Hi, I recently got an old receiver (Yamaha RX-V430RDS) to use as a speaker amp. I'm feeding it via RCA from my Fiio Alpen lineout. The receiver has coaxial and toslink digital inputs available. Currently I don't have any way of connecting my laptop to these, but I'm toying with the idea of...

These are my notes on how to do this. I assume an existing Linux box and some familiarity with the usual tools.   Download the install image, then dd onto your card thusly: http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/raspberry-pi . If your card appears as something like "/dev/mmcblk0p1", dd it...

Any who think they might like some European folk/jazz/alternative/literate-pop type music, this is for you.  The Slovak label Slnko records is giving away free mp3 downloads of each of their 41 albums, one each week, this year.   They are listed on http://www.slnkorecords.sk/sr_act.php - the...

One of the joys of autumn in the UK - the Building a Library programme on Radio 3 is back from its summer break.   For those not familiar with it, it's a programme where a (generally very knowledgeable) presenter reviews the available recordings of a work, playing excerpts from each, and...

Some of you might be interested in the new version of Dave Holland's site at Dave Holland The bad news is that its design is horrific and there's not much in the way of information there yet; the good news is that his new album is available for streaming free, in 320kbps mp3 for a dollar (for...

Lured by Karmic Koala, I've been spending the last couple of days exploring Ubuntu. Obviously as a Head-fier, one of my main priorities has been looking for a satisfactory music player (foobar has hitherto been everything I could want). My search has been somewhat complicated by my need for a...

I recently subscribed to the Naxos Music Library, and am having a wonderful time exploring it. One nice surprise was finding out that it includes material from BIS, Chandos and various other labels as well as Naxos itself. Since there's so much available, I'd like some suggestions on...

I recently bought an Alien DAC, and am having a problem with it. I'm hoping against hope that it's not a hardware issue, because I don't have so much as a screwdriver to open it up. The DAC works fine for anything from a couple of minutes to half an hour or so, then I get a very loud burst of...

Forum search doesn't work for something as short as T2, so apologies if this has come up before. Stephen Fry, of all people, has written a column in part praising the T2 custom IEMs:Dork talk: Stephen Fry explores the high-end of digital music technology | Technology | The Guardian Has...

I'm thinking of getting a tube amp from China, which by default would be for a 220 volt power supply. I'd be using it in the UK and/or Poland, which are 240 and 230 volt systems respectively. I gather that the nominal voltages of the various systems are actually subject to some variation. So my...