Most liked posts in thread: What's new Pussycat too?

I'm sure it was that one, the part number and the designs on the top just triggered my memory...

Lol re the fuse ends, very clever use..

In truth, I'd never call myself an audiophile, because I was in the electronics trade I became known by the local hi fi centres as a parts place, just the basic stuff like caps, solder, scart plugs etc, we didn't keep custom IC's (bloody things were the bane of our life. We would get people from Nigeria etc coming in with huge parts lists from TV's hi fi etc, pretty much all of which we did not supply or could not. You would then be badgered for 20 mins by the guy demanding you get them for his because he had come especially to Maplin all the way from Lagos, which of course was rubbish as he went to every shop he could find with the same spiel.

But I digress, because I got matey with the hi fi places I'd get a generous discount and genuine help with making choices ie not trying to get me to buy old stock they could not shift. Got some good deals and made some good mates..

Amazing what a little bit of back and forth dealing can get.

The only thing I didn't get that I wanted was a Technics turntable (forget the go to model number), the prices were horrendous even with something off and even though I had the money I could not justify it to myself..

 

I have my own 5.1 cheapy system but I also got Bob's old stuff and he was always going on about the Arcam amp he had, he said he got it to replace the Quad he had (I'd heard of Quad, all good things)

Also got his multi CD player, his DAT & CD Sony and a Pioneer CD player..

He loved his audio gear..

 

The big speakers are the best part. Sound quality is so much fuller and rich from them than the (average) small speaker surround systems of today.

 

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO YOU TOO, MATT!! Sorry for shouting... memo to oneself... turn the bloody CAPS LOCK off Baz.... darn, did it again! ;-)

 

I do indeed mate. Lovely little bit of kit. I just got the MC 2 SIO adaptor which fits in the memory card slot and takes a microSD card. Runs games buttery smooth and well worth the 20 quid or so it cost. It means I no longer have to faff about with putting images on to hard drive via the PS2 network card.

 

The Caress of Steel CD arrived today. So below is my complete audio/video collection of Rush on-hand so far, with 6 more on the way...

The three at the bottom are Laserdisc, DVD&CD and Blu-ray material. The rest are studio albums or live albums. Caress of Steel, 2112 and Clockwork Angels I have on both CD and LP.

 

Great sound, great artwork and some great purchases there, Matt.

Great job, mate.

Also getting into my 80s music too at the mo so can well appreciate how much this collection means to you.

 

No disrespect, metal was never my thing, but I'm happy to see someone get some goodies

 

If you made it through all of that Paul, and you have changed your mind about Rush not being "your cup of tea," well that was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Rush. I don't want to throw you off the iceberg into the deep quite yet, but just hang your feet over side into the waters.

Maybe you happen to recall the movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn? In that movie when Kirk goes down to the planetoid to recover the Genesis device and encounters his old flame and meets his son, his old flame says something to the effect of "Let me show you something that will make you feel young, as when the world was young."

Well, this Rush song will make you feel young, as when rock was young. But also make you realize that up to that point, you have never truly heard what rock music could be, what rock music should be. Not just musical noise with a beat, but a rock and roll masterpiece that in the generations and centuries to come, like classical symphonies, ballads and chamber music, will stand the test of time and be considered a great musical masterpiece in the same light as the great composers of ages past. This is the epitome of a rock symphony...This is still just the beginning...



Maybe I should have started you on this one before the more main-stream Rush songs, even if they are light-years above most main-stream rock.

 

A few of their songs I guess might feel a bit like Supertramp, another band I do like, I just never gave it much thought. But we'd have to check the time-line between songs to know for sure if one might have inspired the other.
I'll make you a Rush fan yet...well, you will really decide for yourself you are one, I'm sure, after you've heard these songs through... But just to make sure you know after one song that Rush only sounds like Rush, for the most part, besides maybe a few beats or riffs, may I suggest when you get back to it, to listen to the song in the second post first (it's 10 min. but I guarantee you will enjoy it and wish the song (instrumental) was longer...La Villa Strangiato

 

LOL! That's ironically hilarious and pitiful at the same time, in my case anyway; I just purchased a RUSH live album on Laserdisc called Chronicles. And just before I came to check the forum sites I started unpacking my VHS and S-VHS tapes and putting them away in a nice antique artist's supply cabinet! Along with those other high-tech media discs I have including my Laserdisc collection and my CED vinyl movie collection! Last week I got my VHS, S-VHS, Laserdisc and CED players connected to my 70's JVC component stereo system.

