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Vintage Audio (record players, hi-fi etc) Amplifiers, speakers, gramophones and other audio equipment.

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Old 1st Sep 2015, 7:16 pm   #81
ionburn
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Default Re: The Sorry Tale Of Nostalgia versus Reality

I remember the RAD 12. I did quite a bit of fault finding on these as they were used on a course I was on for training.

I still have a Fidelity Braemar which I have had from new. It still works although the mechanics are a little iffy and could do with a service. The play / rewind etc knob is broken too. They get quite a bit of stick!
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Old 1st Sep 2015, 11:06 pm   #82
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Default Re: The Sorry Tale Of Nostalgia versus Reality

Great thread will lots of fascinating thoughts and insights into vintage gear, and comparisons with the modern tech!
Much as I love the new CD/download/Spotify services, it's still nice to play some vinyl; be it old Beatles LPs from the 60's or modern releases.
One of my favourite record players that I still use is a nice early 70's BSR P128R with Shure M75-6 cartridge - the original type with the steel mounting plate. The stylus is new.
Was a young teenager during the 70's and grew up in a house with Ferguson music centres which used BSR decks (SC-12H ceramic cartridge) and they always just worked and sounded pretty good to me at the time.
Fast forward many years, and many different decks - Dual, Rega, Logic DM-101, Technics, and so on. I picked up a Marconiphone system a couple of years ago for a fiver, which included a BSR deck in a lovely looking wood plinth.
After picking it all up and finding the speakers were shot, and the receiver only worked on one channel, I tried the deck, it worked!! Sounded half good too!! Stripped it down, cleaned and re-lubed it, and it sounded great!
I'm listening to it right now, with it playing that Shure75-6 (re-mounted with spacers to help the VTA) and listening to the recent Lorde "Pure Heroin" album, sparkling, powerful, and absolutely no IGD!
It's running through a nice and recent Yamaha mini-system and sounds incredible; so detailed and powerful, and I have to say that I think I prefer it's presentation of music than of the Technics DD and BD decks that I've run through this same system. Something about that old idler-drive that gives such strength and authority to the sound, and of course, that old Shure has a powerful output and strong sound too.
Even better - switch to the 75-8 stylus and all set for playing 78's too, which sound great if the record isn't too knackered!
This deck is over 40 years old, and runs perfectly, and when well set-up, sounds excellent! I know there's a lot of BSR haters out there, and I was doubtful when I first tried it, but they new what they were doing with this model.
So I guess this is a tale of nostalgia exceeds reality... for me
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Old 2nd Sep 2015, 12:20 am   #83
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Default Re: The Sorry Tale Of Nostalgia versus Reality

Bear in mind that we didn't listen to "vinyl", we listened to a record, completely oblivious that the plastic it was made of was called that. We did know, of course, that it wasn't a 78, they were what our Parents knew, and therefore old fashioned. We were advised to make plant pot holders out of them according to a TV programme.
That's nostalgia as it really happened.

Fast forward, and what remains is now valued. We give everything new terms and meanings, but those of us who were there remember the realities.
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Old 2nd Sep 2015, 1:44 am   #84
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Yes I agree ,but those of us who boxed up,our records have had the delight of realisjng ,how wonderful they still sound,I admit digital in theory should sound better ,but music was produced for analogue playback!
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Old 2nd Sep 2015, 7:10 am   #85
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Default Re: The Sorry Tale Of Nostalgia versus Reality

mally1956

"but music was produced for analogue playback!"

Totally agree

Gary

Ps Just bought a BSR P157 (BDS-80) am giving that a good service
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Old 2nd Sep 2015, 8:38 am   #86
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Quote:
switch to the 75-8 stylus and all set for playing 78's too, which sound great if the record isn't too knackered!
I think a lot of people have forgotten just how good 78's can sound, a while ago I restored a 1935 Ultra radiogram and was very pleased with the end results, but the quality of sound on records was a bit of a let down

I was told that this was probably down to the armature rubber suspension going hard, so I stripped down the head and rebuilt it with new silicon rubber.
A bit fiddly, but well worth the time spent on it. The quality of record reproduction was amazing, not only was there a far higher output, but the sound quality was transformed. there was now some really nice bass and the harsh treble was now clean and sweet sounding.

I am particularly impressed with the quality of some of the HMV classical recordings. when you think that this radiogram is 80 years old now, it must have really pleased it's original owner when it was new!

Mark
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Old 2nd Sep 2015, 8:39 am   #87
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Default Re: The Sorry Tale Of Nostalgia versus Reality

Rather a lot of music was created for live performance, because there wasn't anything else at the time.

Written music scores quantise frequency into discrete intervals, and time into beats and bars which all seems a bit 'digital'

But few of us can afford our own orchestras, or even a solitary minstrel. Besides they're justly renowned for being a bolshy lot with a combination of downing tools at the precise instant of the end of the booked time as well as frequently throwing rattles out of prams in artistic fits. AND the brass sections drip drool all over your carpets. (And I haven't even mentioned the difficulties of keeping them sober enough to stand their music the right way up)

This electrickery stuff has its attractions.

Back in the day, there must have been arguments along the lines of 'this newfangled clavier thing is spoiling music, I only listen to proper harpsichords'. It's not a matter of the technology, humans are naturally argumentative. Someone will immediately contradict this statement, thereby proving it

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Old 2nd Sep 2015, 9:25 am   #88
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Mark's comment reminds me of something I once heard about traditional jazz bands in the 50s. It was claimed that performers took great pains to get the authentic sound from their instruments. This was not the same as playing modern instruments in a small hall.

