u/Aldayo

Hello fellow Reddit dwellers, Aldayo here.

I run Et Sona, a hi-fi and music publication, and after spending an unhealthy amount of time reviewing cartridges, turntables and other objects that make increasingly expensive noises, I ended up building a couple of tools to solve problems I kept running into myself.

The first is SPIN x Et Sona:
https://spin.et-sona.com/
SPIN is a listening and equipment tracker for vinyl. You can set up your turntables, tonearms and cartridges, import your Discogs collection, log what you actually play, track stylus hours and keep a record of equipment maintenance.

The basic problem I was trying to solve was that Discogs is excellent at telling me what I own, but it doesn’t really tell me what I do with it.

If I have three cartridges, for example, I want to know which one is actually getting used and how many hours I’ve put on each stylus. If I’ve got hundreds or thousands of records, I also want to know what I’m actually listening to rather than simply staring at a very impressive list of things I apparently own.

This seemed like a perfectly reasonable problem to solve.

Naturally, I built an entire application.

The second project came from a similar rabbit hole.
CartridgeVault:
https://cartridgevault.et-sona.com/

I realised while doing audio reviews that finding reliable cartridge information can be surprisingly painful. Specifications are scattered across manufacturer sites, old PDFs, archived pages and various corners of the internet where information appears to have been placed in 1994 and then abandoned.

CartridgeVault is an attempt to put that information somewhere more useful.

It’s a searchable database of phono cartridges and their technical information, including older and discontinued models. You can also submit cartridges that aren’t in the database and propose edits or corrections to existing entries.

So if you’ve got an obscure cartridge sitting in a drawer, or the original documentation for something that disappeared from the manufacturer’s website years ago, there’s somewhere to put that information rather than letting it die in a filing cabinet.

Both projects are free.

There are no subscriptions, paid tiers, advertising schemes or “unlock the good cartridges for $4.99/month” nonsense.

There’s no commercial interest in the user data either. SPIN stores the information it needs to function, including equipment, collection, listening history and maintenance information. The data isn’t being used for advertising or profiling, and I have no intention of selling or sharing it.

The Discogs token used by SPIN is kept in the active session rather than stored in the SPIN database.

The account system uses an email address and password, but there’s no intention of contacting users. If you lose your credentials, I can’t retrieve or resend them for you.

The two projects are essentially the result of me encountering problems while doing the thing I already do with Et Sona, deciding that the existing solutions weren’t quite right, and then apparently deciding that the sensible response was to spend a considerable amount of time writing software.

I’m putting them out there because I suspect there are other people who have exactly the same slightly obsessive relationship with cartridges, stylus hours, records and technical specifications.

SPIN: https://spin.et-sona.com/
CartridgeVault: https://cartridgevault.et-sona.com/

There are also dedicated communities for both projects:
r/SPINxEtSona
r/cartridgevault

And yes, I realise I’ve now created Reddit communities for two applications whose existence began with me complaining that I couldn’t find information efficiently enough.
At least I’m consistent.

Hello fellow Reddit dwellers, Aldayo here.

I run Et Sona, a hi-fi and music publication, and after spending an unhealthy amount of time reviewing cartridges, turntables and other objects that make increasingly expensive noises, I ended up building a couple of tools to solve problems I kept running into myself.

The first is SPIN x Et Sona:
https://spin.et-sona.com/
SPIN is a listening and equipment tracker for vinyl. You can set up your turntables, tonearms and cartridges, import your Discogs collection, log what you actually play, track stylus hours and keep a record of equipment maintenance.

The basic problem I was trying to solve was that Discogs is excellent at telling me what I own, but it doesn’t really tell me what I do with it.

If I have three cartridges, for example, I want to know which one is actually getting used and how many hours I’ve put on each stylus. If I’ve got hundreds or thousands of records, I also want to know what I’m actually listening to rather than simply staring at a very impressive list of things I apparently own.

This seemed like a perfectly reasonable problem to solve.

Naturally, I built an entire application.

The second project came from a similar rabbit hole.
CartridgeVault:
https://cartridgevault.et-sona.com/

I realised while doing audio reviews that finding reliable cartridge information can be surprisingly painful. Specifications are scattered across manufacturer sites, old PDFs, archived pages and various corners of the internet where information appears to have been placed in 1994 and then abandoned.

CartridgeVault is an attempt to put that information somewhere more useful.

It’s a searchable database of phono cartridges and their technical information, including older and discontinued models. You can also submit cartridges that aren’t in the database and propose edits or corrections to existing entries.

So if you’ve got an obscure cartridge sitting in a drawer, or the original documentation for something that disappeared from the manufacturer’s website years ago, there’s somewhere to put that information rather than letting it die in a filing cabinet.

Both projects are free.

There are no subscriptions, paid tiers, advertising schemes or “unlock the good cartridges for $4.99/month” nonsense.

There’s no commercial interest in the user data either. SPIN stores the information it needs to function, including equipment, collection, listening history and maintenance information. The data isn’t being used for advertising or profiling, and I have no intention of selling or sharing it.

The Discogs token used by SPIN is kept in the active session rather than stored in the SPIN database.

The account system uses an email address and password, but there’s no intention of contacting users. If you lose your credentials, I can’t retrieve or resend them for you.

The two projects are essentially the result of me encountering problems while doing the thing I already do with Et Sona, deciding that the existing solutions weren’t quite right, and then apparently deciding that the sensible response was to spend a considerable amount of time writing software.

I’m putting them out there because I suspect there are other people who have exactly the same slightly obsessive relationship with cartridges, stylus hours, records and technical specifications.

SPIN: https://spin.et-sona.com/
CartridgeVault: https://cartridgevault.et-sona.com/

There are also dedicated communities for both projects:
r/SPINxEtSona
r/cartridgevault

And yes, I realise I’ve now created Reddit communities for two applications whose existence began with me complaining that I couldn’t find information efficiently enough.
At least I’m consistent.

Hello to everyone! Fernando here, a music and audio gear enthusiast from Spain!

I’m requesting help to bring a project to reality. 

I’m looking for a small group of vinyl enthusiasts to help beta test a new web app I’ve been building over the past months.

The goal is simple: make it easy to keep track of cartridge wear based on actual listening, rather than estimates.

Current beta features include:

• Import your vinyl collection directly from Discogs
• Log every record you play
• Automatically track cartridge usage and remaining lifespan
• Support for multiple turntables and tonearms
• Listening history and play statistics
• Manual correction of album runtimes when Discogs data is incomplete

This is a private beta. I’m looking for people who will actually use it as part of their normal listening routine, not just click around for five minutes.

What I need from testers:

• Use the app as your primary play log for at least two weeks
• Report bugs, confusing workflows, and anything that interrupts normal use
• Suggest improvements based on real-world use rather than feature wishlists

If you’d like to participate, please tell me a little about yourself:

• Approximate size of your vinyl collection
• Whether you already use Discogs
• Your turntable(s), tonearm(s), and cartridge(s)
• How often you listen to records
• Whether you’ve used any collection or cartridge tracking apps before
• Why you’d like to join the beta

I’m intentionally keeping the beta small so I can work closely with testers and iterate quickly based on feedback.

Thanks to everyone willing to help shape the project.

Hi! Visiting soon with my daughter. Trying to get the plan sorted out and max the chance of her meeting some of the princess characters.

Appreciate any input on the matter!

Cheers

Travelling to Paris from Spain, need to take a foldable stroller for my 6 y/o as the trip will be very demanding with long walking distances included.

The stroller folds to a very compact size and is usually allowed on the overhead in other airlines…

Will I have any troubles? What to expect?

Thanks