I'm just old school all around and proud of it! But I keep up with them times some what. I have those new fangled VCD/DVD/Blu-ray players and game consoles from the 70's through 2010's all hanging around my stereo system too.

You say I should move on to streaming? I don't have a boat...

Or, wait a minute...was that a jab at me due to my "new" Rush Laserdisc I posted on here a week or two ago? I like jabs where I am referred to as a "kid."

 

Sounds like the job will mainly be removing and replacing removed screws to open the DVD/VHS and get the disc. As long as you can pull the disc out easily, that should be all it takes to get her running again. I also have a DVD/VHS combo still. Though I have a Blu-ray that can play DVD's and an S-VHS that can play standard VHS, i keep it around for one reason; the old DVD player in that unit can play my VCD movie discs and my new Blu-ray does not support VCD's anymore. I have a Panasonic DVD that will play VCD's, but it's laser went out and it won't read any discs now. So I pulled out the old DVD/VHS combo.

I'll take a few pics and post them here this weekend, focusing on my old media players and consoles and the media itself too. I had to sacrifice my second tape component to my JVC to make room for these other devices. But I wasn't using it any more as I don't dub tapes anymore, I just record other media to cassette tapes, so I only need one cassette deck now.

It's just a bit saddening because the two cassette decks together made a world-class dubbing system for tapes, but there is just no sense in making copies of tapes when there are a bunch of other media sources that are superior and will create a superior tape copy. No more making mix tapes from cassettes. Just mix tapes from every other superior type of music media!

I have a future project in mind for my old cassette tape collection, in fact. I'm going to invest in a bunch of superior high-bias metal tapes, open up all my old cassette music collection, remove their old worn tapes, install the new metal tapes in the cassette cases and then record the original music back onto them, but with new remastered source material and all those old cassettes will sound even better with higher fidelity than the original normal bias tapes were when new!

I also removed my second turntable and another VHS I had since I moved in the combo machine. I only had that VHS set-up because my S-VHS player needs to be fixed. But now I have the combo player for that too. The S-VHS is just a matter getting up the nerve as it was a broken gear that I fixed, but I'm having trouble getting all the little mechanical bits and bobs that load and eject the tape to synchronize so it can load and eject! Maybe I'll make that adventure this weekend myself.

 

You know what, Matt, you are even more coco loco than me when it comes to retro-dabbling, disc discovering, retrograde tape restoring, blu ray re-badging and VHS/VCD vanquishing... I thought I was pretty much past any hope of salvation but you take every biscuit and cookie in the store, mate.

I doff my hat in your general direction, clean my tape heads on my seventies star jumper and demagnetize my digital dungarees... you have got the retro geek market absolutely nailed on, fella...



Baz in his heyday with some fellow tape/jumper munchers

 

Here are photos of my audio-video electronics set-up I promised to post. I still need to clean some components up a bit.

capturing the cabinets. A standard 80/90's entertainment center.



The other is an artist's supply storage cabinet. An antique I got from my grandfather. He had it in his dorm room while attending the Chicago Art Institute back between world war I and the roaring 20's. He met my grandmother there. The top part normally lifts up and has an arm to hold it up and is meant for overnight storage of unfinished art. There's nothing in the top atm since I can't open it due to placement which is basically regulated by my small room and everything I am currently cramming into it until I get more space.

Here is my JVC component stereo (circa 1978/79) minus a second tape deck for dubbing. And on the bottom, from bottom up are my RCA CED player, Sony Super VHS deck, and my Symphonic dual VHS/DVD deck.



Next upwards is one of the best cassette decks for recording and playback ever made, quite literally a legend in the cassette deck realm.



Above that is my JVC amplifier-one of the best in is price range with features usually found on amplifiers costing hundreds or thousands more. One of the interesting features about this amplifier and found out by accident, when I bought the Pyle Amplifier to temporarily replace it, is that it is an integrated amplifier, which I mistakenly took that it was somehow referring to the entire component system as being integrated. But it actually means that it serves as both a pre-amp to all the components and the final amp.