Unfortunately examples of this sound were only old acoustic recordings usually played on indifferent portable gramophones. When techniques were available to remove clicks, surface noise, along with compensation for known limitations in frequency response of the old recording system, the results were very different. In fact they sounded just like playing modern instruments in a small hall and recording the results on passable modern equipment.

At another extreme I am aware of classical performers playing on original instruments to get the authentic experience the composer intended. When I heard a recording of one of these, I must admit it was not as satisfying to me as a modern performance.
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Old 4th Sep 2015, 10:22 am   #89
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Great thread guys, it's got me thinking though about us younger forum members. I'm 30 years old and whilst I do remember my parents listening to records I don't ever remember a time where records were the dominant format. And I think in an era where having your whole music collection on a mobile phone is a mere banality and in an era where convenience has trumped fidelity, for us younger members these old, valve record players/radios etc are charming, aesthetically as much as anything else. I bought an ekco valve record player in 2010 when I was 25 and whilst it was a little tinny to my modern ears it had a sound that was warm and had depth. To me this valve amp whilst crude sounded far better than my iPod docking station I know a docking station is hardly hi-fi but as others have attested to a crude valve amplifier is far superior to a crude or even mid level modern set up.
So whilst nostalgia may play tricks with your memory and the reality of these players is somewhat disappointing I think context is everything. We live in a throwaway, disposable era, music has no monetary value anymore the way kids are listening to music now (usually through a phone speaker) is by far inferior to these warm sounding, charming players.
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Old 4th Sep 2015, 12:12 pm   #90
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Default Re: The Sorry Tale Of Nostalgia versus Reality

Don't forget too that some record players don't sound as good now as they would have done 50-60 years ago when they were new. Idlers will have hardened, increasing rumble, and the HF performance of ceramic and crystal cartridges will have dropped off as their rubber suspensions stiffen-up.
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Old 4th Sep 2015, 3:10 pm   #91
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I had a similar epiphany when I made a rather whimsical decision to dump all the mp3 stuff and go back to a portable cassette player. There were some very good small cassette machines back in the 70s but the sort I had were frankly a bit grotty audio quality wise. Their wow and flutter wasn't terrible but enough to make sustained notes a bit warbly. The distortion was, again, not terrible but enough to make harmonies sound discordant. I could go on... Then there was that awful 'pumping' of their recording AGC which I suspect was aimed at speech (I actually did something about this in one of me cassette recorders - added axtra capacitance to the AGC voltage filter).

Not surprisingly, I'm still using modern tech
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Old 4th Sep 2015, 4:50 pm   #92
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Karen O View Post
Then there was that awful 'pumping' of their recording AGC which I suspect was aimed at speech (I actually did something about this in one of me cassette recorders - added axtra capacitance to the AGC voltage filter).
The first transistor reel-to-reel tape recorders actually used to have a switch for music, speech or manual, to minimise this effect.
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Old 4th Sep 2015, 7:42 pm   #93
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Reel to reel ,in my humble opinion ,sounds the best ,for analogue sound ,I recall a friend spending in excess of £1000 for a very top end hi fi reel to reel set up in the late 1970s ,at current rate of value ,that must be almost £10000 now ,so never cheap !
It.did sound amazing .
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Old 5th Sep 2015, 10:38 am   #94
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Hi Fi never was cheap in the early days. A Quad or leak amplifier was around £50 when I started work and I was earning £3.00 per week.

Later in the '50s I bought a Philips EL3542 and although only a domestic machine it sounded brilliant. I have some tapes I recorded on it and they still sound good.

Peter
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Old 5th Sep 2015, 10:46 am   #95
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Default Re: The Sorry Tale Of Nostalgia versus Reality

I certainly agree re the Philips. Most of their machines were capable of very good results. I recently impressed some young friends with some recordings I made on a home-brewed machine using a Brenell deck fifty years ago. Some of them were under the strange impression that good sound reproduction was only possible after 1990!
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Old 5th Sep 2015, 11:19 am   #96
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Ah to be that young and to think that a good LP would make a Blue Peter style snack dish.
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Old 5th Sep 2015, 2:14 pm   #97
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In the "You" newspaper supplement mag this week [30/8] a young musician lists her junk shop finds on the "emotional ties" feature page. One is a cream/yellow Dansette RP on legs quote "Someone told me you should listen to the same era of music on the same era of vinyl player so I bought this one. It makes me feel as though I'm right back there in the 1960's with them."

This partially illustrates the common phenomena on here these days of non technical enquiries, as covered in the "I've just bought a Record Player" thread recently.

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=117644

I've noticed that it's still going on and if you search the site the number of postings starting with this memorable phrase seems to be on the increase. Some people are actually posting with a real technical interest but I suspect "notalot" as a well known magician used to say. So, apart from reflecting on the nostalgia effect in relation to those of us who were actually there, there is now a contemporary nostalgia [contradiction in terms I know] among those who weren't! "Go figure as Americans insist on saying

Dave W
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Old 5th Sep 2015, 2:35 pm   #98
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If you follow that methodology, presumably you play 78s on a "Shellac Player" and CDs on a "Polycarbonate Player"?
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Old 5th Sep 2015, 2:47 pm   #99
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And make copies on a "Mylar machine".

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Old 5th Sep 2015, 3:10 pm   #100
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A few days ago I spent some time making up some tapes with Tamla Motown records on them.
I used a Stanton 500 with a new stylus to play them as I thought given their age and likely condition no point in using a delicate cartridge.

I cleaned them all on my moth record cleaning machine and set forth

You know I was amazed at the quality of some of the recordings and how they actually sound, I get so used to hearing songs on the radio that sound dire, just a vague representation of the original that I forget what they actually sound like.

I can think of a few records I have heard on the radio, that when I get home and play them the ones on the radio sound awful.

So in this case it was a pleasant to experience nostalga that sounded so good.

Gary
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