!

The Chills - The Male Monster From the Id
Joe Satriani - The Phone Call
Joe Satriani - Big Bad Moon
Beck - Heart Is a Drum
Beck - Country Down
Blow Up Hollywood - Solace
Beck - Say Goodbye
Jerry Douglas Band - Go Ahead and Leave
Rush - Headlong Flight
Joan Armatrading - At the Hop
Blue Öyster Cult - Moon Crazy
Blow Up Hollywood - If
The Enid - Castles in the Air: Fantasy
John Pizzarelli - Passion Flower
The Who - Under My Thumb
Snarky Puppy - Tarova
Joe Satriani - The Forgotten, Part 1
Love - Good Times
Joe Satriani - Can’t Slow Down
echolyn - Island
Love - The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This

 

[marpow]

My Frankenstein, 2021 Challenger R/T hot rod I used Cambridge CXU Disc Player
Similar to what Timmy did.
I tried 3 different 5.1 decoders and they where all ****, I had to spend about 1800-2000 grand, I forget and get the home player.
I play all my 5.1 reformatted anything SACD, DTS, Blu Ray, DVD and use a thumb drive mounted in front, for sometimes better than the home rig sound.
Why? The super duper near field listening is something to behold.
Has to be mounted tight as can be, but being you are not using the actual disc player, only USB in, you don't have to worry about skipping mechanical parts.

 

[timbre4]

Happy New Year!

UPDATE: Frankenstein hiatus

Interesting development; IT chap who helped me through WIN 11 laptop transition (tons of corporate security applied) inquired about the laptop before the one I just returned. THIS laptop. I related how I was told they didn't want it back due to the repeat issue of swelling battery. He told me I can keep the laptop, it's the hard drive that has to be accounted for. It was in use when we had a nasty data breach a couple years back. He needs me to return it so he can certify it was destroyed!

Okay, I'll buy another SSD to replace the one he needs back. I got to thinking; if I was to get a 2 TB SSD, I wouldn't have to drag the 2TB Easystore drive around with me. So that's what I'm doing. Hey while I got this thing open, why not replace that ugly battery with a new one so I don't have to worry about the 12 volt Dell power adaptor (due to short battery life) New from Dell = $139. Check eBay = $35 with 996 units sold? Bingo.

It's winter so nice days are infrequent for a few weeks anyways. Today is lovely; speaking of batteries, I'll stop Atmos listening long enough to replace the 100 month battery in the Acura TL. It lasted 13 days shy of 10 years! (120 months) so naturally I bought the same one again.

 

[mandrix]

Happy New Year!

UPDATE: Frankenstein hiatus

Interesting development; IT chap who helped me through WIN 11 laptop transition (tons of corporate security applied) inquired about the laptop before the one I just returned. THIS laptop. I related how I was told they didn't want it back due to the repeat issue of swelling battery. He told me I can keep the laptop, it's the hard drive that has to be accounted for. It was in use when we had a nasty data breach a couple years back. He needs me to return it so he can certify it was destroyed!

Okay, I'll buy another SSD to replace the one he needs back. I got to thinking; if I was to get a 2 TB SSD, I wouldn't have to drag the 2TB Easystore drive around with me. So that's what I'm doing. Hey while I got this thing open, why not replace that ugly battery with a new one so I don't have to worry about the 12 volt Dell power adaptor (due to short battery life) New from Dell = $139. Check eBay = $35 with 996 units sold? Bingo.

It's winter so nice days are infrequent for a few weeks anyways. Today is lovely; speaking of batteries, I'll stop Atmos listening long enough to replace the 100 month battery in the Acura TL. It lasted 13 days shy of 10 years! (120 months) so naturally I bought the same one again.

Well I hope your company is better (security) than my mortgage company. They informed me they got hacked, got names, addresses, telephone numbers and SS#. Lovely!

Yeah a bigger SSD would seem more convenient for you.

Your car battery lasted 10 years?? I just had to take my one year old battery back and swap for a new one because it was deader'n a doornail.

 

[timbre4]

These Acura batteries (from dealership) are exceptional. The Civic and 4Runner both have Tractor Supply batteries since they are less than a mile from the house. They are private label Interstate units as far as I know. Typically 24 months warranty; they don't pro-rate them anymore. If they fail within 24 months they replace it. The 4Runner is about 5 years so far on one of these. It only failed to start once last year but has been fine ever since.

I work from home most of the time unless traveling (rare anymore) and that's to the airport if not a city within 250 miles. So I'm kind of an an edge case.

 

[mandrix]

About a year ago I bought a battery for my old truck from Autozone, I think it was in their "gold" class, anyway a little over $200. The old Ranger has the optional larger battery size (heavy, my Lord it's heavy).
Usually I have good luck with their batteries, though nothing exceptional.