Which means none of the components have there own line-level amplification! They wouldn't work directly plugged into the new amp! But since I had to purchase a pre-amp for the turntable anyway, as I automatically knew without a specific phono input, it had no pre-amp on board for the turntable. But I have to have all the JVC components run through that pre-amp too, via a switchbox, until I get around to finish repairing my JVC amp (I was waiting on parts, which came recently).

My new Pyle surround amplifier is on top of the JVC amp. A great amp considering it was only $100!


Next up is my JVC tuner (another legend in tuners) and my recently acquired JVC equalizer on top of the tuner-meant for a lower-end JVC system than mine, and I didn't realize it was narrower and didn't match the size of the other components until I got it. But it works fine with the system and better than no equalizer and it matches the rest in color and styling.



Up top is my Pioneer turn-table, another feat of engineering for the original price, I love it and made it as good as a higher end JVC with the upgraded needle and cartridge head. Next to it is my Pioneer laserdisc & 5 CD carousel deck. A mid-range one that lack S-video out, but I'm going to mod it for S-video.



The rest up top and on the wall shelves are my consoles which you have all seen in pics posted before.



To the right of the stereo system is my late model Sanyo flat screen tube CRT TV that still works great, I use it mostly with my vintage 8-bit consoles. It is an "enhanced definition" 480p TV that does automatically upscale all 480i video input into 480p. But I mostly use my projector with my video-to-VGA up-scaler/converter which can upscale to 720p and has 3D motion-adaptive comb filtering so it makes old 480i signals even better than the Sanyo TV.

I just got a used Roku device that has both video and HDMI outs, so it will be hooked up to the TV and my projector. Above the TV are all my switch boxes and video converter/up-scalers so everything can be hooked into my TV, projector and stereo at the same time and I just flick switches for what I want to use. And yes, I even still forget and confuse myself keeping track of them all, even with labels, so I am going to re-label with color coding. I also have my LG Blu-ray and Panasonic DVD decks by the switch boxes too, since they are so small.



Lastly for hardware, here is my Masterworks 8-track player deck from the late 60's early 70's era sometime. It still works fine. I only have to replace one missing light bulb cover for choosing a track. It's a wooden case that I repaired and repainted to match my other black and silver components better.



Last, a look inside my antique cabinet where I store my records, tapes, VHS tapes, CD's, laserdiscs and CED discs in caddies. All the white albums you see are my albums that got water damaged and I could only save the records themselves and give them new sleeves and covers. right now I just have written on them what is inside, but I intend to printout images of the original cover art and glue them to the covers. The ones to the right are all my new Rush albums and CD's. My older, meager CD collection is above the records and my laserdiscs and CED discs on the bottom. Cassette tapes are bottom right and a fraction of all my VHS tapes fit in the cabinet, so I mostly just put the stuff there that are out of print and can't be had in a modern format. I also have a bunch of blank T-120 videocassettes and C-50 audio cassettes for recording onto behind the box sets of VHS tapes.

where I have the LP's I recently built shelves for, as originally vertical slats for holding artist's frame canvas's and whatnot were originally stored.



I also have two racks not pictured (clearly anyway) of DVD/Blu-rays and video game discs for the various disc based game systems I own.

So that's my Coco loco vintage electronics. I have other old audio/video equipment but they are all redundant back-ups (and inferior to what is set-up) I don't need as long as these are working.

For example, I do have a pretty nice Onkyo Amplifier, mid to late 80's model, 4-channel stereo, but it is just stereo, the rear speakers are merely repeats of front left and right and it's only 180 watts or 45 watts per channel (decent but not great). Equivalent on a single channel basis (45 watt), to my new Pyle amp, but the Pyle is 5.1 surround so 45x6=270 watt.

And the Onkyo has a channel out that needs repair, but the JVC amp comes first, because it is 400 watt, 100 per channel and it's 4 channels are true Quadrophonic, not just double stereo out. And quadraphonic is literally just the original name for surround 4.0. And yes, that means that the front and rear, left and right channels of 5.1 surround work as they should off of modern 5.1 surround media, and the center channel and subwoofer channels are only there on modern surround due to the short comings of small, modern surround sound system speakers: the center channel is just L/R front combined to help enhance the vocals and other mid-range in movies, and the subwoofer channel is to make up for a lack of bass out of the small surround speakers.

