[dvd3500]

So my 15 year-old surround sound receiver gave up the electronic ghost over the weekend with a pop, whistle, smoke and squeal...

Now I was thoroughly happy with the system.
It was a 6.1 system (look it up) that handled all my favorite sound formats.

It had a phono input for the two times per year I listen to vinyl and all the other digital and analog inputs I needed.


Great sounds through Canton speakers.

Thanks to little add-ons it was even Bluetooth enabled!

Now I want the new system to be plug and play as much as possible.

When you try to google ANYTHING related to surround systems I discover I am in the realm of "I understand every word on this page but I still have no idea what it says".

After 30 minutes of finding NOTHING and I mean NOTHING I twigged and called the place I bought  it from all those years ago.

Their store is closed for some pandemic or something but luckily they have a decent website.
I literally went to the specials page, sorted by price, and clicked on the receivers looking for a phono connection and BAM... found one.

Did a double check that it works with my TV (which is over 10 years old at this point) and went ahead and bought it.

The point it is, there was a time in the early 2000s you could start with a search engine and actually FIND something other than just noise.

While I was at it I thought about my BluRay player getting up there.... My favorite brand was Philips as they could be unlocked to play American DVDs ... I can't even find out if  they make BluRay players anymore!

When you google "does philips still make bluray players" you don't get anything that really answers that

From what I can tell they make a 4K UHD BluRay player in 2018 so likely they have stopped. But do I know that for sure?!

So while we can get access to "stuff" we really get no knowledge or closure.

Kudos to the shop I am buying from though. Once I figured out what model I wanted they were on every price search that popped up. Sure they cost more than ama-zon but there is fun about picking things up on your own.


My son wants a PC for his birthday and I am dreading that as the last PC I bought was 2007 from Aldi and the last one I built was 2004 or 2005. I have no idea where to start and google is of course no help whatsoever..

Wisdom is a burden to others sometimes I guess...