What's new Pussycat too?

You'll have to listen to the second half of Cygnus X-1: Book Two on first side of the next album, Hemispheres.

Have you listened to Xanadu on A Farewell to Kings album yet?

The term "rock opera" or "opera" associated with rock music has always left a bad taste in my mouth, so to speak. I prefer the term rock symphonies. But yeah, Cygnus X-1 is definitely diving head first into the deep end as far as Rush goes...next step should be Rush 2112, the 20 minute rock symphony story that covers the entire first side of the album of the same name. My favorite Rush rock symphony story is on their album Caress of Steel; called The Necromancer...

Next will be time to go wading into their instrumentals including La Villa Strangiato, YYZ (YYZED), and Malignant Narcissism to name a few.

And if you didn't already know, all that incredible sound come from just 3 members in the group, all with multiple virtuoso talents to multi-task with multiple instruments.

Geddy Lee, the singer, is also the bassist and keyboards too, often switching between them in the same song, and he also uses foot-peddle keyboard synths when he has to play bass and sing at the same time too.

Alex Lifeson, the lead guitarist also sometimes plays keyboard and is back-up vocals and both him and Geddy play rhythm guitar too, often using double-neck guitars with rhythm and lead, and rhythm and bass for each. Neil Peart, the groups drummer and percussionist is the greatest drummer in the history of the world, and also is the sole lyricist for all the songs, the other two compose the music. A discography of 168 original songs and 8 cover songs covering 19 studio albums, and one studio cover album. Many more than that, but the rest are "live" albums from tours, which is actually the better way to experience Rush...

 

I just purchased my 16th Rush album (14 out of 20 studio albums and 2 out of 5 live albums. Not counting live video recordings), I just happened to find a sealed copy that could not be sold as "mint" because the cellophane wrap has a tear in it and apparently part of the sticker on the wrap is damaged, though I can't see either in the photo. But it brought the price down to $60, while all other copies of the remastered edition are selling for $100+ more. Two other albums I really want I haven't seen for less than $250, so I'm still waiting and watching. The other 4 missing studio albums I'll just get $10 CD's for. Only favorites get the royal vinyl treatment. Which includes 9 LP's out of the 16, and 7 CD's. Though I do have several albums on both vinyl and CD too; one for the home, one for the car/truck.



This sheet comes with the album, I thought I'd post it as well because it has a description of how these modern, audiophile quality LP's are made.



You may have noticed the sticker on the album that says 'Quality Records'. This is part of a company known as Acoustic Sounds that was started in middle-America a dozen years ago. They make the best records in the world and where this album above, and many of my other remasters are made by. This is why they are superior to CD's. I think you will really enjoy this video:

 

Bloody marvellous.

This post/record/artwork just oozes quality and interest and retro joy...

I will play the link sometime over weekend, Matt as am about to go out for a pre-Xmas meal with friends.

I hope everyone is keeping well.

Lurve those retro TVs in the kid's room on the cover art - I want one.

Brilliant and watch yer letterboxes over the next week or three (postal strikes permitting).

 

Here's something new, if utilitarian. Protective outer sleeves for both LP's (and LD's) and CD's. The inner sleeves I had previously, to replace water damaged ones from my old LP's. But I also use them to replace paper-only sleeves in some albums, as the rough paper is not good for the vinyl.

And some random examples from my Rush collection wearing the new protective sleeves. Now, finally, no more scratched up CD jewel cases! They will stay as clear as when new...it's not just an LP thing...of course they protect the printed cardboard (2112 & Clockwork Angels CD's below)CD albums too, just like with LP's...

My LP & CD collection is now all cleaned and protected inside and out and only handled with blue hands. (surgical gloves)

Also, notice the difference in the album covers between the Clockwork Angels LP and CD versions...I just noticed myself...

.

 

Well protected, Matt.

They'll last forever with those plastic covers.

The Rush CD vs LP differences - doesn't one have swirly cloud patterns whereas the other has radiating 'water' circle ripples?