There is plenty of bass out of 4 large floor speakers with 16" woofers. And the other 2-way mid and tweeter speakers on 3-way floor speakers are powerful enough to accomplish a virtual center channel with stereo/surround sound scaping. The DIY redneck subwoofer I recently made is for the subwoofer out on my Pyle amp, to give a bit more bass kick since I only have 45 watts running out to 100 watt speakers. I don't need it for the JVC amp, and there is no low-frequency extraction on the JVC for just bass to the subwoofer so if I did splice it into the system I'd be getting the entire frequency range through it as a mono speaker. In fact, the only reason I'll keep the Pyle with the JVC once it is fixed is it's Bluetooth capability and MP3's from SD & USB thumb drives. So I'll still use that amp once in a while instead of the JVC when I want to use those features. 4 speakers will be connected to two amps at the same time, but only one amp will be on at any given time. And of course the Pyle amp will also have the center speaker and sub connected to it alone.

 

Thanks for your appreciation of it all guys. It's the culmination of slowly collecting different audio/video components over the last 3 decades. Most of the audio/video kit I was given for free over time from friends, family and neighbors that are busy keeping up with the Jones', suckered into replacing perfectly good equipment by marketing tactics of corporations, and old equipment was either offered as they knew of my electronics hobbies or I saved it from the junk piles before it was hauled of to the dump. The perfectly working Sanyo CRT TV, I grabbed off the side of the road, put out for garbage and I saved it. I did buy a replacement remote for it of ebay for $10. Some of it is mine from back in the day and I just keep and maintain it all instead of constantly out with the old, in with the new like most consumers. I get the new, but keep the old too. Except for audio equipment; today's stuff may have features like 5.1 and blu-ray etc., but the sound coming out of them is a pale comparison to the sonic audio systems of yesteryear, like the JVC stereo.

 

I'm similar, Matt.
I hate chucking anything electrical (esp hifi and micro/radio/video) and whenever I hear of folks lobbing out old kit - or they know to come to me now anyway - I make a beeline for such kit.
It might not be needed now BUT I know in my heart that I will find a place and a role for it soon and sure enough, more often than not, I give the gear a new lease of life.
Fast Eddie was round last night/this morning til 2am and he was looking over my separates and he said... Didn;t you used to have this stuff with me in the flat about 20yrs ago? I said yeah I did and then I stored it away and it gathered dust but I always knew it would come in handy for some project eventually so just like you Matt, here we go now in its new incarnation giving pleasure to ale drinkers in a 80s retro bar garage project - all assembled for next to nowt as the speakers were destined for the tip and donated by a mate.
Gives us all a warm glow inside when we see this brilliant old kit back in action and you're one of the best examples of a guy doing just that, Matt.
Shine on, you crazy diamond... ;-)

 

LOL!
You are indeed a rarity these days, Matt.
Your philosophy was make do and mend, go green, take care with valuable resources and reduce your carbon footprint - decades before any of this was fashionable - as you have all this already written up in your DNA.
It totally makes sense whereas this slave to the rhythm being tied to the conveyor built of consumerism and forever chasing the Next Big Thing is utterly ridiculous, inefficient and incredibly costly (as you point in terms of finance and to the environment as so much is trashed and wasted in the pursuit of being hip and ahead of the game) yet billions of us have become such addicts of capitalist society with the grab all you can as soon as you can mentality and for God's sake, don't get left behind as that's a sin!
Love it.
When you building the crop duster airplane, Matt, and will we make Costa Rica in it if you fit those "1050" drop tanks?

 

Well, you certainly hit the nail on the head there @Andy Barr , though the reduced carbon footprint bit is a lucky side-effect and not something I was pursuing in and of itself with my lifestyle. And the intent of the lifestyle wasn't just necessarily about living a decent standard with less money either, more about preparing myself mentally and physically for the day civilization comes falling down and making due with what I have then, or if I did just get sick of it all and moved to some remote part of the globe and be a hermit. So my lifestyle won't have to change much except to add hunter-gatherer to my repertoire. I was never going to go all the way off the rails and be one of those survival preppers with the bunker and tons of goods stored away, I still have hope, it doesn't come to that, just knowing how to scrounge and repair things, etc. is enough for me. Costa Rica will be the first destination for us, and no worries, I'll make sure the crop duster I buy is one from the WWII era or just after that have Rolls-Royce engines, so yeah, it will make it with 1050 drop tanks!

