Uncategorized – Page 2 – Auxiliary Memory

Replacing a Bluesound PowerNode 2i with a WiiM Amp Ultra

by James Wallace Harris, 7/6/26

I was quite happy with the Bluesound PowerNode 2i, which I bought years ago. I used it in my bedroom with Klipsch RP-5000F floorstanding speakers. I’d retreat to the bedroom to play music loud and not bother my wife in the front of the house. However, it never sounded as good as my Audiolab 6000A and Polk R600 floorstanding speakers in the den.

The bedroom setup sounded very good, but didn’t produce the big, airy soundstage that I had in the den. Of course, the den is much bigger. I liked its sound so much that I ended up playing my music there more often. My wife said it was okay, but I still worried about annoying her.

Then, when the PowerNode 2i started acting flaky, I thought here was my chance to upgrade the bedroom. The PowerNode 2i still worked, but if I turned it off and then on, it often wouldn’t play music through the speakers, only the subwoofer. I’d have to turn it off and on several times before it would work right. The 2i doesn’t have an on/off switch. Normally, I just leave it on. However, sometimes I wouldn’t use it for days. It would stay warm. And with the subwoofer, I worried about wasting electricity. So I start turning it off at the surge protector. I don’t know if this damaged the 2i.

I thought about buying an Audiolab 6000A for the bedroom, but I’ve seen so many glowing reviews of WiiM products that I wanted to try them. I wondered if what I really liked was the sound of a class A-B amp. The 6000A is twice the price of the WiiM Amp Ultra. I wondered if class D amps had improved in the four years since the 2i came out.

Normally, the WiiM Amp Ultra is $529 at Amazon, but during Prime Day, it was $449. I took that as a sign.

At first, I just swapped speaker cables with the 2i when I set up the WiiM. I also set the crossover for the bass and ran the room correction software. Then I played my first test song. The sound was somewhat better than the 2i, but the soundstage was still small. This disappointed me. I thought of sending it back.

Then I got an idea. I moved the speakers out into the room and further apart. This made a huge improvement. One I was happy with. I had them on six-foot cables. I ordered a set of ten-foot cables and spread them out further. It sounded even better.

Of course, the speakers are in the way. I decided to live with that. I’m the only one who uses this bedroom, and so far, my wife hasn’t seen the setup. I bought some cable covers to protect the speaker cables.

I really like the sound now. It is different from the 6000A. The best way I can describe it is to compare it to working with a photo in Photoshop. The sound from the WiiM feels a tad oversaturated, like oversaturating the colors in a photo. I can change that with EQ, but it’s never as airy as the music from the 6000A. I don’t know if that’s because of the room size or not.

The lesson here is speaker placement and room dynamics. Probably, the PowerNode 2i would have had a larger soundstage if I had moved the speakers out for it. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d swap the 6000A and WiiM Amp Ultra to see how they sounded in the other room.

The screen on the WiiM Amp Ultra is too small to matter. And I don’t need the phono input or other inputs. I do like the subwoofer support. For the bedroom, all I care about is streaming. I see reviewers on YouTube who claim that if I spend a lot more money, I could get equipment that sounds better than the WiiM. I could test that hypothesis if I tried the 6000A in the bedroom. However, I’m happy enough.

However, I still wonder if those reviewers are right. If I spent $10,000, would I experience music way better than the WiiM? Unless I win the lottery, I’m not going to try to find out.

JWH

The Things That We Love

by James Wallace Harris, 6/27/26

Susan and I just finished watching The Spoils of Poynton, a 1970 BBC production shown on Masterpiece Theater in 1971. It’s based on a 1897 novel by Henry James. Mrs. Adele Gereth has collected art objects, furniture, knick-knacks, lamps, glassware, and pottery for her entire life. Now that her son Owen is of age and will inherit the house and everything in it, she is distraught to learn that his fiancée, Mona Brigstock, lacks the taste and refinement to appreciate her treasure. So Adele connives to get Owen to marry someone else.

This is how things used to be. Families clung to generations of cherished things. Before my mother died, she wanted to know who wanted what of her things. She assumed that Becky, my sister, and I, as well as some of my cousins, would fight over her favorite things. After she died, I took the photo albums, my sister took some homemade quilts, and we gave away everything else.

