I’ve always had a vivid memory of improperly switching off my stereo only to find it jump into a hidden Karaoke Mode the instruction manual failed to tell me about. It took a second to realise there was no Bono the first time, I was pretty happy about the de-Bono-ing. When I reset the box, it was back to normal… I could hear the vocals and everything worked as documented. I hate everything working as documented. Apparently they added the Karaoke Mode to the model up from my Sony MHC-NX1, but through some strange power-related ‘pop’ it went all Bono-less.

Anyway- 5 years on I cracked it again, and rather than phoning Quincy (who I think was out last time) I plugged in the iMic and recorded a track onto the iBook, I’m afraid U2’s latest (certainly not greatest) album was all I have in 320kbs (use any CD it works fine, but 128 MP3’s sound ‘watery’). Check it out, if you want: link.

I’m guessing this works by cutting out certain frequencies… and in certain compressed songs there’s not enough ’space’ to distinguish them. (?) If anyone knows where I can get an iTunes plugin that does the whole Karaoke effect that’d be more fun than waiting around for the stereo to pop again. Well, I’m off to switch the stereo off and on, I need to listen to the radio now.