 

So, @Paul "Mclaneinc" Irvine and @Andy Barr , have you had a chance to have a good listen to some or all of the Rush songs I posted yet?

I received my latest Rush Album today. All the way from Venezuela, because it was priced for a fraction of the cost of U.S. and Canadian sellers and included free shipping. I payed less than $50 for this album, other sellers were wanting $100-$150 or more for! It was a bit of a chance as I know music piracy is big in South America, and there was a chance I was not getting an original recording from a master recording DMM (direct to metal master) like the other audiophile quality albums I'd bought.

So is it original? I can't say for sure, as it is definitely not identical to the North American releases, but it may but it does seem to be an officially authorized edition. The Atlantic records label is a different style that North American releases, and the included bonus booklet with photos of the band and a bit of history, as far as I can make out, it has photos of the band from the 70's through to '89 when this album was originally released, but is in a Latin language (I'm not entirely sure if Venezuela has a unique version of Latin or not). I haven't looked closely at the lyric sheet yet as I need reading glasses and a magnifying glass for my old eyes to read it, so I don't know yet if the Lyrics are the in English or if they are translated.

But the important part is that the album cover looks good, and original and the vinyl itself is indeed an audiophile quality heavy-weight platter and it sounds good. It's not an inferior quality of recording, so I think I got the real deal, but just stamped by a manufacturer in Venezuela to the official high-quality standards. There is a Venezuelan company listed as well as Atlantic Records and of course the official Rush label of 'Anthem' is also printed next to the other company names.

It's my first ever album that has a sticker price of $3000 though! (see bottom left corner of the album cover in the bottom photo)

 

Another treasure - at a great price - to add to your collection, Matt. Wonderful stuff - I can feel the lurve from here. I was out and about last night, on the thrift Marketplace hunt, bagging a cheap Sony DVD/CD player with remote and a Panasonic home theatre speaker system (boxed) ... all for £30 so like you, I don't half lurve a bargain. Pics to follow later, chaps, and keep up the good work with the bargain hunts.

 

You get through some incredible deals, bits of kit and your restorations and renovations are legendary, Matt. Here you go then - just a brief update and a quick look at the Sony DVD/CD player that is now sounding great on my little separates tower in the Barr Retro Bar:



I must have approx 200-300 CDs and about the same number of music tapes so at long last I have the space and freedom to give them some hammer and appreciation.

I will also be giving Rush some attention too, Matt, so will let you know what floats my boat from your recommendations the other week...

 

Cheers, Al.

Like you and Matt, you can't beat getting your hands on the odd music/micro/hi fi bargain and although this kit is not of premier quality, this little Panasonic cinema surround sound set-up (boxed) wasn't bad for £20 either:

 

I'm lovin' your set-up Andy, you do retro geeks proud. Though I wish I could zoom in on your pics! Is that a Denon cassette deck I see? And what brand/type of Amplifier is under it? They both look like quality to me, I know the Denon brand well. A deck about as good as mine I think, though a bit more modern! Love it!

It would go well with my neighbor's Denon tuner/amplifier I am currently repairing and restoring for him! It's in better cosmetic condition than the photo reflects, which is crusty, smudgy crud left behind by the sticky little fingers of his grandkids. I just don't bother to clean until I make sure I can fix. The one on the bottom is the Onkyo stereo-only amp I mentioned I had as a back-up that needs one of the channels repaired on. It will most likely be used in my office/shop trailer were it now sits, once I get around to repair it...one at a time though...

 

It's a better surround system than the cheap-o one I have hooked up to my 8-bit equipment that I payed about the same price for new (reflecting how low quality mine is, not suggesting you over payed)! Kudos.

 

Thanks @Andy Barr for the better pics! Yeah, that's a great cassette deck for mix tapes! I hope I'm not being patronizing, as you probably already know how to get the best out of cassettes with good decks, but many people don't know how to use the high quality tapes and high quality features of tape decks properly. Obviously high-bias or metal tapes will give much higher quality audio than normal bias tapes, but also the correct settings for recording and playback must also be used. Many people misunderstand how advanced recording features are used properly to get the best sound.