Back when I used to only buy Interstate batteries but never determined if they were any better than any others. Not quite up to paying the Optima prices. lol.

 

[barfle]

Just replaced a five year old AAA battery with a four year warranty in my beater Subaru. Since I hope to replace the car soon, I got the cheapest one O’Reilly’s had. It may outlive the car.

 

[mandrix]

I sort of lost track, but early on you were having problems with an HDMI > Analog extractor, and later I told you mine worked for 5.1.
(Monoprice Blackbird). Did you ever get yours working or did you find some other solution? Don't think you ever responded to me, don't remember. CRS.

 

[timbre4]

5.1 Frankenstein Makeover - Things have changed.

The laptop was a company asset they did not want returned when they sent me the new one. This was due to the battery swelling issue. A few weeks ago I was asked about this and I repeated what I was told at the time. "That was a miscommunication" I was told. Actually they do not want the laptop, just the hard drive! It was in use when we had a major data breach a couple years ago; the IT agent said to send him the hard drive only as he had to certify it was destroyed.

So I removed the tiny 256GB PCIe SSD (like a small memory stick) and mailed it to the office. Then I set about getting a Crucial 2TB PCIe upgrade. Well if I'm going to fix up this old laptop, I might as well replace the battery too. $35 on Amazon with 1K sold? Sold. I set about installing the new HDD and found a restore WIN 10 install by way of the Dell service tag #.

In the middle of all this a Facebook music friend mentioned his tiny Dell laptop someone gifted him finally died (could no longer load Windows). Having tried to help him with that slow beast with no storage, I thought this was a blessing. I've known this fellow for 10+ years and never seems to catch a break. Physical ailments, retiring early with small fixed income, living in subsidized housing and so forth. I'm doing okay these days so I'd help him on a doctor's bill or new eyeglasses, sometime money for food if short. I made the decision that he needed this laptop more than me, so I finished all the upgrades, setup his email, etc. and shipped it to him with an external USB DVD drive from Amazon. Now maybe he can concentrate on his graphic art and stop worrying for a while.

I had it in the back of my mind to go the tablet route this time; just had to make sure it would run WIN 10 for FOOBAR2000 and such. Had to learn quick and ask for some recommendations. In short, I selected a Microsoft GO tablet with 4GB RAM and 64GB SSD. It had a USB-C port and I bought a USB-C hub with 4 USB-A 3.0 ports to allow connecting both the WD 2 TB library drive and the ASUS audio interface. I got FOOBAR installed no problem and downloaded ASUS install but you have to have the interface (in car) connected so that got done yesterday.

First ride impressions: It worked! Right out of the box I had my upmix albums going in random just like before. It was so much fun that I drove around for nearly 2 hours and when I shut off, I still had 29% battery. So my scheme works as I'd hoped.

Things to address:
1. No laptop spacebar - loss of the simple pause/play function [need large buttons to run Foobar?]
2. No playback report (must install Foobar add-on)
3. Lower the resolution to make the toolbars easier to use (limitations) - may need something else that Foobar would work with
4. Vent mounted bracket is okay will try to adjust it further
5. USB-C hub and 2TB drive are hanging in the air - need to situate them somehow

If I have time, I'll take another ride today as it's 65+ degrees again. #springfever

 

[timbre4]

5.1 Frankenstein Things Change Pt 2

Last week, as I was copying album Penteo FLAC folders to my 2TB Vehicle HDD, it reported there was not enough space to copy it all. I knew the drive was half full. So I tried it again. Same error immediately. Windows could not read HDD to calculate space. Then I saw the drive disappeared from computer management. Game over. This WD Easystore drive was not rugged enough to be dragged around between the car and my desk all the time. Started shopping and noticed some SSD options. 2TB SSD from Crucial? Sold! As you can see, the SSD is smaller. The cable can switch from USB-A to USB-C; handy for a tablet-2-SSD review on the desktop.

There was also the issue of the tablet’s USB-C hub and hard drive hanging in mid-air. Solved that with a USB-C extension cable. Now the HDD and the cables to the ASUS interface are sitting on the floor.

Now that I have a smaller USB hard drive that will stand up to being moved with some frequency. I had decided to put my head down and process new Ozone>Penteo upmixes to have fresh material. I still have the 2021 upmixes I did but I didn’t copy them and don’t plan to. I’ll make new versions because I didn’t have Ozone in the processing chain.

I found a YouTube video to learn how to add code to make a desktop shortcut for Settings - Sound to reach Audio panel for level adjustments. Still 2 more clicks to Properties - Balance but much faster and kept open / minimized to be ready. I must say I rarely change levels; it’s more about “did my channel volumes slip” Sure enough, my settings have always held. This, despite ASUS USB interface being disconnected from tablet. When connected Windows remembers that device and the volume setting for six channels. Confidence.