I’m currently listening to Whistler, the new novel by Ann Patchett. At one point, Jonathan, the husband of the main character, Daphne Fuller, leaves her for several days to return home after his mother’s death to sort through her possessions with his siblings. Daphne begs Jonathan to hire an estate cleanout instead of putting himself through weeks of agony.

When Susan’s parents died, we bought their house because Susan and her brothers were too sentimental to let it go. So we lived with Robert and Mary’s stuff for a very long time. It was actually better than our stuff. And when my friend Janis moved to Mexico, we took in a bunch of her stuff. I think of these people by the things they owned.

All of this makes me think about the things I love to buy and own. Isn’t it weird how we love physical objects so intently? Susan and I are terrible at home decor. Our favorite kind of furniture is the La-Z-Boy. We have six single chairs and one double. We also love large screen TVs. My den has a 65″ TV, and her living room has a 75″ TV. We have hundreds of DVDs. And I have hundreds of CDs. I also have hundreds of books.

I don’t lust after cars, guns, or sports memorabilia like normal guys. I’m a bookworm, and books are what I get all sappy about. Susan says when I die, she’ll call Goodwill and Salvation Army and ask them to haul off everything I loved. Sometimes I think I should help her out by giving most of my books away before I die.

I especially love old science fiction magazines. I’d rather have them than diamonds. I would trade them for 19th-century artwork, but I’m realistic enough to know I’m no art collector. Besides, impressionist artworks really don’t go with La-Z-Boys.

The other day, I watched a YouTube video of the actor Paul Giamatti being interviewed about his book collecting. I felt a great affinity with these two guys. These are my people. I cherish crappy old paperbacks, too.

I always marvel when I visit friends and see how they’ve made their houses into museums of the things they admire. It makes me feel bad that I don’t love beautiful home furnishings. Our decor is functional for watching TV, listening to music, and reading.

After I’ve died, and someone is throwing out my science fiction magazine, I doubt they will see the beauty I saw. They won’t know that every issue of F&SF, Galaxy, or Astounding triggers memories. Most people remember the people they knew and the stories about them. I remember writers and the stories they wrote.

I wish I had a manor house and a lifetime of collected treasures like Adele Gereth, including my library of books and magazines. I love my house, even though it’s junky and cluttered. I do regret not having more refined tastes. But I never cared about dishes or doodads. My grandmother collected figurines of dogs. She had hundreds. That was cool. I wish I had gotten one to remember her by – a collie dog.

In Whistler, Jonathan’s first wife collected paintings of rabbits. I wish I had thought of something like that when I was young. Some kind of modest art that people throwing my stuff away could have identified me with. I’ve always admired 19th-century drawings by naturalists and scientists.

I visit the Friends of the Library bookstore once a week. People donate the kind of things I treasure. In fact, a lot of my treasure came from that bookstore. I think I’ll arrange to give my stuff to them when I die. I’ve already given them thousands of books, records, and CDs over the decades. It makes me sad when I see things I once loved left on the shelves for weeks. Hopefully, they will all find a new home with someone to love them. I guess I’m no different than Adele Gereth.

JWH

Are My Thoughts Like Your Thoughts?

by James Wallace Harris, 6/15/26

In Chapter 3, “Thought” from A World Appears, Michael Pollan works with psychologist Russell T. Hurlburt, who has been collecting thought diaries from his subjects for over fifty years. The technique Hurlburt uses is called Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES). Subjects wear a device that randomly beeps in their ears. When they hear the beep, they write down what was going on in their head just before the beep. Hurlburt says:

I have sampled with some people whose inner experience is characterized almost exclusively by inner speech; with others whose inner experience is characterized almost exclusively by images, or by sensory awareness, or by unsymbolized thinking, or by feelings; with others whose inner experience is characterized by a combination of all those; with some whose inner experience is characterized by many simultaneous events; with others whose inner experience is characterized almost exclusively by one event at a time; and so on. So, yes, I think people are importantly different when it comes to inner experience.

