Vinyl & turntables

[MrGongGong]

Does anybody remember the mad American on Hi Fi news who reviewed all the astronomically priced equipment ? He loved to use words like 'slam" and "punch' and "sonic delivery"while cheerfully admitting that he only used three pop LPs to test these massive systems on.

Naturally, when CD arrived, the golden ears had to invent something new to worry about, so they came up with the green ink pen. This was used to colour the rim of the centre hole on the disc to prevent dispersion of the laser light. Incidentally, I hope you all know that if you have a house phone installed in the listening room it will cause deterioration in the sound quality ? Oh, and it's also a good idea to put small blobs of Blu Tack on strategic places near your equipment and on window frames!

and (again) also these

http://www.merlincables.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=103

They have also told us that like all our other cables it also brings colours to life when attached to any visual products

that's good to know because at £1250 for a 1 metre length it's likely to make you rather red faced

[amateur51]

Ref the oil crisis and vinyl quality point raised earlier in the thread, I can certainly confirm that records spoilt during production were ground, pelletised and added to new vinyl in the Philips/Siemens owned factory that I worked in during the early seventies. The three day week didn't help quality much either.

When I was working in record shops in London in the 1970s, I recall being told by an RCA rep that all those warped James Galway LPs that I used to send back as 'returns' ended up in a huge landfill site down East London/Essex way. That brought a smile to our faces, I can tell you

[richardfinegold]

Ken Kessler?

That's him, and he still reviews for them. Michael Fremer is his Stereophile counterpart. Fremer brags about having to mortgage his house to buy a $200,000 turntable.

[richardfinegold]

When I was working in record shops in London in the 1970s, I recall being told by an RCA rep that all those warped James Galway LPs that I used to send back as 'returns' ended up in a huge landfill site down East London/Essex way. That brought a smile to our faces, I can tell you

[Dave2002]

and (again) also these

http://www.merlincables.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=103

that's good to know because at £1250 for a 1 metre length it's likely to make you rather red faced

Buy 3 metres then - it becomes a bargain at under £700 per metre.

[MrGongGong]

Buy 3 metres then - it becomes a bargain at under £700 per metre.

I use one for my kettle
There a much wider tastestage , tannins taste tanninier , the swirl is much improved and there's a distinct improvement in the low dunk when used with a gingernut ..

[umslopogaas]

And a subtle extra clarity to the tinkle of the teaspoon ...

My local hifi guru keeps trying to persuade me to buy more expensive speaker cables, but I keep having to point out that the factor limiting my appreciation of my records is no longer the quality of my hifi equipment but the quality of my ears. I'd rather spend the money on new CDs (and frequently do).

[salymap]

I only have 60 to 100 LPs and some, like chamber music, may be availble on CD but the quality of MY ears and my age meanI'm not worried.

Concert Hall noise is just as distracting as a bit of crackle and I liook afte my records

A few:-

Mendeaaohn and Tchaik VCs Francescatti/ Mitropoulos

Schubert Octet. Members of the BerlinPhil

Schubert Trio no 1 in Bb. Schneider/Casals/Istomin

Tchaik Piano Trio op 50 The Suk Trio

Sibelius 1 [Scottish Nat Orch] and 5 [LSO] both Alex Gibson

Lot more, I must play them soon

[jayne lee wilson]

That's him, and he still reviews for them. Michael Fremer is his Stereophile counterpart. Fremer brags about having to mortgage his house to buy a $200,000 turntable.

I think you're all falling into the trap of a "dichotomy of extremes" here (choice is not pennies or 1000s!). These two are pretty good technical writers (on HFN now Paul Miller, John Bamford & Keith Howard are really up-to-speed) and Fremer's accounts of his experiences in Carnegie and other halls in Stereophile, and comparisons with home listening, have been very insightful. Not sure about the efficacy of blu-tack, but anti-vibration measures can be really helpful with highly-resolved playback (analogue or digital). But y'know, you care or you don't, you do it or you don't - just trial things and judge by ear...

But - busy! Shouldn't be here & living on coffee again..

[Ferretfancy]

Ken Kessler?

That's the one !

[Beef Oven!]

Don't start that one
it'll just go round and round
and why aren't you at this ?

http://www.gsmd.ac.uk/about_the_scho...howUid%5D=3451

Because I didn't realise there was a free performance today!

Put it in my diary for this Sunday as part of the £15 day-pass 'Spirituality & Politics' weekend.

I'll take in:

#Breakfast with Gubaidulina
#John Tilbury's talk on Cornelius Cardew (plus live extract from 'The Great learning')
#Punk to post-punk
#Lucy Robinson's talk on Greenham Common (bit of nostalgia - will see if I can borrow some dungarees and dig up me old Martins!)
#Andriessen's 'De Staat' & Henze's 'Voices' (I've been into Andriessen for over a quarter of a century)

And depending on how I feel, might take in a showing of Tarkovsky's 'Solaris' at 8.00pm

All in all, not bad for £15!!!

[richardfinegold]

I think you're all falling into the trap of a "dichotomy of extremes" here (choice is not pennies or 1000s!). These two are pretty good technical writers (on HFN now Paul Miller, John Bamford & Keith Howard are really up-to-speed) and Fremer's accounts of his experiences in Carnegie and other halls in Stereophile, and comparisons with home listening, have been very insightful. Not sure about the efficacy of blu-tack, but anti-vibration measures can be really helpful with highly-resolved playback (analogue or digital). But y'know, you care or you don't, you do it or you don't - just trial things and judge by ear...

But - busy! Shouldn't be here & living on coffee again..

Sorry Jayne, after reading Audiophile mags from both sides of the pond for a few years, I'm afraid that I feel more sympathy with gong gong than you on this point. I think that Kessler is an idiot, pure and simple, and if I see Fremer refer to one more 5 figure component as a "bargain" I'm going to throw up.

[gradus]

I believe Mr K is also an expert and writes about expensive watches, can't remember where I came across this piece of arcania but I thought that you'd like to know in case you were contemplating investing in a Breguet, Patek Phillipe, IWC etc.....perhaps wearing one improves the dynamic response to expensive hi-fi gear?

[HighlandDougie]

Well, I have to confess to wearing an IWC watch. Definitely doesn't improve my dynamic response to anything but it does tell me the time (and the date) - and there's something satisfying about a watch which you can actually wind up,. Shame it doesn't use valves.

[umslopogaas]

I've always been mystified by very expensive watches. My Casio diving watch cost eighteen quid in 1978. It is waterproof to much greater depths than me and timed me on hundreds of dives. It gives me the time, the day and the date and can be used as a stopwatch. In over thirty years it has cost me just one new battery. But I guess it just doesnt have the status of a Rolex ...