Vintage electronics, now I've seen everything.

[ERD50]

IPODs connected to a Bose dock can sound nice. But a listen to a decent mid-fi system will quickly show their deficiencies. Long live big stereos!

Amen!

I think most stereophiles delude themselves that the high end stuff is really all that better.

Mike D.

There is definitely a point of diminishing returns, and then you get into 'snake oil' and delusion pretty quickly.

But if you spend wisely, you can get far better sound than the typical mass-consumer stuff w/o going nuts with the $$$.

Listening to music over the tinny little speakers that some people have just hurts my ears and my heart (the music deserves better!). If someone is really tight for cash, a portable device with some reasonably decent headphones can get you into some very good sound for very little money.

Despite some minor tinnitus (I spent a couple weeks running around trying to find the running water or running refrigerator when it first started) , my ears are still in pretty good shape though.

-ERD50

 

[Keim]

Some do delude themselves. And, you can certainly spend ridiculous amounts of money for not much gain. However, I can tell you there is a big difference when components-even mid level and budget-are well paired together.

Listening to my stereo (which would be classified as mid-fi by audiophiles)I get imaging good enough to know where each member of the band stood on the stage. Most importantly, I get music that sounds full and pleasant. On a good recording its like it is being made with real instruments. That is what it's all about. And that's not me talking, those are comments made by friends and neighbors that aren't into stereos!

I am suffering from the typical old age hearing loss combined with loud noise created tinnitus from guns and fireworks. I can't hear much any more in the higher frequencies. My wife has to tell me when the minute timer goes off in the kitchen! I have a nice-for-me stereo that was part of my new HDTV setup and love it. I can definately tell the difference from the old Sony CRT TV's built-in speakers.

I think most stereophiles delude themselves that the high end stuff is really all that better.

I have a friend who has now spent about $45K on a stereo system over the years. He wears hearing aids...

Mike D.

 

[mathjak107]

I recently sold my infinity baby irs system. Got it in thhe 1980's for the sale price of 4500.00 for the pair.

Had quad esl63's and a janis sub before them.

Man i rember my bedini amp and quicksilver mono amps.

 

[Tyro]

I have a friend who has now spent about $45K on a stereo system over the years. He wears hearing aids...

I hear you (pun intended). We have a relative who has a small fortune in stereo equipment (vintage McIntosh). She's been stone deaf in one ear since childhood. Go figger.

Tyro

 

[Nodak]

I guess I'm lucky, my hearing is still very good. I've noticed that vintage McIntosh stuff is very expensive. I purchased mine new in 1972 and have about $1800 in it. It was a ton of money at the time but after 40 years of use still worth it. The one addition I've made to my stereo is an internet tuner. There are thousands of very good stations from all over the world available.

 

[JoeWras]

If you going through the time/trouble to convert them, why not just convert to a loss-less format? Loss-less (I use FLAC), only takes ~ 5x the space of a decent mp3, and with the price of hard drives these days, that's nothing.

I suggest you keep a 'master' in loss-less, it is a snap to convert those masters to anything else if you want smaller files for a smaller capacity portable player. But if you try to convert a lossy file, every conversion will further degrade the quality.

-ERD50

So I converted my LPs to MP3 a long time ago. I didn't have the space at the time for a lossless format.

I'm considering going through the exercise all over again. But not sure it is worth it. I'm happy enough with MP3 sound for these. It is more the principal of it that is bugging me. Wish hard drives were bigger 10 years ago.

 

[JoeWras]

Speaking of vintage, and LPs, etc.

I found what I would call TRUE albums at my dad's house. Never knew they existed or that mom and dad had them. They are actually like photo albums. Nice leather covered books, and inside are "pages" of discs. These are 78's.

I'm thinking they may be worth something, and I'm actually into some of the stuff (one is Glenn Miller). Looking into getting a 78 stylus to play them at 45, then electronically up-speed and equalize later.

Anyone familiar with these actual record albums? Something like this:

 

[ERD50]

Speaking of vintage, and LPs, etc.

