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LGR - Cooler Master Musketeer 2 VU Meters (Patreon)

Published:
2020-08-30 21:16:00
Edited:
2020-08-30 21:17:43
Imported:
2021-03

Content

https://youtu.be/zN9xAAAT3U8

Heh, yeah it's another one of those mid-2000s 5.25" drive bay devices with dancing VU meters and LED lighting.  I can't help it, I'm drawn to these things like a moth to a flame.

This one is the Musketeer 2 from Cooler Master, something I learned about after getting the Thermaltake CircleFire that I covered a while back. Since that one sucked so bad I really hoped the M2 would fare better. After all, it certainly looks nicer in terms of construction and design -- unless you're into plasticky Guy Fieri aesthetics of course.

Does it meet my low expectations? Watch and find out! :)

As for the next couple videos, there are a few projects in the early stages of being worked on. I'll be taking part in #SepTandy this year, along with a whole bunch of other retro computing YouTubers, so that's a thing to look forward to. I've got a fantastic computer system from Japan that I've been wanting to review for, I dunno, ten years or something. And there's a new Sims 4 pack of, um... Star Wars Disney theme park stuff...? Yeah I dunno but I guess I'll cover it or whatever.

Have a good week!

Files

5.25" Drive Bay VU Meters: Cooler Master Musketeer 2

VU meters on the PC in 2004

Comments

Anonymous

This unit is cool and all, but can it take you to flavor town?

Anonymous

I just love your overwhelming enthusiasm over that new Star Wars Sims 4 stuff! You're not the only one who loves those 5.25" light shows... things... They do look neat even if they're pure crap...

Anonymous

I've also heard of certain aircraft models where the fuel pressure gauge dances like the HD meter here, people pretty much fly like 👀

Anonymous

The VU meter for HD activity is a cool idea, it would just need some filtering to average the flashing over a short period and it would look great and actually give a decent percentage - the same is needed for the audio VU meters, like real ones...

Anonymous

YEEEAAAAAYY! another plasticy-finkiky-absurd-weird thing to enhance your desktop computing experience! Love it dude! Keep it up!!

Anonymous

Nice!! It's always fun to look back at the crazy add-ons that were available. Anything to make your PC stand out from the crowd. Love it!

Anonymous

Great video, wonder if a compactor on the HD header would make the dial smoother moving.

Joon Choi

After watching all of Techmoan’s videos about VU meters on his old HIFI components, I can’t help but look askance at “VU meters” like this that are entirely aesthetic. 😂 Tell me something useful Cooler Master!!

Joon Choi

By the way Clint just saw your Wasteland 3 CE Blerb - - for what it’s worth, I think you should integrate the Blerbs into the main channel. The content is compelling if casual and I bet you’d get more views. Also increases the frequency of updates for the main channel, which I think the YouTube recommendation algorithm cares about. Your off the cuff stuff is better than most channels’ prepared episodes. Just my two highly uninformed cents.

avfusion

Looking at the internal workings of that drive, I don't see enough discrete components to properly do fast switching for those VU meters, which probably lends to them being pretty sloppy and out of sync. There are single-component solutions for it but nothing in there looked like that either. In any case, I love these kitschy little doodads from the early 2000's. I love how nobody knew what to do with personalization and it bled over into all these awfully gimmicky things. Warms my heart.

Anonymous

What a fun little thing!

Peter Metzger

I'm about to watch so maybe you mentioned this, but I remembered the Musketeer being blue on the front and did some research - apparently I was thinking of the fan controller model. ANYWAY it turns out there was a Musketeer 3 as well, which for some reason had a vacuum tube displayed in the front. I mean, sure, I get how tubes affect sound, but I don't think anything jammed into a $50 drive bay accessory is going to actually IMPROVE it 😂

Anonymous

I enjoy unusual 5.25" bay items, and I love VU meters, so this video was right up my alley :-)

Anonymous

"En garde!" I am surprised that the case is not in plastic; it looks not bad at all. They could have a put a clock or thermometer in the middle. The harddisk will probably hypnotize you when you run defrag, and the Flight Sim2020 would kill it ;-)

Anonymous

Does this qualify as “oddware”?

LazyGameReviews
>>43177913

Nah, it's not quite substantial enough of a piece of hardware to make it an Oddware video. It's more just... a weird old case mod, like the Thermaltake CircleFire, which also wasn't released under the Oddware banner. Now, the Musketeer 3 with its vacuum tube amplifier? That would qualify, since it's actually doing something beyond aesthetics :)

LazyGameReviews
>>43168708

I do wonder what it would do connected to a modern machine running something like that from SSDs.

LazyGameReviews
>>43142236

It really is a comforting little thingie. Doesn't do much of anything and it kinda sucks, but dang it, Cooler Master sure tried. Sort of.

LazyGameReviews
>>43139126

Glad you enjoy the Blerbs! Not everyone deos. So they'll remain on a separate channel, there's no need to clutter up the main one and I'm doing quite well with the number of videos I upload as-is. There are legit reasons so many YouTubers end up with second channels for low-effort content, especially when it comes to tech stuff :)

LazyGameReviews
>>43129345

Indeed! I can't get enough of them, I've already got another half dozen I wanna show at some point, haha

LazyGameReviews
>>43130752

I wonder why seemingly none of the manufacturers of these things went to the effort of doing so. Can't imagine it would add *that* much towards total cost.

LazyGameReviews
>>43134008

Heck yeah, things like this would've gone a long way towards making your rig stand out. Cheap and useless, but pleasant. Kinda like Christmas lights, heh.

Anonymous

I also appreciate Midtown Madness 2!

Anonymous

I started working at a computer store in 1990, everything you have shown on the channel I personally have held in my hand and/or installed in some way to many customer computers, and my own.

Uncleawesome

When I saw these many years ago, I thought you had some more advanced versions that could measure temperature, fan speed, cpu voltage and stuff? After a quick google search I found modern versions, but I thought we had that around 2004 also.

Anonymous

I found a website with the Musketeer III for sale. I'm not sure how Patreon would react to me posting a eCommerce link in the comments so if you'd like the link just PM me. Looks like its about $35 bucks but not sure about shipping costs. Seems to be new old stock.

Anonymous
>>43224587

Sounds like a fun gig. Computer hardware is so boring now.