Thermaltake CircleFire: Mid-2000s PC VU Meters
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- Thermaltake's Circle Fire 5.25” Professional Multimedia Kit is from the “anything goes” era of PC case mods. It’s got backlit VU meters, an integrated speaker, LED peak indicators, and a fiery hot rod paint job. Ahh, 2004.
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#LGR #Computer #Audio
>single speaker
>"stereo speaker setup"
uhhhhh
Geez, that should've been a red flag straight from the get-go.
Stereo peak meters hooked up to a mono speaker.
😂😂🔥
It does both channels. But still.
Don't mock just because it has only ONE stereo-speaker. There was no space for a 2nd, so they just made the first one ster... oh, wait.
Oh man I remember these. I totally had one in my custom Cheiftec Case, so many green LEDS.
2004 and it already has RGB LEDs. Very forward looking.
"Anything goes" is basically anything put out by Thermaltake; their 1999 Fireworks-made logo is a good indicator of just how classy they are!
I used to work in the computer case industry and during that time, literally every computer case Thermaltake put out was either a poor, thin-metalled copy of a popular case (Coolermaster stuff, usually) or some mesh-covered boy-racer-micro-penis-engorging monstrosity which had zero chance of generating any positive pressure for the exhaust fans.
I remember salavating over this sort of stuff back then, now I could actualy afford such things I don't bother. Maybe oneday my PC will have a Neon in it.
TheEPROM9
As long as it isn’t a Dodge Neon. The k-car for the 21st Century!
Same guys that brought us the combination CD drive bay cupholder and cigarette lighter.
Been trying to get a hold of one of those for forever.. not entirely sure why.
I have mine installed that I got back in the day from Thinkgeek. I don't think I have ever used the cigarette lighter.
Man this makes me pine so hard for the early/mid 00s.
8 sold in the past 24 hours on ebay. Must be from this video!
I had one of these. Thought it was pretty cool!
good episode, clint
Great video! What was that car demolition game you were playing that looks like Vigilante 8?!
Thermaltake product development (probably): "Our Chinese product development team has made this, uh, sound thingy for the front of our cases. It's got all these circular doodads on the front, and we slapped some hot-rod flame decals on it so everyone can pretend it looks cool. All we need is a name of some sort... Circle Fire... Ship it!"
Used to love bay addons until one with a fan speed controller caught fire. 2w speaker though HAHH. A creative X-fi Platinum was some serious sound equipment in the day, in need of a good near set of near field monitors. I give it 5 camp points though. Rather like them old case badges folks used to like.
LGR theme over old Audible device: classy
LGR theme over this: assy
Hey LGR, so iam watching your channel quite a time now. Mainly the pc games stuff. One question: I guess you heard of "Project Warlock?" This must be exactly a shooter in your type of gameplay style. Greeting from Germany
Oh, the good ol' days of drive bays, optical media, and shitty onboard sound cards.
I miss the _Anything Goes Era_
I remember these at LANs and seeing them in stores. They seemed cheap then, lol
Yes, it's pretty much useless, but on paper and in video it looks and sounds much better than the stuff we have today. RGB RAM is stupendously useless if your case is just a black box under your desk
Hey now, nothing wrong with this. (Says the guy who had red and blue cold cathode tubes in his computer in ‘04)
modify it with quality parts and get it to work as it should!
more like the Thermaltake DumpsterFire
Don't know what you have... I think it's awesome..
Wanna have it
Its only a cheap gimmick but looks amazing. Just cut the speaker and use your own one
I 100% agree that it's a crappy device buuuuut perhaps you had it hooked up to speaker level output instead of line out? That would explain the oversensitivity of the meters and the need for low volume levels.
Probably in 2030: "and today on LGR we have a delightful and silly piece of pc gaming gimmick from 2019... Led stripes, fans and memory sticks with aura sync"
I don't think RGB will be a silly gimmick, it may be stupid to pay extra for RAM with it however AMD stock coolers come with RGB which makes them look more premium, it's about the amount you use wherever it looks stupid or not IMO.
@@happyguy5025 Only in gamer world "premium" and "looks like a christmas toy" are interchangeable
@@happyguy5025 RGB IS a silly gimmick. Culture of 2030-40 will definitely be shitting on RGB looking back at us, if computers still have the same form then. You're literally paying for colors on a case that you wont even be looking at as you play. Some people don't even have their cases in a place that can be seen to begin with.