So when you ask a person, “What are you thinking?” the answer might not be anything like how you think. For the most part, people assume everyone thinks like they do, but Hurlburt’s research shows that isn’t true.

I’ve kept a running chatter in my head my whole life, except for when I’m unconscious. However, as soon as I wake up, the voice returns. It’s weird to think that some people don’t have this inner voice. That makes me think of the science fiction novel Blindsight by Peter Watts. Watts imagines an intelligent alien race that lacks conscious self-awareness.

My inner voice is almost always analytical, always commenting on what I’m experiencing. If I have a pain in my abdomen, the voice is proposing theories as to what is causing the pain. But it’s not always like this.

When I was younger, I had constant fantasies about everything. I was a little Walter Mitty. I’ve always had imaginary conversations in my head, usually about what I was going to talk about with people in the future. Of course, I had lots of sexual fantasies, but I had many more kinds of fantasies. If I saw a movie and didn’t like the plot, I’d reimagine it with a new plot. If I didn’t like the actors, I’d recast the film in my head. I’ve mentally written hundreds of science fiction stories. For every blog post I write, I’ve already written it several times in my thoughts.

I found it fascinating that Hurlburt said some people don’t do this either.

But then, when I discovered I had aphantasia, my mind boggled trying to imagine how other people see inside their minds. I do sometimes have flashes of visual imagery. My dreams are very vivid. And sometimes if I’m tired in just the right way, I have waking dreams. When I was young and smoked dope, the visual floodgates would open.

I do “visualize” things in my head, but without pictures. I have good spatial awareness and can intuit how machines work. I have another sense for how things look. It’s very hard to describe. I wonder if it’s like how blind people develop spatial awareness?

Hurlburt’s research also showed that people see and think less in their heads as they age. That makes me wonder if I had better mental imagery when I was younger. I do feel my inner chatter is slowing.

One reason I believe that is because when I first tried to meditate in the 1970s, I had a hell of a time quieting that inner voice. Now I can relax, and it will shut up for about as long as I can hold my breath. And it feels like that. The longer I shut up mentally, the pressure builds, sort of like needing to take a breath when you’re holding it. Thoughts eventually explode out.

I’ve often wondered why most people aren’t addicted to music like I am. When I play music, it stimulates my brain in many ways. My “thinking” goes into overdrive, and my mind is flooded with ideas. Also, music creates all kinds of emotions or enhances existing emotions. Music makes me mentally high, but it’s unlike the old marijuana high that made my body high, too. I need to hear one to two hours of music a day, so it does feel like an addiction.

I’m not sure what Hurlburt means by “symbolized” and “unsymbolized thinking.” I might do that, or I might not. Nor do I know what he means by only being able to think of one event at a time. I know I’m experiencing many sensory events at once, but I think I only focus on one at a time. Are some people multichanneled? Is that like having multiple picture-in-picture on your inner TV screen?

I have to assume I’m a bookworm because of the way I think. Reading fiction is like having your own artificial reality goggles. However, I don’t visualize scenes like other readers do.

I assume I write blogs because it feels like I’m organizing my thoughts. I assume that I would think like a writer, say, like Michael Pollan. But the more I read about Hurlburt, the more I wonder.

The fact that there is so much variation from person to person in our modes of thinking is itself an important finding of Descriptive Experience Sampling. Most of us assume that our inner lives must be substantially similar—not necessarily in content but in the form our thoughts take. Hurlburt has suggested that we fail to recognize the diversity of thinking styles because we lump them all together under that single word—thinking—and assume we mean the same thing by it, though in actuality we don’t.

“When a visualizer says they are thinking about something,” Hurlburt said, “they mean they are seeing a visual image of something, and if they are predominantly inner speakers, they mean ‘I was talking to myself.’ And the reason for this, I speculate, is that when you were two and learned that when your mother, or whoever it was, says, ‘I was thinking,’ that meant something that was happening inside Mom that you couldn’t see. So when I want to tell you whatever is going on inside me, that’s ‘I’m thinking.’ But ‘thinking’ means something different from person to person.” If Hurlburt is right, the word thinking has allowed us to overlook these differences and make the unwarranted assumption that other people are having inner experiences more or less like our own.