A subtle background shift.

 

And not a moment too soon as I noticed some light scuffs on the edges and corners of my cardboard cased CD's too (easily seen if you zoom in on them). The LP's still had the original shrink-wrap protecting them until I got these new sleeves. But it's nice to have them all in clear, unwrinkled plastic and out of the original wrinkly shrink-wrap.

I have only one Rush box set (Permanent Waves) that is too large for the protective sleeve. The inner albums have the sleeves over them, but I'll have to buy some larger sleeves made for large box sets before I can remove the shrink-wrap from the outer box for that album. The problem is I think the minimal set of sleeves is a pack of 25-50, and I have one box set album. I may get one more Rush album box set, that I only have a CD for now, but that's a lot of unneeded sleeves left over I'll most likely never use. There aren't any other groups I like enough to pay hundreds for a box set album, and even Rush only has a few box sets themselves. I may just end up cutting up a couple sleeves and taping them together to make one that fits the box.


As per album covers: That is correct. I first noticed a different cover from a Youtube reaction video that had the clouds. But I hadn't noticed, until taking that picture, that my CD had the same clouds instead of "rain drops." I'll have to investigate further, but I think the clouds are the original release, which my CD is, and the "rain drops" was done for my special 200g double-LP audiophile version only. I personally prefer the "rain drops."

 

There are a couple of things I want that are vinyl only (nothing you guys would know), but price's and risk make me shy away. I did buy one of the items I wanted last year, but the "near mint" description was miles off, covered in scratched and scuff that were clearly audible when playing. Shame, the guy apologised and had a perfect review score.

The other thing that put's me off is that I want to record it as a lossless format, whereas the deck that I got from Bob is one of those that can make MP3's and I bet the bit rate is 192, so missing a bit from either end of the audio spectrum. I probably could hack a feed off the amp but it's soo low on my list of jobs that I'll probably never do it.

Things are getting a little tougher to do now, as I found out last night when evicting that blooming rat, I thought I'd done ten rounds with Tyson by the end of it.

One day, maybe I'll just get the 12 inches I want and just listen to them even though I really want a digital version to use instead.

 

Tragedy strikes! Feel for me and my 1st World woes! While carefully handling my most expensive and prized LP's, while pre-cleaning to play it, my fingers slipped! My precious hit a hard surface and left a terrible mark! And sure enough, I played the record and at that point I now have a re-occurring skip!! You know, the kind where the same one second of audio skips incessantly! I suspect that once past that, it will occur even more judging by the scratches! Oh WO-ES me! So now I have one song on four album sides that I have to skip over. (three songs per side on the ultra high fidelity Double-LP) Unfortunately it's a good song too.

The only real downside to vinyl:

 

Something we all strive for....

 

I've never measured, or strived; the looks of approval from woman were all I needed for my ego...

 

After a bit more digging, I did confirm my suspicion that the original album cover for Clockwork Angels is the swirling clouds, and only my re-mastered special edition 2xLP got the special cover treatment changing to the radiating water droplets.

I think it's a metaphor for the added clarity and fidelity of the remastered edition...instead of a blatant "remastered special edition" printed somewhere.

Mind you though, it isn't as if the original was recorded and mastered back in the 70's, it's their last album from 2012, so only a decade old, and my remaster was done in 2018, IIRC. So I'm sure the original sounds pretty good too. But Rush did remasters and re-releases starting in 2014 for their 40th anniversary of their first album and every year new 40th anniversary editions for each album in chronological order, as well as 20th & 30th anniversary albums for the newer releases and so on.



And yes, this is the album which befell the recent tragedy.

 

So sorry to hear of the fall and the damage, Matt. Just the sort of thing that happens this end when we're trying to be careful with precious stuff and then oops, slip... crash. Sod's Law. Almost like something reminding us that nothing remains perfect and lasts forever.

