June 8th, 2008
On the train ride home from last week’s trip to Monterey, I noticed some problems with my headphones. Specifically, the right earphone would cut out unless the in-line volume control was turned all the way up. No big deal, I figured. I had purchased a two-year replacement plan for the headphones. I’d just take ‘em back to Radio Shack and make an exchange. Then, after going through the rather tedious process of getting the exchange all ready to go (I won’t bore you with all of the details, but it had to be done through the mail, not in-store), the headphones began working again. They’re not perfect. There’s still a little cutting in/out, but it’s not major. I decided to cancel the return. I figured if the Radio Shack people tested ‘em, and disproved my original claim, they’d just send ‘em back to me as-is. Besides, I still have the warranty and can arrange for another exchange if they really do die in the future.
We had some technical problems leading up to the live broadcast of last week’s Hyper Nonsense episode. That wasn’t anything new in and of itself. What was odd was that our previous live show had gone off relatively smoothly, and between that show and the one we did last week, nothing had changed in terms of our equipment. And yet, things weren’t working as they should’ve been. After much swearing (and a few suggestions of violence towards the equipment), I decided to swap out an audio cable and restart the Mac Mini. Once everything was up, running and connected, it all began to work as it was supposed to. I haven’t yet determined exactly what the problem was. I do know that it was caused either by the ustream.tv interface, or a bad audio cable. Regardless, I’ve ordered a cable tester. Once it arrives, I’m going to check all of our cables and dispose of any that are no longer at 100%. it’s likely that at least a few of them are damaged. They’re all cheap, they’ve been moved a bazillion times, and some of them are probably close to 20 years old.
A welcome side effect of all of this is that my M-Audio powered audio monitors have come back to life. Just like my headphones, the speakers had completely cut out on one side. I was preparing to contact M-Audio to set up a return. I decided to check one more time before picking up the phone, and it turned out that the monitors were working fine. (I’m listening to music through them right now.) This just reinforces the likelihood that some of the audio cables are bad, and need to be replaced.
What I’ve learned through all of this is, when dealing with audio issues, it really may just be the cables. And also that some things will mysteriously “fix themselves” if you make enough noise about having to exchange them. Maybe all this technology is really smarter than we’ve realized.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Technology has a mind of it’s own, that is for certain!