Pollan, Michael. A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness (pp. 146-147). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Pollan was surprised when Hurlburt expressed what his DES diaries suggested:

Hurlburt proceeded to tell me that he didn’t think I had much inner experience at all. I was on the far end of a spectrum that ran from a rich inner life of words, images, and sensations to one…well, one lacking all that. Apparently, the fact that I had so much trouble distinguishing context from the moments under analysis (and kept bringing up things he considered irrelevant) suggested to him that I was, in effect, backfilling moments empty of actual inner experience.

I was flabbergasted, and reacted a little defensively.

Hurlburt said that he had arrived at his conclusion by a process of elimination: Most of my beeps lacked words, lacked images, lacked sensory awareness. Okay, but what about unsymbolized thinking? My non- or preverbal thought processes seemed to fall neatly into this mode. Hurlburt acknowledged that we had turned up a few instances of this, but “unsymbolized thoughts are complete thoughts,” he explained, not the misty “gists” of thought I had described. Subtract those and he was left with one uncomfortable possibility: that I didn’t have nearly as much of an inner life as I’d always assumed.

My interiority, he seemed to be suggesting, was sparsely furnished.

Has it always been this way? I wondered. Hurlburt pointed out that the ability to generate inner experiences depends on cognitive resources that decline with age. For example, he’s found that as people get older, their inner seeing tends to deteriorate, fading from full-color imagery to black and white. He cited James, who writes that “the older men are and the more effective as thinkers, the more, as a rule, they have lost their visualizing power…. The present writer observes it in his own person most distinctly.” Hurlburt thinks that all forms of inner experience may be subject to the same fading over time.

Pollan, Michael. A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness (pp. 148-149). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Can we know ourselves? Many philosophers and scientists say we can’t understand consciousness because we’re studying it from the inside out. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to step outside of ourselves and study who we are?

It’s quite commonly known that people see colors differently. For example, when I play Rummikub with friends, they claim the green tiles are blue. This is really no different than how different monitors show the same .jpg file with different-looking colors.

This morning, my inner voice was chatting about how we see the world, and asked if machines perceive reality differently. Does a camera see a vista as objective reality? Or are the chemicals in film, and the sensors in digital cameras, also limited by physical constraints?

It is rather weird that we have no idea what reality looks like. And it seems we have no idea what we really look like on the inside.

JWH

The Forsytes on TV

by James Wallace Harris, 6/13/26

Would anyone still be reading John Galsworthy if British television didn’t keep producing new versions of The Forsyte Saga? Galsworthy did win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932, the year before he died, but that recognition seldom guarantees an enduring audience.

I must admit I wouldn’t be reading Galsworthy books today if I hadn’t been a fan of all three miniseries based on The Forsyte Saga. Technically, The Forsyte Saga is the title Galsworthy gave to the first trilogy of novels based on the Forsyte family. All nine novels are called The Forsyte Chronicles.

I know it sounds obsessive that I’m reading the books after watching 42 episodes of the three miniseries. However, the novels color in the main characters with greater detail. They also flesh out all the minor characters we see standing around the main characters on the screen.

The literary world has forgotten Galsworthy as a Victorian materialist who didn’t make the evolutionary step to modernism. Virginia Woolf was particularly hard on Galsworthy for failing to portray the inner lives of his characters. We don’t get deep, long stream-of-consciousness narratives, but I do feel Galsworthy describes the inner world of his characters, sometimes explicitly but often implied through dialogue and action.

Soames Foryste, who readers will hate as much as Irene Forsyte hates him, does get our sympathy. Soames is so well developed over six novels that he feels like one of the historical figures Lytton Strachey wrote about in Eminent Victorians.

Personally, I don’t know why Anthony Trollope and John Galsworthy aren’t as popular with readers as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. They fill in a gap in English history for readers who study history through novels. Galsworthy is well-suited for those who love Downton Abbey, which explains why British television has produced it three times.

Amazon has the Forsyte Collection for 99 cents, which claims to contain everything in 3,355 pages. There are several audiobook editions, but I’m listening to the Naxos editions. Naxos packages the entire story of nine novels using their trilogy names: The Forsyte Saga, A Modern Comedy, and End of the Chapter.