 

Yup, sorry to hear Matt, not good. When I did have vinyl, bitd, I had 2 shockers that decimated my beloved records. First was we had some stored in a box on top of a cabinet. I climbed up a ladder to get and the ladder had a wobble, making me drop the box. The box landed right on top of a gas fire fitting sticking out from the fireplace (there was no gas actually on, just a relic from when there was). The metal prong skewered the first four records and twisted and cracked a few more.

The second was just classic IDIOT, we were moving, and I was filling the car up with gear, brought my record box out and tried to get it in the car but it would not fit, so I put it on top of the car to make room. As it was getting very dark and late I got side tracked, totally forgot the box and it was so dark I didn't see it when I got in the car. Off I went down the M4 which was very close to where we then lived. As I sped up to get to the other place I heard a slide, off went the box down the back of the roof and off the boot in to the motorway lane, bloody great truck came along and I though was going to go over it, but the guy swerved at the last min but clipped the box, the box rolled, smashed open and sent the records spraying all over the lane and lay-by. Most ruined...Gutted..I hate vinyl..

 

12 inches, I wish, but like Natt, never had a complaint, mind you, the cat can't speak.....

 

LOL! What a tragic set of circumstances, Paul, but we can easily see why you and vinyl go your separate ways... ;-)

 

If that had happened to me, I might never start collecting vinyl again Paul! But I won't let one scratch, however nasty, detour me yet...

 

Wishing you all a Happy and Peaceful New Year.

Matt, hopefully you'll find a replacement for that precious LP.

 

You do realize that had it been a box of tapes or CD's the result would have been the same in that situation, don't you Paul? My agreement if that had happened to me was more about repurchasing them all, not the format. Though tapes in their caddy cases (not outer cases) might have had a better chance of some of them surviving.

It wouldn't have made me hate the format, just the cost to replace them, so I probably wouldn't have repurchased. When many of my records were damaged in storage, I was able to save most of the LP's, after cleaning, it was the album folders that all got ruined except for just a few records that I did replace. I also had some tapes and CD's and cases that were water damaged too, the CD's I also saved, but not the inserts. The tapes were at total loss. But not all my tapes and CD's were in storage either, just all my LP's.

The silver lining was I got remastered LP's with higher quality recordings on heavy (stiffer so no warping) Vinyl.

 

Although my first music was on vinyl I was always more into tape as a youngster (was lucky enough to have a walkman that went everywhere with me) and then progressed onto CD which is my favourite media still. Mainly because you don't need to get up to turn it over halfway through the allubm

But I would love to be able to get CD's in the vinyl packaging as I prefer the 'big box' look and it's easier on my old eyes!

 

Don't worry Matt, I don't genuinely hate vinyl, just the fact it was so easy to blemish it, bust as you say, had it been cd's they would probably been trashed as easily. When the records got crunched I remember later feeling like the John Candy character in Planes, Trains and Automobiles when the car goes between the lorries and Neale looks around to see Candy as the Devil. I felt that way too re the horror I'd caused.

I'd like to test a couple of the new vinyl, but they seem costly, so it's something for the back burner. Most immediate things are the car (tax and insurance) and keeping warm, the gas card is just guzzling cash and it's annoying because we are very careful to limit gas use, ie we are not like many who sit in what feels like a sauna all day, it's on to give the flat a warm and then off.

As for the vinyl, I used to love the picture disks or the coloured 12" records, I remember a Donna Summer 12", think it was Hot Stuff that was racy red. Nice old times. After vinyl, I started to use tapes to record all my mates big disc collection, my weapon of choice was always a TDK SA90. When CD then became a norm I jumped ship to it as I had very few records left and a big set of tapes, my initial thoughts on CD were not great, the first CD's seemed quite flat in audio range and needed a g EQ'ing to get some thump out of them, later on they got better, and I got a player with SACD ability, sadly they were not as supported as I'd hoped.

