Where we go from here

Not without teething problems. Tinny souless sound and other issues. Hence the comeback of LP's for many. They did get better eventually...

That was the result of the 14-bit precision, the marginal sampling rate, and phase shift in the early a squared filters.

Along with poor mixing and mastering... absolute nightmare some of them, along with the poor DAC chips used in players for playback. Also, compression techniques became an issue for many.

Interesting/off-topic but somewhat relatable turn of events- here on the forum! 😀

I do not like to label myself as an "audiophile", however, I love music and have been in high-fidelity sound reproduction for a long time. As a kid, I did not come from a very affluent family, however, my father was a very advanced electron technician and we had some pretty high-end gear in the house,-going back to the early 1950s. We had a MacInosh amp, a very complex Harmon-Kardon pre-amp, a recond compensator, and a Briggs Corner Enclosure wit a 15" Triaxial Speaker- the enclosure was weighed down with sand! When stereo emerged Dad simply duplicated the system- twin amps and preamps and another massive speaker system! crazy! Oh, we had an extremely high-end turntable that was acquired for a radio station- it had extreme pressure control and all kinds of paint-sky features. No warble, flutter, wow, speed fluctuations, or grinding up the LPs. The tonearm was counter-weighted and featured a well-regard Pickering cartridge with a diamond stylus.

My observation is that SOMEt audio "aficionados" are very much lkie their photographic counterparts. Some are "gearheads" in that they may have top-of-the-line stuff but have no knowledge of acoustics or how to actually properly set up their equipment. Others have more modest equipment but accomplish very authentic reproduction because they fully understand the principles of speaker phasing, placement, and impedance matching and have a good "ear" for waht music is supposed to sound like under actual acoustical conditions.

Over the years, I have collected LPs of various pedigrees-some good and some not so good. Great stuff from Deutsche Grammophon and similar publishers and CDs, of various ilks. So here is my philosophy and where it comes from:

One day, when playing hooky from high school, I set off on my monthly sojourn to camera stores in mid-tow m Manhattan. I was detained from the Subway at Grand Central Sation and came upon a public demonstration and lecture given by Henry Kloss, he of Acustic Research (AR) and the "K" in K.L.H. His advice was to attend a concert or performance of your favorite kind of music in their approprait venues and try to retain the sound effect. If you can reproduce that- no exaggerated or too thin, you are home-free! The equipmet was surprisingly simple and well set up.

What this boils do to, is I do not examine or judge every photograph with a microscope to examine grain struct or count pixcels nor do "listen to all my music with an ossisilliscope. A badly set up sound system will bring on listener fatigue or simply become terribly inauthentic as per my ears!

A friend of mine has recently invested a gargantuan amount of money in his latest- and greatest "surround-sound system" and created audio-Hell! He played a few Bach Organ Toccata and Fugues and the neighbors called the police. Besides, the sound was insanely ridiculous. He complained! I first disconned all the speakers and showed him how to create a realistic stereo image wiht two-main speakers and a "phantom channel" in the center! Then I re-conned the othere speakers and explain that in a church, concert hall, jazz club, or a Rock concert, there's a ceraint degree to echo or reverberation and the back speaks should just simula that effect and not have the main source blasting out from all over the place. Crossover networks have ot be properly set and his two giant sub-woofers need to be somewhat toned down. He's happy, as are his neighbors!

As for the integrity or quality of recordings, all I can do is buy carefully. I have certain records that have sentamentl value or are rare performances but are not good. There was an era where producers were releasing "Re-Channeled recording for stereo"- I call it ping-pong stereo best played in monaural mode. Nevertheless, I do not distroy them and besides, bad CDs are fun to photograph for special effects- so I save them! Used LP or CD- usually they. are cheap enough so you usually get waht you pay for or get a pleasent to suppose. I do have a few Direct -to-Disk LPs- really nice.- some Jazz Vocals- incredible presence!

My other hobby- I restor OLD radios. Anytime I want to upgrade my audio stuff, I just fire up on my old-timers. Hard to believe waht our grandparents listened to and enjoyed. Nex time, let's talk about my limited collection of "talking machines"s and Carusso 78s. Maybe not?

Hi,

I am so tempted to go snap a cell phone pic of my RCA Radiola 80. An actual first generation Major Armstrong superheterodyne design....

Oh, yeah! AM Broadcast band. Big old tubes with two digit numbers. 24, 27, 45, and 80. Those 45s in push pull and driving a electrostatic loudspeaker. Audio reproduction so fine (not), that y'all will wind up absolutely in love with an Edison Cylinder. And, I got some of those, too!

See, I am an RF engineer, and I design all manner of comm systems. But this RCA is the cornerstone of my collection. No matter how Lo Fi it is, it's a major turning point in radio receiver, and audio, design. Major Edwin Armstrong, that is. 1932. Who was also the Father of FM. But that's for later if this sub topic continues on! ;)

It was that pic of the modern reproduction GE cathedral radio which prompted this thought.

