I like listening to music at night with lights off, less distractions. I Like using just my ears and of course with a nice glass of red close by. The Farad Super3 LED is a bit bright, I must do something about that one. Anyone else enjoy this? Images below shows what I see with the lights off and what it looks like in daylight.
An easy solution to the too bright LED is to stick a small paper label over it. My LG monitor dates from when Blue LEDs were all the fashion and has an annoyingly bright one on the front in the power switch. Within about a week of getting it a paper label cut to size significantly reduced the brightness. As for listening in the dark all my night time listening is done using headphones so I don't disturb my wife who often works early shifts. Often it is radio programmes like Sounds of the 80s hence my collection of headphone radios.
The light show is one of the coolest parts of vintage audio, I even run EQs that don't go back to into the amp just for the cool lights. The neat thing is the unique personality your system gets with the way you set it up, some have the dark red, some have the bright white VUs, Marantz has blue, etc Everything I have is 35+ years old, back when every component had a few lights. I love firing up new to me equipment but it stinks when the lights don't work.
ha, switch off the whole crap and throw it out, leave the red but get a second glas for your partner, drop the one or other candle here and there, grab your guitar ...ah, b.t.w. if you do so: let me know where you throw the gear, i‘ll happily recycle it for you
Mister X the lower the light pollution, the happier I am. Nice try autoreverser, no you can’t have my kit.
I have said before how in the Bristol HiFi store Lasky's they used to have dim lighting in the section where the amplifiers, tuners etc were to highlight all the lights on the equipment. As for the light shows on the front of some later equipment in summer 1989, a colleague was sent to the local electrical store to buy some fans. He came back with the fans, and a Technics Graphic Equaliser / Spectrum Analyser, not because he felt he needed to Equalise his audio but because he was fascinated by the display. He later became a commercial airline pilot. Plenty of lights in the Cockpit of your average airliner, although I recall him saying that the in-flight entertainment for the cockpit crew was listening to Atlantic 252 on the Nav Aid receiver !
Longman a friend of mine did something like this back in the 90’s, he regretted it later saying it was the most expensive component in the system. For me these are the kind of things that impress me for about 10 seconds, than I am board as they produce nothing more than distractions for about 10 seconds like I said before.
Growing up, in the suburbs, I used to do this with the radio a lot. Headphones on, windows ajar (even on cold nights), blinds half open to let in a little moonlight. Nowadays, it's a bit too noisy and bright outside to do this, but I still enjoy a dark/night listen. Sometimes I'll throw on the Sega Homestar for fun, too.
Chris. Beautiful setup. Love that turntable. When I had my system back in the 80'and 90-s I did the same thing. The lights never bothered me. I just closed my eyes and got immersed in the music opening them occasionally to make sure everything was ok kiki. Enjoy.
Thanks Derek. It’s getting dark now and I am just listening to Carol Emerald – The Shocking Miss Emerald with the lights off. Just the light from the laptop as I am still working for home and don’t finish till 6pm.
Thanks I took it years ago at Notting Hill Carnival. I had GIK Acoustics make it into an acoustic panel for me.
