About the website and me:
About the website:
Welcome to a 'behind the scenes' page, about the website itself!
I set up the website in July 2019 with the aim of informing the reader about outdated (mainly analogue) media by means of instructions accompanied by detailed photos and sometimes short (mainly humorous) films. Although the website and the hobby go hand in hand, the website is more of an extra for me. It's nice to be able to share your hobby with the outside world, I like to inform others about what it means to work with old sound media.
At the same time, it is a lot of work to keep a website running. The extent to which I work on the website varies, sometimes I am working on it every day for weeks in a row, but it can also happen that nothing is done for a whole month. It's just how much time and energy I have to tinker with the website. To make an overview of all types of work out there:
- Capturing photos and videos as I work on equipment.
- Build pages with topics like information, repair, or blogs.
- Finding the right information and clearly communicating it on the website.
- Complete pages (some are still missing information).
- Make corrections, look for language errors and incorrect information, adjust this to the correct one.
- Correct errors on the website itself (broken links or images/videos not loading).
- Good translation of pages for the English version.
- Answer questions and comments from readers.
- Keep track of what the reader finds interesting (by means of the survey).
- Financially keep the website running.
- Create 'Advertising' for the website.
- Keep track of the reach and how many visitors visit both language versions.
- Presenting readers actual interesting information.
And many more aspects not mentioned above.
You might ask yourself, why not ask for help from others when it's so much work?
That is a question I often ask myself, but where do you find someone who has the same hobby and knowledge, has enough free time to help and is of course reliable, preferably someone from a well-known circle. But secretly it's nice to be in control of everything yourself. Decide for yourself what can be seen on the website, how it is described without someone else (except for the advice of the reader) determining what should be done with the website. A second administrator may be added in the future, but so far I see no need to ask for help from friends or acquaintances.
Then something else comes into play, social media. After all, we live in a time where almost everyone uses some form of social media. It is this way that people meet and keep in touch with like-minded people. I have often thought about this too, I myself stopped keeping my own profile in 2017. It might be interesting to meet people through social media and get acquainted with the website (or rather the early music media that the website is all about).
However, I haven't gotten around to this yet. The only things that currently connects the website to social media are the 'share buttons' at the bottom of the blogs and what readers themselves may share on social media.
To conclude, it might be interesting to see what the reach of the website is. Below is an overview of the number of visitors and how many pages are visited:
Number of visitors and number of pages visited since 2019
The images above was last updated on February 6th, 2023.
The small dip in 2021 is due to a problem in which the website was put offline for a couple of months.
As I look at these figures, it puts a smile on my face. Not because my website is getting popular but moreover the fact that so many people have at least some or the same amount of interest in the same thing as I have is what's making me happy. Also I get a lot of feedback from people looking for repair guides and stumble across my website finding just what they have been searching for. It makes it feel like I'm doing something good for the community.
But then another question arises, why not use forums instead? There are plenty, there is even a forum that shares almost the same name as the website!
Well I actually did use forums to get and share my information, and still do gather a lot of info from these very interesting community's. The thing is, content on forums tends to get 'old' or gets filled with off topic information very fast. The older your post on a forum is, the more it is overseen or gets replaced by another thread discussing the same topic.
Not that I dislike forums or want to talk bad about them. They are priceless if it comes to information. And sure if you really want to, you can easily find back this so-called 'old' information and learn something from it. I myself tend to find a lot of topic's from before 2010, regarding information that is essential to me and this website.
I didn't start this website to be a replacement to forums and their community's. I want this website to act like one big topic. A sort of Wikipedia, one that is being kept up-to-date. Where I can share my story's and experience with you, without having to start a new topic every time.
Then the next question comes up. How long is this website going to be maintained?
Well, as long as I see fit to keep it up and running...
It does take a lot of time and it also does not come cheap either.
However, at this current moment the website is doing very well. I do a lot of maintenance and I still have a lot of topics to cover. I'm also getting new idea's for blogs every month and from time to time, cover new repairs.
The information pages are still in development, after they are all finished it just a fact of keeping them relevant and add new information as the years go by.
There is surely no shorts on new content coming up. And I actually like to inspect the website, looking for wrong information or simple spelling mistakes. So as far as I know, this website will be up and running for at least the next couple of years! At least until August 2027 when I have to extend the domain itself...
And for the English reader, are both versions of the website the same (Dutch vs English)?
Yes... And no.
In general everything is the same, but the use of some words or some ways of describing thing may differ.
Some thing are better to describe in a different way in different languages.
I started the English version (in 2022) so you don't have to use a translate tool to change everything from Dutch to English. Also the translations tend to result in weird sentences, parts may become unreadable or may even display wrong information. Also with the English version I can focus my attention to a very broad public. The Dutch version will still be kept up-to-date for the people in my country that simply have trouble understanding English in general.
Actually, I also do my work from within the native version, and translate to the English version on the go.
About me:
Actually, I set up the website with the idea of keeping myself out of the picture as much as possible. After all, this isn't about me, but about the audio hobby that I've delved into. Though, maybe it's curiosity that drives you to want to know who owns a hobby like this.
My name is Jeffrey, built in 1992. Born in South Rotterdam (the Netherlands) but raised in the low-lying province of Zeeland.
The photo you see on the Start page is me on the Zeeland coast. My interests are Mechanical, Electrical and Computer related techniques. Basically anything you can call technic interests me, with a preference for outdated technology. I find it wonderful to see old machines and devices in operation, especially if they still play an important role today and are indispensable. Sound also plays a very important role in this. Monotonous sounds in different repeating tones therefore literally sound like "music to my ears". This last sentence and
"I can watch it for hours" are often fixed statements that I make when I talk to someone about it.
In addition to the technique, music is also something that I can completely immerse myself in, whether it is classical or contemporary music. I owe my broad taste in music mainly to my mother. At home or on the road, music was always present. For example, I still remember how my mother and I regularly watched MTV and requested songs via mobile (with an emphasis on the song Intergalactic by The Beastie Boys). Or else the many song of UB40 during our move from Rotterdam to Zeeland in the mid nineties.
My taste is largely contributed by my mother, afterwards I went in my own direction and started preferring electronic music, but in the end I listen to just about everything.
To state this, here below is an overview of the collection:
Of course, the result of both interests can't be missed here, here's an brief overview of the physical collection:
The physical collection shown is continuously expanding. So what you see here is only a limited overview. A part is stored elsewhere where another part was added to the collection after these pictures where taken.