My PC looks like a rainbow light show and I don’t even like RGB. AMD stock coolers are RGB, my RX 580 has RGB and I accidentally bought a 200mm case fan with RGB!
When I use a fan with the stupid Leds on it, I cut the led wires. Im not having that trash. I would particularly avoid buying ram with lights on it.
That's perfect for your Hot Wheels PC... If you still got it, of course.
If only it had a normal sized drive bay opening!
@@LGR Aw, bummer. :c
Nothing a dremel can't fix
the meters don't work like VU meters because they are not VU meters, they're voltage meters. You can turn them into VU meters-ish (not really but close enough) by using an envelope follower which is just a diode, capacitor, and a few resistors - you could even make it yourself! this sort of mod is TOTALLY appropriate for that era of pc gadgets, and I think you should do it! whip out the soldering iron, man! might as well add some EL wire while you're at it!
@cheater00 : i'm wondering why TT did not do that. To save money or because they thought it was cool to have those VU meters bouncing like crazy ?
Also, it's still weird to this day that, "2004" sounded like not so long ago while "15 years ago" sounded like a very long time ago. They are exactly the same.
Consider this, the "1990 was 30 years ago" joke will no longer be a joke next year...
Time is a strange thing. When I see 15 years ago, I still think about 80s.
@@Sicarius888 1980 will be 40 years ago next year, but still feels like 20ish years ago to me.
@@hakont.4960 Ohh the chills I get when I think about it lol
I keep thinking one day they might bring out UT2009 but I have to remind myself that 2009 was 10 years ago and not in the future anymore lol
They must have found a good deal on bulk leftover answering machine speakers from the 1980s.
"Outdated computer accessories and retro technology that no one asked to see, but here it is anyway".
That's the most persuasive thing I have ever heard. You have a new subscriber.
The fire decals definitely add at least 20% cpu boost. The rest of the "features" are just for show.
According to Dansdata.com black computers were faster back then.
@@tomf3150 , that's not "according to", that's a well known & proven fact! Why do you think most all PCs are black today bro?
Oi! Red paint job ent red all da way so it ent gonna go wazza all da way. Dey'ze snazzy shiniez but kant proppa Waaagh!
I mean, it was the era of the Prescott P4s, it may have just been trying to fit in with the rest of the hardware.
"This will likely not be useful information to anyone at all." GOD I LOVE THIS CHANNEL!!!!!
That's beauty of it my friend. I just love seeing all the random crap again that I tinkered with 20 or 30 years ago
Man, that has to be the most early-mid 2000s looking gizmo ever.
Just call it "RGB" and suddenly it'll sell like hot tamales on Ebay.
@@poopipeboy3033 But that has RGB before RGB was cool.
My Nokia N-Gage is much cooler.
That drive bay insert is crawling in my skin, it's wounds they will not heal
looks like something otta The Sims (2000)
4:30 You know those meme videos that make fun of the Windows startup sfx by making it sound really crappy?
That's what this sounds like.
Now you can make your computer sound like a bass boosted mess for the price of a cochlea!
Oh wow, guess I wasn't the only one who thought it sounded like earrape.
"Thermaltake! - _It Technically Works_ "
My TT Big Typhoon is pretty good tho.
Thermaltake has definitely come a long way in improving their brand name. Cautious old me will still prefer a Seasonic PSU to a Thermaltake PSU any day.
@@jaythomas3180 Definitely. Crappy power supplies are prone to die quickly but the ones from Thermaltake took the rest of the PC with them. I still wouldn't buy anything from Thermaltake and why would I since there are reputable brands that make similar products of better quality.
Ah yes, chrome plating. The material that produces the best sound.
I agree *wink*
Oh this isn’t just *any* chrome plating...
...This is high quality cheap-ass *plastic* chrome plating!
I legit had this in my first gaming pc that a friend built and gifted me. Hours and hours playing CoD4 with this thing flashing and going nuts and my 8800 Gt screaming. The good ol days
So true! The screaming fans where hyped like rgb today. It felt like so much powerrrrrrr.
Lol, your 8800GT sounded like a jet aircraft too, glad I wasn't the only one. Now I have a 970GTX that is woefully underutilized by my C2Q cpu, but at least the fans never crank up.
