A dark, low-key photograph of a vintage workbench with scattered electronic components, coiled wire, and an old soldering iron, lit by a single warm lamp against deep shadow.
A dark, moody still-life composition with antique books and technical instruments on a wooden surface, warm sepia tones against near-black shadow.

Allen's Site

A personal corner of the web — electronics, DIY projects, vinyl transfer, and stories from a retired French engineer.

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Stories

How A Local Library Supports Vinyl-To-CD Projects

A local library can be far more useful to a vinyl collector than a quiet place to borrow novels. For anyone transferring LPs, singles, or cassette tapes to CD,…

How to Add Metadata to Your Ripped Music Files for a Polished Digital Library

When you spend a weekend transferring your favourite LPs and cassettes to a hard drive, the audio is only half the job done. A folder full of files named…

Choosing a Burning Speed for Music CDs: Does It Really Matter?

For anyone archiving a crate of vinyl or a box of mixtapes onto a silver disc, the question of how fast to burn often feels like a detail only obsessive forum…

How to Capture and Remove Hiss from Analog Recordings

The resurgence of vinyl and cassettes in Australia has created a new generation of home audio archivists. Local bands like Tame Impala and Methyl Ethel have…

Cleaning cassette decks for clear, reliable rips

A cassette deck can sound remarkably good when its tape path is clean, aligned and treated gently. Dust, oxide residue and sticky deposits gradually build up…

How to Back Up Your CD Collection onto a Hard Drive

A well-organised digital copy can make a CD collection easier to enjoy, search and protect. Ripping the discs to a hard drive preserves the music when a disc…

Transferring a Favorite Record from Start to Finish

A vinyl record can hold more than music. It may carry the sound of a family lounge room, a long drive along the Hume Highway, or an album played every Sunday…

JeetCity Casino Review For Australian Players

A no deposit bonus online casino offer can look appealing because it gives new players a way to try selected games without making an initial payment. In…

Video slots leaderboard challenge: play with a smarter strategy

A video slots leaderboard challenge turns a familiar casino game into a time-limited competition. Instead of measuring success only by a single win, the format…

Using ReplayGain To Balance Volume On A CD Compilation

A carefully assembled CD compilation can still sound awkward when one track is quiet, the next is aggressively loud, and an older recording suddenly jumps in…

A dark, atmospheric portrait-style still-life suggesting a thoughtful older gentleman's study — worn leather, handwritten notes, and soft amber light against deep shadow.

About Allen

Allen is a retired French national who spent his career at the Laboratoire Régional des Ponts et Chaussées de Bordeaux, where he performed measurements on concrete and metal structures — building transducers, electronics interfaces, and the software to run them.

Now retired, he fills his days with fishing, listening to music, tinkering with HI-FI equipment, archery, computing, and — when possible — a well-earned siesta. He also enjoys transferring his vinyl record collection to CD.

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