I found what I would call TRUE albums at my dad's house. Never knew they existed or that mom and dad had them. They are actually like photo albums. Nice leather covered books, and inside are "pages" of discs. These are 78's.

I'm thinking they may be worth something, and I'm actually into some of the stuff (one is Glenn Miller). Looking into getting a 78 stylus to play them at 45, then electronically up-speed and equalize later.

I've got some from when my MIL/FIL moved from their house. I went through the effort of recording some of the more unusual ones, some Swedish artists/songs. You are correct, you need a different cartridge/stylus for my turntable (these have larger grooves, a modern cartridge will drill down to the bottom and plow a new groove in it - don't do that!).

And since my turntable also had no 78 speed, I recorded it at 45 and adjusted in software. The cross-platform open-source program 'Audacity' has everything you need. Record with no EQ (or if you can't disable EQ, record, then run a reverse EQ before changing speed), then adjust the 'speed', then apply an EQ curve from their library.

From what I've gathered, there isn't much value to these. If they are rare, collectors are rare also. If they are popular, there are more than enough copies to satisfy the collectors. I'm about ready to pitch the batch of 'em, but should probably take a stab at selling/donating them. Ours are almost all in near mint condition.

-ERD50

 

[JoeWras]

I've got some from when my MIL/FIL moved from their house. I went through the effort of recording some of the more unusual ones, some Swedish artists/songs. You are correct, you need a different cartridge/stylus for my turntable (these have larger grooves, a modern cartridge will drill down to the bottom and plow a new groove in it - don't do that!).

And since my turntable also had no 78 speed, I recorded it at 45 and adjusted in software. The cross-platform open-source program 'Audacity' has everything you need. Record with no EQ (or if you can't disable EQ, record, then run a reverse EQ before changing speed), then adjust the 'speed', then apply an EQ curve from their library.

From what I've gathered, there isn't much value to these. If they are rare, collectors are rare also. If they are popular, there are more than enough copies to satisfy the collectors. I'm about ready to pitch the batch of 'em, but should probably take a stab at selling/donating them. Ours are almost all in near mint condition.

-ERD50

Thanks for the advice ERD. I just started learning about this process using Audacity. You confirm it.

Now, I *did* check the collection for a pristine Beatles "butcher cover" album, but found none. Only these 78s. Darn. Mom and dad were not into "long hair" music as they called it.

Aside from the 78s, mom and dad had LPs, mostly dance oriented. When I review them, I have a strong desire for a martini or old fashioned. My parents have a very cool and with it collection from the early 60s.

Dayyyy-ooohhh!

 

[ls99]

My husband just fired up his Pioneer SX 1010, also driving Infinity speakers.
He bought them in Germany back in the mid-70s on the Army base where he
was stationed.

They're out there next in the garage next to the microwave we bought back in the 1980s.

He wanted to work on everything a bit and is looking forward to bringing it all back into the house.

Somehow the iPod/Bose dock just doesn't sound the same....

Yep. The magic is in the amplifier. Having sufficient power available for the rapid transitions in music makes all the difference. In your case 100 Watts RMS per channel. Even though at normal listening levels you might only be running about 5 to 10 Watts, the reserve capacity is magic. I love the infinity speakers too. No distortion at all.

As motorheads like to say, there is no substitute for raw power.

 

[Nodak]

Speaking of vintage, and LPs, etc.

I found what I would call TRUE albums at my dad's house. Never knew they existed or that mom and dad had them. They are actually like photo albums. Nice leather covered books, and inside are "pages" of discs. These are 78's.

I'm thinking they may be worth something, and I'm actually into some of the stuff (one is Glenn Miller). Looking into getting a 78 stylus to play them at 45, then electronically up-speed and equalize later.

Anyone familiar with these actual record albums? Something like this:

I have some of those too, but nothing to play them on.