That reminds me. My XFX 8800 GTS died while replaying a mission in CoD 4 about a year later. It was not warranty covered.
CoD4 is still the best Call of Duty of all time. I miss it so much.
@@saltysteel3996 I think Clint should review the game.
Are the left/right VU meters really showing left and right channel, or do they both just show exactly same? :-) Either way, I'm amused there is two meters, even you are forced to have your sound in mono when using this.
I wouldn't be surprised if they were both the same, looked like it to me.
So, what you're saying is that something calling itself "Muti-Media" isn't a bastion of quality?
It's that bad... I want it! Anything beats the RGB monstrosities released today (but I got one of those too... sorry).
It has rgb back-lighting. lol
Simply Austin
Agree on the RGB. I’ve built sleepers in old atx cases that I term “the Spanish Inquisition!”
(m.python)
I'll give you an AMEN on that one. and I have one as well.......... lol
@@glenncaughey5044 Well damn now i want to do that
Nowadays it's hard to build a PC that doesn't suck but none of the components has any RGB lighting on it. Most motherboards I've looked at have at least some to start with and I just don't care. I'm gonna build a new PC and reuse the old case, then stick it under the desk exactly where the old one was.
3:14 Techmoan mug! I love how you guys in the tech /retro community all get along.
fuck off plebbitor
Clint and The 8-bit Guy have been in several physical altercations tho
Techmoan *does* love a VU Meter
@@guyshafor1320 thanks for the laugh mate
He seems to be friends with both Techmoan and 8bitguy. Techmoan is more about analog stuff.
That's HOT!!!...
...Garbage
LGR/10
What's the point of having 2 VU meters that's hooked into 1 speaker? And a passthrough headphone jack on the front would have made a lot of sense.
@@uidFluiq lol
I had a similar unit that i removed the speaker and replaced it with headphone and speaker jacks instead, great improvement that made it actually useful.
I'd definitely rip out the speaker and install a jack, passthrough, volume knob, envelope follower... at this point it's probably easier to build a new one from scratch.
"Sir, at what level shall we set the meters?"
"Pure chaos."
"But Sir, I..."
"I SAID PURE CHAOS!!"
0:57
Xray 5.25" drive bay kit (Cigarette lighter & beverage tray included)
Truly different times...
That also immediately stood out to me. It almost makes me longing for those times. Then I remember the single core processors and I change my mind.
Remember those joke programs that promised to give you a cupholder and they'd just make the CD tray pop out?
Some amateur soldering could improve this a little bit...
Make that center mono speaker the mobo System PC Speaker.
Flip the green/red Leds back upside down, and possibly reflow the broken joint on that red one.
And maybe some resistors could clean up the VU tolerances.
*Me who's red-green colorblind*
"Wait... those meters are upside-down??"
Oh, I can assure you of that. Wait, are you just joking?
@@FSM_Reviews yup, some idiots will comment "r/wooosh" dont worry about them
I will cheerfully admit I had one of these. Not a thermaltake one, but I had one that read out like internal temps and CPU clockspeed and all sorts of nonsense in BIG SHINY DIALS.
Llyander
Anyone remember Abit’s 3rd eye?
Man! These things were all the rage in PC gamer magazines in the 2000s. There was something whimsical about that. These days PC gaming is all about the glass and the RG-beeee!
Yes buddy me too, it was the coolermaster musketeer. I still have mine and incorporate it into every new PC build i do, because I'm ridiculous like that.
mine was bundled with an XBLADE case, after I bought a thermal gun I learned how off were the thermal readings from the probes but whatever, it was cool to have a fan animation in a DVD player esque screen
Had one and loved it! I have a thing for Analog gauges
in 2006 you could probably have seen my PC from space.. It had all the goodies: LED Suacer like CPU cooler, Cold Cathode tubes, reactive cables, LED fans all over the place...Even cut into the case for more fans.. lol.
Thing would sound like a leaf blower at full tilt..
I've always had a place in my heart for weird drive bay add-ons and would love to see more of this
When Techmoan goes PC Gaming.
Soo... How long will it be before a tachometer for your PC is discovered?
Also, this feels like pure oddware, being useless, impractical, and possibly obsolete all at the same time!
This all applies to PC mods in general, yet it is big market. You can even go further and say that any hobby is impractical and waste of time and money. Watching youtube also waste of time in general. People just need to do something with free time and money.