I never did figure out how to recreate FOOBAR2000 providing the playlist report to work like it did before the laptop to tablet changeover. (Should’ve made screenshots) Less concerned about that function now; it confirmed what I’d listened to after the fact. As it turns out, if you have your FLACs tagged properly, the ASUS interface box will display album artist + name with cover art when you move the master volume knob!!

No more trying to read the title bar for that info in FOOBAR2000 on a laptop too far away. You might notice some changes to my screen. That was accomplished by installing personal TeamViewer on the tablet so that I could explore options for the Foobar defaults for font size, background color and added Channel Volumes visual display in the white dead space on RH side.

Much better experience all around, I will continue to improve it further as I discover ways to do so.

 

[timbre4]

UPDATE: Busy stretch at work + travel, getting back to work on this stuff while I can.

Surface Pro WIN 10 tablet - was all set to buy 12v DC power when it shut down in less than 90 minutes. Then I found the best battery life setting is sufficient and I can go out 90 minutes and have 45-50% left! Got the camera sign-on feature turned OFF; I just type a 4 digit PIN# to login now.
Crucial 2TB SSD - flawless and draws less power than the spinning WD 2TB easyStore drive
USB-C hub for USB-A items: 2TB SSD + ASUS interface to amps - works like a charm
Foobar 2000 - Librarian and player for the Penteo library; works fine, never got the library playback reporting function I had before. however the ASUS master volume display of artist / title with album cover is sufficient.

Penteo - I'm not saying I've found the magic settings (Ozone 9 > Penteo) to produce the best upmixes, but it is sure providing happy listening sessions!
I know there are additional processes to learn, but have made the calculation that I will learn making stems and spectral editing one day. Maybe that's 1-3 three years out? Silly to wait; I can revisit any of these albums to improve them. In the meantime, I plan to fully enjoy the results of the current process.

As of today - I have 100 albums processed with Penteo, tagged and ready to listen to! That's about 25% of that 2TB drive space available, so I have plenty more to add to this. All I know is - I dreamed up this playback environment, improved processes and quite enjoying it!

 

[mandrix]

The only thing that counts is that you are happy with it, Tim! Glad to hear it's all working out.

 

[timbre4]

Almost no issues to address now, mostly enjoying the mobile playback with the windows rolled down these days. 244 albums of Penteo upmixes in this library now. I have trimmed out a few albums with 20+ min tracks; those are fine at home or a different mood but I crave the variety of my own surround mix radio channel. I will add more upmix albums in June.

Reduced power setting on Surface tablet allows nearly 2 hours with 50% battery remaining. I'd already noticed the power consumption was less with the Crucial 2TB SSD over t6he WD 2TB EasyStore HDD.

One issue I have is the SSD being "ready" when I first press play in Foobar or when I restart the car expecting to resume the same track. Foobar "can't find it" and skips 1-3 tracks until it locks on. Maybe there's a too short wait threshold I need to find? If I can make Foobar wait 1 second it would probably solve this. Seems odd because the USB hub, 2TB SSD and ASUS USB interface are all running off Surface tablet, via USB without interruption. The amp in the trunk cuts off by ignition but nothing else does.

"Paging Dr. Google...."

 

[timbre4]

Recent Penteo tracks on last drive:

Mikael Akerfeldt (Clark soundtrack)
Kate Bush - Love And Anger
Los Lobos - Angels With Dirty Faces
Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - If You Go Away
Kansas - It's You (demo)
Human Radio - Harsh Light of Reality
Triumvirat - The School Of Instant Pain
Steve Hackett - Walking Away From Rainbows
Catherine Wheel - Show Me Mary
Van Der Graaf Generator - Almost The Words
Procol Harum - Broken Barricades
Sting - We Work The Black Seam
Bob Schneider - The Bridge Builders
Phish - All Things Reconsidered
Ozric Tentacles - Erpland
Rush - BU2B
David Sancious - Dixie: March of the Conditioned Souls/Civil War of the Souls
Kansas - Lonely Wind
Unwed Sailor - Little Wars
Manfred Mann's Earth Band - For You (single version)
The English Beat - Whine & Grine / Stand Down Margaret
Bob Schneider - Tokyo
Owsley - Good Old Days
Tool - The Pot
Jellyfish - Joining a Fan Club

 

[mandrix]

Recent Penteo tracks on last drive:

