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[Scott Helmke]

A friend of mine had the same complaint about asking questions on facebook. To which I replied "you invited the vampire in by giving more information than was strictly necessary". 

Or let me put it this way:
"I'm planning on using a lavalier mic to reinforce my voice - I'll be standing in front of the loudspeaker.  Can anybody give me the pinout for a Shure WL-185?"

[David Allred]

"I'm planning on using a lavalier mic to reinforce my voice - I'll be standing in front of the loudspeaker.  Can anybody give me the pinout for a Shure WL-185?"

He does deserve the answer.  If you want it to be an object lesson, give the pinout.  He'll be back after the gig (or rehearsal) with a follow-up.

Or "Here's the pinout.  In front of the speaker with a lavalier?  Good luck with that."

[Debbie Dunkley]

And just to be clear, the Honda 70 is a motorcycle.   I realized after the fact that Honda is in the boat engine business too.

Oh I knew exactly what you were talking about. I have owned many Honda motorcycles... used to own a CB500T. It was far too big for me and I was probably unsafe on it but I used to be crazy back then in my youth !!! Right now in my basement I have a 1971 Honda CG200 scrambler - the original trial hybrid. My plan was to rebuild it one day but time got away from me.... I should sell it.....

[Jonathan Johnson]

I think the reason that it's hard to get pat answers here is because most of the regulars really want you to be successful in what you are trying to do.

So if you ask for the pinout for a Shure WL-185, yes, that has a pat answer that is correct in all situations. But the folks here are going to want to know HOW you plan to use the Shure WL-185, what it will connect to, how many people will be listening, etc. ad nauseum, because maybe, just maybe, the Shure WL-185 isn't the best thing for the job, or maybe it should be connected a different way, or something.

That's a spirit of helpfulness (or maybe overhelpfulness) that is sorely lacking in many other realms. I've come to realize there are no trade secrets here.


What I hate is when I'm trying to solve a problem and I come across a forum where someone posts "I'm trying to do ABC and it's not working. I found advice to try XYZ to fix it, but that didn't work." Then 90% of the following posts are "Do XYZ." Clearly, the responders didn't read the whole question; instead they Googled the first part of the question then cut and pasted the first result. I guess they are just looking for reputation points.

[Tim McCulloch]

A friend of mine had the same complaint about asking questions on facebook. To which I replied "you invited the vampire in by giving more information than was strictly necessary". 

Or let me put it this way:
"I'm planning on using a lavalier mic to reinforce my voice - I'll be standing in front of the loudspeaker.  Can anybody give me the pinout for a Shure WL-185?"

For what transmitter, or are you using tin cans and string?

[Paul G. OBrien]

here is my frustration.

A clear and concise question is posed with information to clarify the question and yet, most responses do not directly address that question.

The question may be clear and concise to you but everybody won't read it that way.

This happens quite a lot, perhaps due to the question not being fully read or understood. If not understood, perhaps ask for clarification before posting an answer that is not helpful.

Yes great advice, but even that sometimes elicits contempt from posters who are too impatient and just want a simple answer.

If the question is straight forward, is it unreasonable to expect that responses should, at the very least, include an answer to the OPs question?

No not unreasonable but I'd also argue that most people really are trying to be constructive in the broader sense and there is nothing to be gained and lots to lose by coping an attitude, if you piss off the core group of regulars you may find you cease to have any access to the huge depth of knowledge and experience contained in this collective.
And another point that pertains to the Lounge forum in particular, it is a place for learners and as such many threads will tend towards teaching lessons that can contain a much wider range of information than what the OP initially expected, but that is good in the long run as the thread may provide additional answers for others in the future.

[Tim McCulloch]

Give a man a fish vs teaching a man to fish.

I can give someone an answer and he'll remain ignorant until he understands the why and how of the topic.

[Geert Friedhof]

OK, questions:

What do you mean by TMI?
There are 62 definitions for this acronym. Please be specific.

No really. In your transformer thread you got 5 reactions, 4 of which were within 4 hours, and three of those were, in your eyes, to the point. The fourth and fifth suggested to just buy new cheap DI's, which in my book is a very sound advice.

And the information you gave was: cheap di, 5 wire centre tapped. No brand, no size, no measurments, no picture. Nothing. Is that, and i quote: "A clear and concise question [is] posed with information to clarify the question"?

So what are you on about?

[Kevin Maxwell]

Oh I knew exactly what you were talking about. I have owned many Honda motorcycles... used to own a CB500T. It was far too big for me and I was probably unsafe on it but I used to be crazy back then in my youth !!! Right now in my basement I have a 1971 Honda CG200 scrambler - the original trial hybrid. My plan was to rebuild it one day but time got away from me.... I should sell it.....

Intentional topic swerve just to see if I can really annoy the original poster.

I have a 1982 Honda CX500Turbo, I am the original owner. Last year I think I rode it less than 1 mile. I needed a new battery and after I got one I didn’t have any time to ride it. I can’t ride it to a show because I take just enough stuff including a cooler that I can’t transport all of that on the bike.

As I was writing this I remembered that I put the new battery that’s been sitting around in its’ box on my charger in the basement a few days ago. Luckily it is the type of charger that goes down to a real trickle, I think it even shuts off after the battery is up to the proper voltage.

On the subject of direct boxes I made a few using some really nice McMartin MT4 transformers but I haven’t used them in years but. I just pulled out the specs for them. Luckily I contacted McMartin back in 1981 (it looks like the closed up shop in 1985) and they mailed me photo copies of the spec sheet for them that included the pin outs. I know that because the date on the postage imprint is Jun 18’81. It’s one of those metal housed ones with 9 pins. The winding on one side are Com-125/600/10k and the other side is Com-10k/60k. I wired it up using all the taps with switches and different connectors to take advantage of the different impedances.  I tested these Direct Boxes a few years ago using Smaart like I like to do to things to see how flat they are. It was years ago and I still haven’t used them but I remember some weird results. I think there is a wiring error somewhere it might be in the resistor network pad that I made for it. I tested (with Smaart) a cheap rolls device that takes a L/R stereo input on RCAs with 2 volume knobs one for each side and brings it down to one XLR it works just fine. But testing it shows at starts to roll of the lows end at 150hz, maybe that is why it is called a Rolls.

Let’s see I swerved the topic I gave a lot of information that has nothing to do with exactly what the OP was looking for. Did I miss anything?

[Keith Broughton]

I think the reason that it's hard to get pat answers here is because most of the regulars really want you to be successful in what you are trying to do.

So if you ask for the pinout for a Shure WL-185, yes, that has a pat answer that is correct in all situations. But the folks here are going to want to know HOW you plan to use the Shure WL-185, what it will connect to, how many people will be listening, etc. ad nauseum, because maybe, just maybe, the Shure WL-185 isn't the best thing for the job, or maybe it should be connected a different way, or something.

That's a spirit of helpfulness (or maybe overhelpfulness) that is sorely lacking in many other realms. I've come to realize there are no trade secrets here.

Right!
So FIRST you would give the pinout THEN add some extra questions or advice.

What I hate is when I'm trying to solve a problem and I come across a forum where someone posts "I'm trying to do ABC and it's not working. I found advice to try XYZ to fix it, but that didn't work." Then 90% of the following posts are "Do XYZ." Clearly, the responders didn't read the whole question; instead they Googled the first part of the question then cut and pasted the first result. I guess they are just looking for reputation points.

[ProSoundWeb Community]