I don't know about you, but these VU metres definitely don't belong in Flavortown.
I have an inexplicable urge to mod one of these and wire the speaker cables up to a 3.5mm out jack...
I wanted to replace that speaker and make the VU meters better
@@snappyapple6328 pretty easy now days...
add an om/off switch to that speaker also.
@@eduardoanonimo3031 If only I had the money and if I could find one.
@@snappyapple6328 Totally agree, nice project to set under 50$... If I doesn't have more ongoing...
"Oh, I think this brand is dead nowadays." *Google ad just proves me wrong*
I have a Thermaltake mini ITX case and it's been great.
While this particular device was indeed crap, Thermaltake's cases are very good for their price.
TT makes one hell of a lot of stock coolers for Nvidia and AMD. Their reputation did go up. Back then they where selling/making chineese crap!
Aand I got an ad from Thermaltake before LGR's video and I thought it was LGR's :6
That's cool, all I got was an ad for something called GameRox which is sort of like Jacks but with rocks 😂
"chrome plated speaker grill* uh huh, that's obviously a god damn bathtub hair trap you glued onto a speaker ;p
These kinds of drive bay add-ons were my jam back in the early 2000's.
Same here
Mine too, haha.
I mean, they still are my jam today. But for very different reasons.
@@LGR And that's why I watch your vids. The nostalgia factor is STRONG. :)
Likewise. Analogue CPU temperature gauages, this thing in the video, a multimedia add on etc..
And everything to be lit as brightly as possible with red and blue lights.
Perfect for listening to mp3s that you just got off Napster! When winamp visuals isn't enough!
Boy do I love my earrape Windows XP startup sound. I have so many nostalgic memories with Windows XP that by some miracle was running roblox in 2008
In that State and Quality, I'll consider it as an Odd Ware... =P
LPT: Put this in the Hot Wheels PC and play All Star on max volume to summon Shrek.
This thing won't fit into the Hot Wheels PC.
But wait, there's LESS! Even if the vu-meters are labeled "(L)" and "(R)", both analogue meters are tied to one channel, while both LED meters are tied to the other. We had one of these in a computer shop I worked in back in the day. We struggled to sell it, and it was immediately returned when, after a couple of years, it did (because of the buyer not knowing the single speaker was mono... or that's what he said, at least). I distinctly remember its crappy sound, the always topping meters and discovering the aforementioned meters/channel issue while testing it before publishing it in a local eBay equivalent (and finally!! selling it at a heavily discounted price).
I got something like this in 2008 when I built my first battle station with CyberPowerPC, it didn't have a speaker but it did have fan and light control. I'll be honest, I loved having the options to control things from the case and wouldn't mind a more modern and practical version of these to make a comeback.
More like garbage fire🔥..lol
"Professional Muti-Media Kit"
Have you ever wanted to own the perfect VU for blasting The Offspring in your polyester flame shirt and shades?
Well look no more!!!!
My polyester flame collared shirt was black and also had a tiger on it, upperclassmen in highschool told me it was a "loud" shirt
Looks like a ricer gauges.
Instead of rices a car, it rices a PC.
I had cold cathode Neon lighting tubes in my clear blue acrylic pc case, predating led strips, and neon blue underglow on my '99 mercury cougar with bodykit and spoiler.
That looks it was used to create the ultimade neckbeard style PC, just add the shirt with flames, fedora, mountain dew, doritos and rainbowdash.
"...simply dance around haphazardly, remain only somewhat in sync with what's passing through the speaker, resulting in an experience that's amusingly novel at first glance, but doesn't hold up to any kind of scrutiny once you look at it for even a few seconds."
Unfortunately that describes me at every party I go to.
Wow, $60 something grandparents would buy for their grandkids.
I guess.
Bad Christmas / birthday present. Oh let's go to compUSA and get Johnny something for his computer, he likes his games and tech stuff. "Oh this looks neat, it has fire and colors, oh and look at this, we'll get him this shiny chrome mouse pad too"
Sure the product was a dud, but not gonna lie, it looks cool. 😁
mil mil *kewl
Osmosis Jones *|
The only way that box description could be better is if it was frinted on pan-pold fafer.
Troy Diggs
You got your ‘f’s and ‘p’s mixed up.
