90 day service: data points replaced

Had a guy come out to check the faulty data points I had - turns out the original installer put them in "wrong" somehow, and the clips holding the data jack to the wall plate had broken off. Didn't take long to replace the faulty ones, just hoping the other ones aren't secretly crap as well!

Also had a major win today - sold my old motorised projector screen, and while I was taking the screen out to the buyer's car, my neighbour was leaving. Now, this week being hard rubbish collection, everyone has junk outside their house, with plenty of scavengers driving around in the vans and trailers looking to pinch stuff. I'm not that type... at least I thought I wasn't, and I noticed my neighbour had some very nice looking speakers on her lawn! So I asked her permission to salvage them, and she said to help myself... and I did!

Turns out they're Wharfedale Valdus 400. Hooked them up to my trusty old Pioneer amp, and they work just fine! Quite a bit bassier and slightly pitched top end compared my reference speakers (Jamo Studio) but I'll keep them for the time being, and maybe look at replacing the drivers in future, if I ever get any spare time. Definitely not an audiophile grade set of speakers, but I'm mainly after the enclosures, which are in pretty good condition!


Anyway, they look quite nice with the speaker grilles removed - only thing is the Wharfedale badge is missing from one of the speakers (can't find them on eBay, anyone got a spare one to send my way?!). I was planning to get a few nerd projects done this year, one of them being a laptop-based dedicated MAME system (like this one, or the ikea mame hack), and also custom building a set of speakers - so I may look at replacing the bass, mid-bass, tweeters and crossover, but reusing the wharfedale enclosures. Something for later!

Finally, this afternoon I cruised down to Frankston to pick up a brilliant eBay win - I love the King Kahuna beanbags that we saw in a store in Chadstone a few weeks ago, and wanted a few to set up as the front row in our home theatre room - bought 4 used ones for a bargain price! After a bit of a clean and topping up beans from our old beanbags, they've turned out fantastic! Very sturdy construction from marine vinyl, comfortable, and seeing as how our dogs manage to fight and tear every beanbag I've had, these we'll keep locked up in the HT, away from them.

T&T