Browsing though secondhand shops, and retro art shops, I came across a cool old piece of history.
I was planning to remove the internals (first checking if its really broken .. it is), and make a radio which plays audio fragments from the 50-60s. (Music and News)
Playing old media using a raspberry
Using the original knobs and lights (more on this later)
While tuning in on channels, static sound will be heard and country selection will be a used also for music/news selection
Maybe I’ll use one of the turning knobs as decade selector (like the old band selector 25m/31m etc)
Back of the radio
Type H265A01. This one was made in de 50s in Nederlandsche Seintoestellen Fabriek (N.S.F.). This factory was standing within 100 meters where I currently live
Another interesting thing: It has a Magic Eye (Philips MiniWatt EM4)! This little thingy works like a mini CRT device.
A magic eye EM4 is a vintage vacuum tube (introduced around 1938–1939) used as a visual tuning indicator in old European radios and test equipment. It glows with a green or yellow-green phosphor pattern that narrows or expands based on signal strength, helping users find the exact radio frequency
Due too the high voltages needed for this device, I’ll be storing this in a safe place, and make a modern alternative using a microcontroller and a round display.
Our Onkyo was giving problems, some channels are breaking up. To have some channels back, we needed to crank up the volume for a few seconds.
So I thought .. preamps!
So I opened the Onkyo and started investigating.
We used it as a 5.1 surround sound system. So I’ve got PreAmp channels to spare, so lets switch the boards!
Well, that didn’t work. Reading forums, it COULD be the sound chip, on the main board. Because of the heat over the years, it could losing contact with the main PCB.
So I put my heatgun to work, but to no avail. One of the square chips on the right in first photo.
The AMP being 15+ years old, we decided to get a new one. Researching best amp’s in 2026 … in our price range.
Onkyo TX-RZ50
Amazing …
Using the DIRAC sound setup, perfect again.
Using the same IP, our Home Assistant setup mostly worked without changing much.
I listen to all kinds of music, metal till classical.
Mostly Celtic/Irish/Scottish/Bagpipes. But i’ve listen to below also.
In the summer I often listen to Cuban/Latin music when outside.
Most of what I listen too, has to have some technical or difficult hints to get me interested.
Master of puppets metallica
“La campanella” is a revision of an earlier version from 1838, the Études d’exécution transcendante d’après Paganini, S. 140. Its melody comes from the final movement of Niccolò Paganini‘s Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor (yeah as mentioned in another post, I am a Paganini fan)
Very nice technique on Guzheng using two slides, key change and vibrato.
Some classic composers ( When I’m in the mood, these will be played )
First time listening to classical music, was in 6 grade (8 nowadays). The Four Seasons by Vivaldi, another great composer
(Live real time using text (code) to make music and visuals)
Last week, I discovered Strudel. I was playing around with it and thought: “This would be perfect for Tyrone”. He is/was the main musical artist in our Group.
Strudel REPL is a web-based, live coding environment for creating music, based on the Tidal Cycles pattern language. It allows users to write and edit code in a browser to instantly hear the music it produces, with features like visual feedback and an interactive tutorial to help beginners and experts. The “REPL” stands for Read-Eval-Print Loop, a common term for interactive programming environments where you can type code, and the system immediately evaluates it and prints the result.
I can make some simple patterns, but I discovered that it can be used multiuser with realtime synthesizer named Hydra. I’m better doing visuals, than creating realtime digital music. Check out https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/?s=shaders – for my previous shader programming posts. (I love playing real instruments, let’s keep it that way.)
Hydra video synth is a free, open-source, live-coding environment for creating real-time visuals that runs in a web browser. It uses JavaScript and WebGL to allow users to “patch” together different visual sources and transformations, similar to an analog modular synthesizer, to generate effects like video feedback, generative patterns, and audio-reactive visuals.
It is JavaScript being compiled to WebGL
So using https://flok.cc we can start a multiuser session with realtime live coding.
So the first test session, learning to use Hydra and Strudel together over the internet. Plan is to do a live session for others using a screen projector.
Left Tyrone (Strudel) right me with Hydra.
In the last few days, I made some examples using hydra.
These examples use Microphone for sound reactive, and Webcam for embedded effects. NOTE: These are only in your browser session, nothing is being recorded/stored.