 

[imoldernu]

Anyone familiar with these actual record albums? Something like this:

Sheesh... talk about feeling OLD! Until I was in high school, the 78's were all we had. Thus the word "album" as in photograph album. Our bookcases were designed to fit them.
The "78's" were made of different compounds... rubber, celluloid or other compound mixes and coated with a shellac compound that held the gooves.
"groovy"?... We knew the material as "wax". After WW2, the 78's were complimented by the 33's (33 1/3 rpm) bigger records and also longer playing.
In the early 50's, the 45 rpm singles were the big seller... singles, that were the ITune downloads of today. It's what you bought when you went downtown. It was around that time '45 to '50 that the records were made of vinyl...

There's a missing piece that not many people know about or remember, and that's "wire recording" ... the precursor to "tape recorders". the "wire" was actually a spool of wire that threaded from one spool to another, and not what some people think of as the "wire" antenna that is show in movies. My uncle who was a technology "geek" at the time had one in his car... as well as having one of the earliest televisions (a five inch tube, with a BIG magnifying glass), to watch the only TV show of the time, at 4PM to 6PM on Sunday ... WBZ in Boston... "Community Auditions".

 

[ls99]

And of course there were the Edison recorders. Drums.


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Photo of Edison with cylinder phonograph in 1878
[/FONT]

 

[Tyro]

Anyone familiar with these actual record albums? Something like this:

Yes, I have a Glenn Miller set, but one disc is missing (presumed broken). They may have some value as collectors items, but they're not so great for listening. Remastered (and cleaned-up) recordings will sound far superior with much more fidelity and less noise.

Tyro

 

[Tyro]

There's a missing piece that not many people know about or remember, and that's "wire recording" ...

Unless we remember Hogan's Heroes. Couldn't find a still, but lots of references -- wire recording hogan's heroes - Google Search

Tyro

 

[Sue J]

My 28 year old son (not the one who sold the Tascam 388 that I posted about earlier) has a blog called Electric Thrift Electric Thrift | The joy of thrift store electronic finds. where he writes about his electronic finds at thrift stores. Sometimes it's about old computers or game systems but his latest one is about a Realistic TV-100 Stereo TV Receiver which was an amplifier and speakers to add stereo to your TV. The post includes a link to a 1985 Radio Shack catalog which was fun to flip through.

He also mentions my Akai amplifier that's connected to my computer.
http://electricthrift.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/tv100_akai_aa-r22_front.jpg

I have been following this Vintage Electronics topic and never noticed that my amplifier was so vintage! It was originally my Dad's when he upgraded to a fancy new stereo system, back in the day when he could hear music.

In the first picture of the blog about the TV-100 it's sitting on top of a Laserdisc player. It still works and he has picked up a few Laserdiscs along the way.

http://electricthrift.com/

 

[Karloff]

Glad to see so many folks are into vintage audio, vinyl and tubes around here. I'm the proud owner a Prima Luna DiaLogue one integrated amp myself (based on the EL-34 tube, but it also accepts many other ones), plus a Pro-Ject RPM 5.1 SE 'table and Sonus faber speakers. Some (most!) people think I'm crazy for spending so much on these units, but every day, after work, I can simply not wait to go back home and detox from reality in front of the beautiful music this system produces...

 

[Keim]

Glad to see so many folks are into vintage audio, vinyl and tubes around here. I'm the proud owner a Prima Luna DiaLogue one integrated amp myself (based on the EL-34 tube, but it also accepts many other ones), plus a Pro-Ject RPM 5.1 SE 'table and Sonus faber speakers. Some (most!) people think I'm crazy for spending so much on these units, but every day, after work, I can simply not wait to go back home and detox from reality in front of the beautiful music this system produces...

I understand you, Karloff! My Bottlehead amps are based off a 2a3. At 5 watts they sound wonderful! Preamp uses 12au7s. I think my phono pre uses 12ax7s. Lovely sound. My Oppo DVD/etc player is very nice. But the vinyl. Very, very nice.

 

[ejman]

Tubes & Vinyl. Delicious!

 

[HFWR]

All I have is a tube guitar amp, 12ax7 and 6L6.

Different animal from hi-fi amps, but sweet!