Only the first six novels actually focus on the Forsytes; the last three deal with a distant cousin.

The Forsytes Saga (1967) miniseries has 26 parts, and covers the first six novels and interludes (short stories):

The Man of Property
In Chancery
To Let
The White Monkey
The Silver Spoon
Swan Song

The Forsyte Saga (2002) miniseries has 10 parts, and only covers the first three novels and interludes (short stories):

The Man of Property
In Chancery
To Let

The latest television version, The Forsytes (2025), had only six episodes in its first season and covered only part of The Man of Property. It had been renewed for seasons 2 and 3. For some reason, it changes the story from the books and the two other television series. I don’t recommend starting with this series, even though it has the most elaborate production.

I recommend watching the 1967 series, which is in black-and-white. The only place I could find it was on YouTube. Among the stars were two of my favorites, Kenneth More and Susan Hampshire.

As far as I can remember, only Soames, Irene, and Winifred appear in all six of the first novels that focus on the Forsyte family from the 1880s until 1926. It involves at least ten love stories and eight marriages. It begins in Victorian times, spans the Edwardian, through World War I, and into the Jazz Age.

The 26 episodes of The Forsyte Saga reminded me a great deal of the 26 episodes of The Pallisers, which is based on six novels by Anthony Trollope. It made me wonder if Galsworthy was a fan of Trollope. But it also reminded me of the 12-volume novel series, Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell, and the four-part TV series of the same name. These English writers like to span generations, combining character drama and British history.

Although there are plenty of reasons to hate Soames Forsyte, I found him a fascinating character. I was very sympathetic to Irene Forsyte, but I also wanted to condemn her. I both liked and disliked Jon and Fleur. In the 1967 version, Fleur was played by Susan Hampshire. It’s hard to judge the faults of a character played by such a beautiful actress.

I’ve already seen the 2002 version twice, and I’m looking forward to watching it again. According to WatchNow, it’s available on Netflix and PBS. Damian Lewis portrays Soames wonderfully. The character is so unlikable, yet over time, you develop great sympathy for the poor man.

Unfortunately, I haven’t taken to the new 2025 version, although I will give it another viewing. The actors all look too young and beautiful. The costumes, sets, and production are luscious. Visually, it reminds me of HBO’s The Gilded Age. The latest big historical dramas all seem to be revising the past, so everyone is young and beautiful. I really appreciated all the genuinely old-looking characters in the 1967 version.

The miniseries focuses on romantic relationships. The novels also explore many other kinds of relationships. Soames and his father. Soames and his uncles and aunts. Soames with his brothers and sisters. Soames is the patron of Philip the artist. But they are also romantic rivals for Irene. In the second trilogy, A Modern Comedy, the novels focus on Soames’ relationship with his daughter Fleur. In the second trilogy, we see Soames in several business and political relationships. And we see Soames’ relationship to art – he’s a collector of paintings.

And this is just the connections of Soames. There is an intense relationship between Old Jolyon, Young Jolyon, and his son Jolly. We encounter even more relationships with their wives and lovers. Young Jolyon is Soames’s first cousin, and the two families have several overlapping relationships.

The story focuses on marriage from Victorian times through the Jazz Age. To the first and second generations of Forystes, marriage was about improving the Forsyte holdings. Soames twice marries poor, beautiful women who come to despise him. Intense love fails other couples. In the first six novels, I can only recall one marriage where love succeeds.

I’ve read enough about Galsworthy to know that the complicated Forsytes were somewhat inspired by his own family. And Galsworthy stole his wife, Ada, from his cousin, and they lived unmarried for several years, hiding the scandal from his father. After his father died, his cousin divorced Ada, and Galsworthy married her. This is paralleled with Jolyon and Soames.

In other words, there is great depth in these novels that makes The Forsytes worth reproducing for television. And it should encourage fans to read the novels.

