Posted on 11/10/2011 2:08:42 PM PST by Chickensoup
As to vinyl...a story.
Back in '91 I needed a roommate and so a fellow who had just graduated from the 'newbie' training class for the company I was working for at the time (HiFi Buys in Atlanta) moved in to share expenses.
We had my modest gear set-up:
A Victor Integrated Amp (actually quite good*), JVC CD player and my old holdovers....Dual TT (with Denon MC Cartridge) and original Henry Kloss built Larger Advents.
Being lazy, I rarely fired up the old Dual but one afternoon we were listening to Steely Dan's Aja (one recommended by his training class as a great demo CD for customers) and I said, "Yeah....its great....but you ought to hear the record".
Of course he said, "WHAT!...what do you mean?"...are you trying to say that an old scratchy record can sound better than this pristine CD?....You're CRAZY!"
So I dragged myself off the couch, rummaged through my peach crates, pulled out the album and my DiscWasher and went through the ritual.
Yeah....when the tonearm hit the guiding groove there was the familiar, soft 'wamp, wamp...zzzzzz....'click'....wamp, wamp...zzzzzz as it ran into the true opening. And then....WHAM...MAGIC!
My roommate's mouth dropped as this HUGE stage opened up, instruments receded and stepped forward, sound came from high, low and wide and suddenly we were at a performance instead of just listening to this (admittedly pristine) reproduction that sounds as if it is coming through an open door.
Yeah....too short a side...hassle to keep clean....limited dynamic range...clicks...pops...etc....but, MAN, that infinite resolution and indefinable warmth is hard to beat!
* I had worked for JVC for a while and had gotten a hold of a really superior transistor amp ('Victor') imported by their USA division (JVC stands for Victor Company of Japan...around since the original Victor Talking Machine Company...owner of the dog Nipper 'His Master's Voice' logo used by RCA for many years in this country. This gear was too "elite" to import and compete with the American brands that dominate the better stereo gear. The more modest stuff came over as "JVC"....end of audio history.
Great story! I really hate LPs (almost as much as I hate RTR tape), their delicate surfaces, the cleaning rituals, the goniffs in the used market...REALLY hate ‘em...I’m more than willing to dump thousands of LPs just as soon as a superior technology arrives that better brings me to the music/the music to me. And that’s still somewhere on the far horizon. Whenever I have duplicate recordings on different media, the LP still emerges champion in delivering the soul of the performance. CD, DVD-A, SACD, 96/24, 192/24, it doesn’t matter...the heart of the music still abides in those tiny vinyl grooves.
I’m not surprised to hear about your Victor amp. The Japanese always keep their best efforts at home, as though their good stuff is too darn precious for the rest of the world.
I fear it will never happen since the advent ( sigh....not pun intended) of the iPod has now brought everyone down to about the level of the cassette circa 1965 (before, Henry Kloss, chromium dioxide tape and Dolby made it at least sufferable)
I fear quality sound reproduction for the home is gone forever...not due to technology, but to disinterest.
At some point they’ll want to sell good sound again.
What’s bothering me right now is that the quality of the audio in video devices is worse than it was 10 years ago.
10 years ago a cheap dv or d8 camcorder would have 16/48 uncompressed wav. basically, cd or dat quality. you’d also often have a line in or a mic in for an external mic.
Now, you have amazing 1080p60 video, but the audio is compressed. they might have good gain control, with no distortion even in loud environments. They give 28,000 to video, and they can’t give 1536 to audio, they have to compress it down to 256 or 384. Really pisses me off.
The friend who took me to this place used to do professional installations on high end systems—lots of celebrity clients—and knows his stuff (separate tube amps for each channel on his home system). As we’re driving there, he tells me that one of the things this guy has in his little appointment-only boutique is a turntable that sells for a $100,000. I was amazed, but he said, “It’s expensive for a turntable, but cheap for a time machine.”
But as speakers they’re (Bose) pretty lame and overpriced.
You got that right!!
One of the best rigs I ever heard was in an oncologist’s house. He had made a deal with the wife that he gets one room in the huge house for nothing but stereo.
I forget the “perfect” dimensions for a listening room (something to do with how long it takes 20hz to propagate either a full or half wave) but he built it to whatever those dimensions were. And since it was “his” room, he was able to bring the speakers (Wilson Watt Puppies) the proper distance (one third of the way into the room, IIRC) into the space with two massive Audio Research amps plopped about 6 inches behind the Wilsons.
I don’t know who the maker of the TT was, but I noticed that there was surgical tubing coming out of the side and exiting via a channel along the wall to another room. Turns out that this was attached to a vacuum pump that sucked the record onto the platter and held it flat and tight!
Yeah....a ridiculous extravagance, but he could afford it and when he sat me down in the sweet spot, Emmylou Harris walked out in front of me, took a deep breath and gave me a soaring private performance.
Simply Heaven.
I have a pair of KG-4’s and I have another pair of JBL’s that I need to refoam the woofers.
Here
My favorite demo record was Reiner's then-recent 1962 recording of Also Sprach Zarathustra. (Oddly, that performance is hard to get on CD; his historic 1954 reading is the one that's widely available.)
Back then, my favorite demo speaker was probably the JBL Paragon, followed by the smaller individual JBLs with the "075 Ring Radiator" for the tweeter. I used to tell my customers you could probably light a piece of paper on fire in front of one! ≤}B^)
Empire had just come out with the first of their speakers that looked like tall octagonal end tables with marble tops. One customer listened for a while. He said "these things really turn me on!" and bought them. It was the first time I had ever heard that phrase.
I still have a small Rockford cabinet with a Scott 299-B amp and a Fisher KM-60 tuner rotting in a storage unit far away.
The high point of my speaker ownership was when I sold my ESS AMT-1's (fine speakers in their own right) and got a pair of Ohm Walsh 4's. All gone now, sad to say.
At the moment, I'm restoring an Ampex F-44, the last of their tube home units. The alignment of its capstan belt drive has turned into a major pain.
I second that. I have a pair of Cerwin-Vega speakers that have been going for almost 25 years in Florida humidity.
When I expanded my system to 5.1, the center, rear and sub-woofer speakers were all Cerwin-Vega.
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