Video wise, we went for a Sony Betamax as the quality seemed better, sadly everyone else went VHS, so when we went to the video club our choice was somewhat limited BUT we did get to see Assault on Precinct 13 which started my love of John Carpenter films (only Vampires of Mars was a let down, even the loveliness of Natasha Henstridge could not save it, also the vision of a young Jason Statham with what looked bum fluff on his head (severely thinning by then)) didn't help. We were slow to jump to DVD, but when I saw my mates Maplin brand played (I'd left by then) and I saw Armageddon on it I wanted one . Thankfully my brother saw it with me and needed me to drive the lorry to move him up North, the deal was that I got a DVD and a film and he did the same. I bloody earned it though, the boxes and boxes of architecture books he had (he was a surveyor) almost broke my back.

Now I am blu-rayed and have a good collection on it, and a modest 5.1 surround that barely gets used, I'd like an Atmos 7.1 setup and a HUGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE TV, but beggars can't be choosy....

 

I agree, Paul, TDK SA90's are my preference too, but only because Metal tapes and decks that supported them were far too expensive back then, and obviously astronomical in price these days since they are so rare; the tapes that is, Metal compatible tape decks aren't so much these days since most people don't realize what they've got when selling tape decks that most people aren't even interested in anymore, metal compatible or not. I'd love to copy my vinyl to Metal tapes, since they are nearly on a par with CD if recorded to properly, but still analog. But since a blank Metal tape can cost as much as an LP vinyl these days, it's better just to buy a back-up of the LP or a version on CD too, which is exactly what I did with my scratched LP, though before the tragedy as I wanted to listen to it, and several other I own both for, in my work truck's CD player. But TDK SA90's will be my go-to for any tape recordings I do make.

I do wish Betamax had not failed over here as it is a higher quality than VHS, until the failed S-VHS tapes came along, which I do have a player and blank tapes for. It's also a Sony like my Blu-ray player. But I'd thought that in England (and Europe) Betamax was more popular than VHS, especially since the old PAL CRT's had better definition than NTSC TV's just like Betamax vs. VHS. I thought I'd heard that many moons ago...you surprised me when you mentioned that.

And yeah, it's too bad SACD didn't catch on too, especially now that I have the Sony Blu-ray that is compatible with them. I'd be buying SACD for for my doubles of LP albums instead of CD's at this point forward. But I've seen no Rush albums on SACD either, while looking, so I'm stuck with CD's as the alternative backup since Metal tapes are so ridiculously priced.

I actually did have a few blank Metal tapes, I'd planned on using, that I picked up somewhere along the way in life, but never got around to using, but now that I've finally gone through all my media that was in storage, they didn't turn up, so I suspect they somehow got separated and were left in my Texas storage unit that was robbed. I will be keeping an eye out for cheap ones at flea markets, thrift stores and boot-sales as the average person selling tapes has no idea what they are worth these days, only audiophiles like myself.

Yeah, I too am still only using 5.1 surround myself, even with my newer Pyle amplifier I got as a replacement for my JVC quadrophonic, which I will fix eventually as it's much more powerful, and is compatible with surround sound as that's just the early name for surround sound, but just 4.0 surround. But with my 12" 3-way loudspeakers I don't really need the subwoofer, and I can live with the "virtual" center channel that naturally occurs with stereo and Quadraphonic/4.0 surround. Subwoofers and center channel speakers are just to make up for todays smaller surround sound speakers with a lack of bass and don't have as good of a virtual center channel also since they are so small. So I'll probably never get around to getting yet another amplifier just for the extra side speakers. Besides, if you just hook up 4 speakers to the front left & right and have them two at the front and two at the side, it sounds almost as good as true 7.1, assuming your amplifier has the power to run 4 front speakers...out of the left and right channels.

 

I did have a machine that supported meta tapes and I had a few, but the price difference (as you said) meant they were just too much for a collection. I did like the TDK ones as the mech holding the tape spools was all metal as well, heavy buggers

No idea if the amp can do that, it's a dedicated 5.1 all in one system, there's deffo no spare speaker connections.