Stan

While I'm not sure how far this off-topic music talk will or should go, but I really have to ask all of you photographers, who're clearly quite inspired by both music and the technology behind it:
Where have many of you been, when I posted my thread about "Biggest inspirations/motivations" here, where I even mentioned music as one of my main sources of inspiration:

Major Second by simple.joy, on Flickr

Music: frequency of life itself by simple.joy, on Flickr

Music is both - particle and wave by simple.joy, on Flickr

I'd love to see some creative shots, capturing either what you perceive or imagine while listening to music or high-end presentational shots of your audio equipment and - if possible - a couple of words about all of the underlying thoughts as well!

C'mon - show some pictures! 😉

That's quite fascinating. The CD (at least development) was already underway when I was born, but I remember tapes as well and how very interesting everything got once digital files started to appear. (I loved downloading MIDI files.)

BTW. I sometimes shoot with lenses from oscilloscope cameras - have you ever tried adapting one of those? They're very interesting...

Your mother had good taste. Yes was one of my favs back in the day, along with older Genesis [with Peter Gabriel] ELP, P Floyd, Bowie, Beatles etc etc..
Many of those artists had their CD's 'remastered' for improved sound which made for more enjoyable listening.

great topic, wont go into my past, can remember 4 years ago my daughter was selected to sing in a state choir, for a school spectactular music event that she sings for the past few years . one year instead of waiting in the car to pick her up after practice in this indoor ampitheatre the security people invited me in to listern to the rehersals. 30 peice choir. and i can tell you it was truly amazing experience listerning live . from that experience there is NO audio equipment that even comes close
to reproducing the sectacular sound i experinced that day. when i watched the main event live that was ampified to the 5000 patrons in a entertainment center i was glad i actually got to listern how music should be listerned to "live" no audio equipment involved. today my daughter play solo gigs and the high end comercial colum array pa systems (electrovoice ev30 1000w) are absolutly mind blowing compared to the equipment i used to build 40 years ago.

Hi Stan! That old radio is not a modern replica- it is the real thing. I replaced the coils and found the tubes around 1981. The original speaker survived the years. I resorted everything on the chassis but the wood still has kind of that mildew odor. I also had an old Philxo Am radio but I was unable to replace the speaker. Seems there is a somewhat higher voltage at the speaker leads.

"RCA" Brings back memories" We had a TV/radio, and Phonograph console where the CRT was oriented vertically- face upward and we viewed the screen via a mirror on the lid. There was a belief, at the time, that looking directed the picture tube exposed folks to harmful rays. The radio had a motorized station selector series of push buttons.

@EdShapiro

White distilled vinegar will kill most mold and mildew (buried) spores and the vinegar smell quickly disappears.
The theory is that they overfeed on it.
Contrary to popular belief they feed on bleach and water even though it seems to do a good surface clean up job initially.

Use / wet paper kitchen towels on the inside and outside of the cabinet, and as always, watch for color bleed on the paper towels.

Wax impregnated cloth braided wiring can be cleaned with IPA (isopropyl alcohol) and a small acid brush, or toothbrush. They feed on the wax.
70% IPA has the best alcohol to water ratio for cleaning purposes - fact. lol
Use stronger if you wish.

Stay away from rubbing alcohol as many of them contain oil !

Baking soda, charcoal or cat-litter will absorb odors (seal in a heavy duty plastic bag for a few days).
Dryer-sheets will make old musty books smell pretty (again, seal in a plastic bag / container) if you can tolerate the perfume smell. lol

As I remember, there were actual harmful rays from some of the vacuum tube power supplies. Stan?

The (center tapped) high voltage winding of a 1930s filament power transformer can be anywhere from 600V to 800V ...and at times much higher ~1200V
By the way... the center tap of the high voltage winding is the most Negative point in a tube radio / amplifier.

Small tabletop tube radios with wooden and (Bakelite) plastic cabinets employed “hot chassis” where the metal chassis is directly tied to one side of the AC line, and the metal mounting screws holding the chassis along with control shafts were also “hot” with AC voltage !
Completely safe when buttoned-up and control knobs secure.

The plural of chassis is chassis, pronunciation is different. lol

Hi,

Yep. X-rays. From the diode tube for the CRT high voltage. The one in the shield box.

As long as the shield cover was in place, you were fine. Many times, though, the cover was removed to pull the tube for checking (at the local drug store) and never put back. Tubes leant themselves to User Service. An actually repairman knew to put the shield back. Heck, he knew that this particular tube rarely failed in the first place and didn't remove the shield.

Stan

I have a Zenith 12S265, 7S363, a Philco 60, 620 and 118X console, and a Majestic 6.

Hi,

The really early radios used headphones. No audio power amp tubes. Those usually ran on sets of batteries.

Later, they ran on AC and had an audio power tube. Known as an Audion. Then they used electrostatic speakers. The plate vtage runs thru the windings. Produced the magnetic field which later on was provided by a permanent magnet.

So it can be difficult to obtain a speaker today for those old radios.

Stan

Hi,

This is what I thought that one was. This is a 1980s GE AM FM reproduction.

Hard to tell from the front. Obviously, opening the back would make ID easy! But the new one says No User Serviceable Parts Inside. Ha!

What you are describing is not an electrostatic speaker, but a magnetodynamic speaker with a DC coil producing the fixed magnetic field.

David