Mikael Akerfeldt (Clark soundtrack)
Kate Bush - Love And Anger
Los Lobos - Angels With Dirty Faces
Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - If You Go Away
Kansas - It's You (demo)
Human Radio - Harsh Light of Reality
Triumvirat - The School Of Instant Pain
Steve Hackett - Walking Away From Rainbows
Catherine Wheel - Show Me Mary
Van Der Graaf Generator - Almost The Words
Procol Harum - Broken Barricades
Sting - We Work The Black Seam
Bob Schneider - The Bridge Builders
Phish - All Things Reconsidered
Ozric Tentacles - Erpland
Rush - BU2B
David Sancious - Dixie: March of the Conditioned Souls/Civil War of the Souls
Kansas - Lonely Wind
Unwed Sailor - Little Wars
Manfred Mann's Earth Band - For You (single version)
The English Beat - Whine & Grine / Stand Down Margaret
Bob Schneider - Tokyo
Owsley - Good Old Days
Tool - The Pot
Jellyfish - Joining a Fan Club

That's a pretty eclectic playlist, Tim.

 

[timbre4]

That's a pretty eclectic playlist, Tim.

Thanks. Variety and surprise are exciting! What could possibly be next? Virtually anything.

I may have mentioned the psychology aspect before; selection paralysis (I simply can't decide sometimes and end up not listening to anything)
I've tried so many ways over the years to penetrate this mountain of audio I've accumulated and stumbled onto this random concept starting with an iPad stereo jukebox (1100 tunes) at the pool, on planes, airports and rental cars. What if I could do this with surround material?

This project extends the same thinking to surround music. Originally it was to bring unplayed 5.1 material to the surface and that had it's rewards for sure. Then I got to where I liked the Ozone9+Penteo setting for great results as the average and got even more joy out of creating that. I devised this mobile tablet system AND upmixed the material I'm hearing. I also love to drive this old car so now the joy is threefold!

 

[timbre4]

It's been a great summer with this tablet driven Penteo 5.1 jukebox.
Have learned a few things along the way:

1. My nice ASUS USB interface box does NOT like the summer heat! If I forget to place it in the shade under the passenger seat, the big volume knob no longer controls the master volume. Thankfully, when it cools in a few minutes, volume control returns. TIP: tablet speaker properties - backup master volume.
NOTE: I do remove the Surface tablet and the Crucial SSD after every drive to keep them safe in my home office,

2. FOOBAR2000 recently played report - this worked fine on the laptop that I gave away but eluded me on the Surface tablet. I did finally solve that this week. I drove myself crazy with this as I had installed Playlist History but it gave me no report options. After researching several times I finally realized that my recently played list also required Playback Statistics to be installed. Hooray! PS - I got this report happening like I wanted, but then I clicked on Use Default UI and it was as if I had erased the blackboard! I had nothing on my screen; zip, nada. After a mild panic as I was trying to get out for a drive, I figured I had to install one of the UI skins to get controls back, I picked

3. I did get up to 500 Penteo albums on the SSD! Prepping another 100 Penteo albums now. I left that Crucial SSD with a friend out in Portland and it's on it's way home. Since I wanted some Penteo jukebox drives in the meantime, I created an Albums folder on the 2nd Crucial X6 SSD and copied 15, then 30, then 50 for now. I have to laugh at my chronic FOOBAR mistake as I had 50 albums in library but never updated my playlist. It's library versus playlist. Library is total songs available in the folder, but playlist determines what is selected to be played in the mode selected. Surely there is an easier way to conquer this but here's how I do it: Library > Search > type '.' and all songs are listed. Ctrl+A select all > select Playlist tab > paste all songs into playlist. Is there an easier way?
TIP: Easier to use TeamViewer to drive the tablet with my PC mouse and KB for this.

4. The reason I was wanting to test with more and more albums was to see when file skipping on restart (go into store, get back in car) starts to occur. I'd noticed that with 15 albums there were no skip errors. I was not used to this! When I restart paused FOOBAR with 500 albums loaded, once the buffer content (2-3 seconds?) FOOBAR can't keep playing the balance of that track, so it goes to next random track but can't latch it and settles on the 3rd or 4th track, 500 albums literally means 5,000 indexed tracks and I think that burden is too great for my setup. Less than 100 album folders will improve this playback issue.

5. Finally, I came to find that while having 500 Penteo albums on an SSD, I spent too much time skipping past heard tunes to get to something I had not heard! To remedy this, I made a clone Vehicle folder on an 8TB HDD that will be the master repository that I will copy 25-50(?) album folders to fully enjoy new content every time I go for a drive! Capacity is very cool but not when it is a burden when trying to check out the quality of some new remixes.

 

[mandrix]

Man I don't have enough time to listen to commercial surround music, let alone 500 upmixes. lol.

 

[timbre4]

Man I don't have enough time to listen to commercial surround music, let alone 500 upmixes. lol.

No difference actually; it's still one song at a time (randomly).

The struggle for commercial release listening time is real.