You definitely want to use the highest quality tapes you can (if the tape deck supports them) but also need to take advantage of features like Dolby noise reduction. But these features need to be used with both recording AND playback. If you record with noise reduction but don't use it in playback then the recording will sound more muffled than not using noise reduction at all. This is due to how the noise reduction technology works. The same is true with using high-bias chromium or metal tapes, the settings for these tapes must be used in both recording and playback as well or it all sounds muffled instead of clearer with less background hiss.

If the tapes are going to be played back on a deck that isn't made for high-bias or metal tapes and don't have Dolby or other noise reduction features built-in then it is better not to use them at all and just record and play on normal tapes without noise reduction.

If recorded and played back with these features on the high-end tapes then you will get rid of unwanted noise but won't lose the high-frequency high fidelity sounds too, just the high frequency background noise. Otherwise the recordings will just sound more muffled instead of cleaner and clearer.

It's a bit much to explain how the tech works here though, so if you don't already know, I recommend looking up how the high end tape technology and noise reduction technology accomplish what they do for better sound quality if you want to know. Otherwise just remember the correct settings for the tape used and the noise reduction used is just as important in playback as it is in recording.

Obviously the person demoing the Denon deck in the video you posted does not know how to properly use the noise reduction technology otherwise he would not be pushing those buttons on and off while playing the tape back and they would be properly set before he starts to play the tape, except if he was specifically demoing the sound difference using a tape recorded properly with sound reduction. It is obvious to me that the tape was not recorded using those functions in the first place, which is why you don't hear any significant differences when he is pressing them on/off in the video besides it sounding like the volume is slightly higher or lower when he does it. If the noise reduction was used when recording the tape he is playing a definite difference in sound quality would be heard while he is pressing the buttons on and off.

I just felt the need to explain everything above after watching the demo video you posted. Again, sorry if you already know, I don't mean to be patronizing to you, just the guy who made the video.

These videos will explain it all.

Noise Reduction



Tape Bias



Metal tapes-the best and closest to CD, IF used properly (along with noise reduction) on a tape deck that is made for them with a proper source; they are better for modern digital than older analog sources. For recording analog, like audiophile quality LP's, you want the best high-bias non-metal tapes. If your tape deck is NOT made for them (metal), they will actually sound worse than high-bias chrome tapes or even normal bias tapes. High-bias non-metal tapes can sound very close to CD quality too, if properly recorded (on quality decks with all the bells and whistles) and played back using high-quality analog source like high-end LP or reel-to-reel, on the high quality tape deck with the proper bias and noise reduction features.



One of the reasons my JVC tape deck is legendary for a mid-range tape deck is due to JVC's own noise reduction technology, called ANRS (audio noise reduction system) that surpasses, but is still compatible with Dolby B noise reduction technology. In fact, it has their second generation Super ANRS that equaled the even later Dolby C noise reduction and was also compatible with metal tapes, something usually only found on very high-end tape decks (metal compatibility) on top of a superior noise reduction system.

Not to mention a superior build quality and better quality heads than most other mid-range decks in the same price range. Of course Super ANRS recorded metal tapes need a tape deck that can also play back S-ANRS. Then if you use the highest quality, high bias or metal tapes, most people can't tell the difference at all between high-bias tapes or metal tapes recorded with Super ANRS, compared to compact disc.



Your newer Denon tape deck, @Andy Barr , I see has Dolby B and C and is HX Pro compatible, which puts it on a par with my JVC when it comes to high-bias, non-metal tapes with Super ANRS. I can't tell if your deck is also metal tape compatible or not, but without SUPER ANRS and metal tapes, mine would still sound better with metal tapes.

Dolby actually came up with the later type C noise reduction and HX Pro in response to JVC's, superior-to-Dolby B, ANRS and Super ANRS

Anyway, my JVC tape deck will be playing a very important role in my stereo system, once I get some high quality tapes (I bought a couple dozen tapes a year or two ago, but they are normal bias which is good enough for my 8-bit computer system tape decks) as I'll be using them to record all my high-end LP's to cassettes for indistinguishable audio copies of my expensive LP's to protect them and my turn-table needle from getting worn out, and only used again to re-record once the cassettes wear out instead from use.