I think that was intentional...
It also needs more grammatical errors and a random engrishy poem like the packages on Trisonic products
Jason Zak
th-cam.com/video/D1jojSZsoqo/w-d-xo.html
Sad thing is, I probably would've loved this thing as a teen lol. It didn't take much to impress me back then, I was just happy to have a PC.
All I was thinking of was *(Hot🚘 Wheels). It could have at least. Two Speakers from stereo listening. But in a small space it's hard. But I did enjoy your video. Thank you for posting this video.
Why the hell doesn't spotify have visualizations? I'll stick with Winamp.
omg I have forgotten about winamp for 10 years... the memories lol
"It technically works."
Sounds like a ringing endorsement to me!
Blow-Up Bunny put that on the box!
Thermaltake certainly came a long way since then.
They’re a much more professional brand nowadays.
"the problem here is, everything sucks" LMAO!
Well... it was definitely made by Thermaltake. At least it hasn't caught on fire like their power supplies...? Not yet, anyway.
I owned the orange thermaltake cpu fan with drive bay speed dial back in 2004
I had the orange Thermaltake 80MM Smart Fan II with the temperature probe/ fan speed dial cables. It also came with a silver TT twister style fan grill.
Clint, bringing happiness into the world for well over a decade. Thank you !
Clint's been dropping motherfuckers for nigh on 18 years now.
This thing must have inspired the "ear--rape" memes that were all the rage in 2012. MLG montages just wouldn't be the same.
Pls, review the DOS games "Normal", "Tyrian" and "Big Red Racing" !
"It technically works"
- _Todd Howard_
I'm still using a CoolerMaster Musketeer including 3 Vu Meters (volume, adjustable fan voltage, case temperature) :D
same with my Musketeer II.
Could possibly make that thing halfway useful by replacing the guts with an Arduino.
Here's your single "stereo" speaker :D
Try soldering 100uF capacitors in parallel with the VU meters and put a 10K resistor in series with the audio input. That should dampen the needle movement and reduce distortion from the crappy speaker.
Ahhhh the early 2000's. When cases had 1 fan, no cable management, and half a dozen drive bays because of garbage like this.
You actually needed those half a dozen drive bays for six CD-R burner drives, to duplicate bootleg albums to sell out of your trunk behind the Qwik-E-Mart.....
@@KomradeMikhail remarkably accurate. If you weren't ripping CD's and DVD's, however, you had one 48x cd rw drive for fast installs of Quake 2 and Hexen. The other bays were for fan controllers, lcd status monitors, etc . Case bling.
Mike Bircher They could also hold 5¼" hard drives, tape backup drives and other stuff for those of us being serious and taking advantage of kids bringing down the cost of high capacity cases and other quality components.
Unfortunately this mislead the brands into now making components that are only useful to gaming kids, such as graphics cards that try to apply Alien v Predator settings to the Anti Virus Program or keyboards that highlight the WASD letters yet fail to provide working number input.
Aaaah, it's been too long since you burned some oddware to the ground ,😂
If techmoan watches this, I'm sure he'll leave macs for a custom built pc
There where dual speakers for 5 1/2 inch bays the good was they sounded great the bad was the hum
Oh you'll stand out at lan parties alright! xD
Thanks for another great video! :D
''You know, all the warning sings and red flags indicated this thing would be terrible, AND IT IS!''
-LGR
Im new here and this dude makes me laugh with his amazing reviews and redundant talking XD
This is why I don't buy thermaltake stuff anymore
Let's play some music and see how that goes.......ew! Looks like it could have been a Goodwill find. Speaking of which, let's go thrifting!!
I'm loving these horrible drive bay peripheral videos! Any interest in finding one of these car-stereo-style cassette tape dealies, the Plusdeck 2c? I coveted this for a long time but doubted it'd be any good.
My brother's Thernaltake case does the same "pass the wire through the back and plug it into the motherboard again" thing for its front USB 3 ports. Which is stupid.
._.; It hurts my silicon soul too, as it looks absolutely insulting to stick into your case for any reason. I put in a multi-card reader into my desktop recently, and that's much more useful than some silly meter. :P Eh, just another LGR thing to stare at I suppose.
Cringe even back in ‘04. This is something you’d find hanging on the back wall of a Computer City or MicroCenter.
Or Fry's