Yeah, VHS was the go to here in the UK, some early adopters like us went Betamax, but the media were pushing VHS as being the next big thing. Shame, I really liked our Sony top loader, quality (for our eyes back then ) was great..

As for surround, I'm one of those people who thinks about what others can hear, and we have this stupid situation with the dick-heads upstairs (which resulted in me, last night, telling them to shove their kid up their arse (made Serena laugh). They had been good for a few days and then daddy who drives a cab came home at 11:50pm and up got all the kids battering the floor waking all of us from sleep. And as I spend all waking moments in pain I do like to get whatever sleep I can.)

Anyway, I'm awkward about going too loud as if I start I think it would prompt others to blare music at all times, which I could do without. As said on here before, I do play music but at a normal level but I don't use the 5.1 for it, just my large desktop PC speakers.

In an ideal world, I'd be in a detached house with a big room set aside as home cinema / audio room, I'd probably sound proof it so not to drive Cindy or Serena mad if I'm watching a mega action film. Sadly the world is far from ideal with talks of 4 day work weeks and the NHS in meltdown, let alone half the work force deciding to strike (although I agree with the nurses), some simply because they like to every year. (rail workers, I'm looking at you, as well as posties).

Ah, at least we had Silent Witness to watch last night, and a bloody good story so far...When they get it right, Silent Witness and Line of Duty are stunning TV that anyone from any country could enjoy (as long as they speak English, I hate badly dubbed stuff)

 

@Paul "Mclaneinc" Irvine No extra connections needed for the extra speakers, you plug all four into the two L/R connections, as long as the amp can handle them. This doesn't include the little, cheap, surround systems that can be bought at the local department store, just the larger component home theater and audio systems with real power.

Unfortunately these days most people have been suckered into buying those terrible "sound bars" that are like the old boomboxes without real stereo/surround audio separations. I roll my eyes when I see them as true audiophiles know they are crap, but they have become so popular you have to search far and wide even for 5.1 surround systems these days. I was looking for a new 5.1 surround system a few years ago before I pulled out my vintage system and I couldn't find any for sale online! Only those damned sound bars kept coming up in searches. But luckily I found my Pyle amp that is 5.1 and can use any speakers (sold separately), which I have my old component system and speakers hooked up to now and it sounds fantastic.

It can also be used as just a stereo system as it has separate connections for just that. One or both stereo/surround connections at the same time, I'm using both, the stereo side handles my large loud speakers for front L/R and the surround bit is for the smaller center rear L/R speakers. This amp is less than $100 and I've been delighted with it's performance vs. cost. They, as with other brands, have much higher end models too, but this suffices until I get my JVC amp running again. I have my large loudspeakers hooked up via the screw tightened bare wire connection, and side bookshelf speakers that plug into the ends of those same connectors. Though bare wires could just be doubled up too. As you can see, the surround speakers are just connected via bare wire ends to those "pinch" connections.

 

Lol, sound bars, bloody awful things, not only is the sound, weak, but they are often not in sync with the audio, some of them are very noticeably out of sync. IE you see a shot or something that has made a noise, but you hear it marginally later, quite off-putting.

This is what I have, too lazy to take a picture..

https://tinyurl.com/ytj32jw9

It's not perfect, if you put an XBOX360 through it the video tends to cut out, so I use it purely as a surround on that.

 

Wow, that's bad (IE sound bar) I just avoided them altogether. My brother has one in his room, but the only time I really listened to it was once when he brought it out by a camp fire we had going when he first moved down here. It crap, but ok for the situation, like a boombox. I didn't say anything to him because he seemed pretty proud of it. But he's the type that gets rid of old consoles and TV's and sound systems and constantly buys new with each generation of console, etc. and always thinks it's better, i.e. sound bars just because it's new and all the rage. But he's one of those know-it-all morons who's generally wrong. And a hypocrite. Exactly what I've avoided being all my adult life. It's amazing how opposite we are.