JWH

Finding Old Movies on YouTube When You Don’t Have TCM

by James Wallace Harris, 6/2/26

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is the gold standard for old movie lovers. Unfortunately, in the era of cord-cutting, fewer people have access to this wonderful resource. TCM is available via several live-streaming services, including YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, DirecTV Stream, and Sling TV. However, they are becoming as expensive as cable TV.

Luckily, my wife is willing to pay for YouTube TV, so I don’t have to worry. However, I have friends who love old movies and don’t have TCM. I invite them over to watch movies with me, but it’s not the same.

The mood to sit in a dark room lit only by the flicker of a black-and-white movie can strike at any time. When I say old, I mean films produced before Beatlemania.

To show how old I am, I’d call The Graduate (1967) a new movie. I define old movies as those I first saw on television growing up. And new movies are those that came out after I started going to the movies on my own in 1962, when I was ten. I’d tend to call films like The Matrix (1999) recent films.

There are plenty of streaming services that show new and recent movies. It’s hard to find old movies if you don’t have TCM.

YouTube is a great resource for old movies. If you don’t subscribe to YouTube Premium Lite ($8.99) or YouTube Premium ($15.99), you’ll have to watch ads or rent the films individually. See YouTube Premium. Lite just removes most commercials, and full Premium adds YouTube Music. Watch this video for a full explanation. I’m subscribed to Lite because I have a Spotify subscription.

Go to YouTube’s Movies and TV page to view their catalog newer movies.

However, many old films are uploaded by regular users. These you have to find yourself, but they are a great source of old movies that aren’t shown on TCM. TCM’s library is great on MGM and Warner Brothers films, but is less good for many studios. For example, YouTube has lots of films from 20th Century Fox and Screen Gems that you don’t see on TCM.

Whenever you’re searching JustWatch and it lists no streaming sources for the film or TV show you’re looking for, check on YouTube.

In recent years, I’ve craved widescreen black-and-white films from the 1950s, and I’ve struck gold on YouTube in finding them.

I should warn y’all that watching old movies on YouTube can be tricky. In the early years of YouTube, old movies were uploaded in low resolution. But over time, they are reloaded in higher resolutions. If you find a movie that’s not in 1080p or 720p, be sure to use the search function to locate other copies.

Also, some uploaders trim off the opening credits. I hate that. I assume they are trying to avoid copyright strikes. Others like to overlay their channel IDs onto the film. I really hate that! My TV can upscale a 360p or 480p copy to make it watchable, but I generally check for 720p or 1080p copies first.

I’m also annoyed by colorized prints. Generally, I won’t watch them. However, I am intrigued by David Adiss’s effort to convert The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) from 4:3 to 16:9 aspect ratio with AI, and colorize it with AI.

Another problem is that films are uploaded without titles or alternate titles. I guess this is a shade area of the law. Check IMDb.org.

On the other hand, I’ve found stunning prints of old movies on YouTube. My soul finds great beauty in black-and-white cinematography.

It’s possible to watch old movies on your phone or tablet on YouTube, but I strongly recommend adding the YouTube app to your smart TV interface, or your Roku, Fire TV Stick, or Apple TV box.

I also recommend having a Google account. This should be automatic if you’re using a smart TV with Google TV or Android TV.

If you’re logged into YouTube, you can save old films to Watch Later. Also, Google remembers what you like and suggests additional old movies to your feed. I now have a nice library of old movies waiting to be seen.

Below are movies I’ve watched on YouTube with IMDB ratings. If you like a film, click on “Watch on YouTube.” It will take you to YouTube, and you can add it to your Watch Later list.

No Down Payment (1957) – 7.1

The Tattered Dress (1957) – 6.5

Oliver Twist (1948) – 7.8

The Admirable Crichton (1957) – 7.1

Separate Tables (1958) – 7.3

Two of a Kind (1951) – 6.6

Rawhide (1951) – 7.1

The Big Combo (1955) – 7.3

Garden of Evil (1954) 6.6 4K

House of Strangers (1949) – 7.3

Vicki (1953) – 6.5

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005) – 7.6

These are just the ones I’ve seen recently. You’ll note the many film noir flicks. Once I started watching them, YouTube kept offering me more. As the algorithm learns your tastes in films, the better the system gets. Be patient.

JWH