Going Old School

[TJC]

After my parents passed on a few years ago, I inherited their LP album collection. It has sat boxed up until recently when my inlaws offered me their 1970's turntable. I gave it some thought overnight, and took them up on the offer. It sat for a year or two and I finally decided to make room for it in my entertainment area. I hooked it al up but found it needed to be refurbished.

I did my research and found a source for a drive belt, and a replacement needle. I took it apart, and cleaned all the pots as the speed was unable to be set at any speed. Took a few days to bring it back, and a few more to clean several of the LPs.

In the last few days I have been playing 80 year old LPs on a 50+ year old Sanyo turntable! I run it through a modern Onkyo A/V 6.1 Receiver. I have a large catalog of digital music, with some matching the LPs. This gave me a chance to compare the quality of sound from the Lossless digital to the analog original coming from the turntable.

I am quite surprised that the music has a warmer more balanced feel from the analog source! Not beleiveing my ears, I brought my wife into the room and let her hear both ( should didn't know what was coming from where, just hearing the music twice. She had the same impression.

I know all the specs favor the digital version, and I was able to get the digital very close to the analog after tuning the A/C amplifier digital channel more closely to the phono channel.

But the botton line is that I am now attracted to those old LPs. My inlaws gave me their collection which had been sitting on a shelf for years, including a lot of 78's. I now have LPs music from as early as 1906!

I picked up an ultrsonic cleaner to remove years of grime from the albums I now own, and cleared off a large shelf for the albums. I'm also storing them in anti-static sleeves once they are pristine.

I am surprised I enjoy them as much as I do. It's as much about the past as it is about the music I think. One more hobby that has proven to be wuite enjoyable.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

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[Fordup]

When I was young a neighbor had a crank up turntable and big box of records that were like 1/4 inch thick. Well his son and I dragged the box out for skeet shooting one day. They were heavy and flew well along with being big enough targets for us to hit. We'll that was a bad idea and boy did we get it because his mom liked listening to them.
I have about 200 albums from the 70s and 80s packed away with an old Gerrard turntable I need to pull out.

 

[Buckbull]

Both of my kids like buying LPs. I was surprised they make them now. Even walmart is carrying some. Newer artists are about $50 each. I thought records went the way of cassettes compact disks.

 

[SFCHAMBERS]

But remember when you put on your more experienced LP's, that if you remember when the songs came out, they are not old.

 

[Fawnbuster]

After my parents passed on a few years ago, I inherited their LP album collection. It has sat boxed up until recently when my inlaws offered me their 1970's turntable. I gave it some thought overnight, and took them up on the offer. It sat for a year or two and I finally decided to make room for it in my entertainment area. I hooked it al up but found it needed to be refurbished.

I did my research and found a source for a drive belt, and a replacement needle. I took it apart, and cleaned all the pots as the speed was unable to be set at any speed. Took a few days to bring it back, and a few more to clean several of the LPs.

In the last few days I have been playing 80 year old LPs on a 50+ year old Sanyo turntable! I run it through a modern Onkyo A/V 6.1 Receiver. I have a large catalog of digital music, with some matching the LPs. This gave me a chance to compare the quality of sound from the Lossless digital to the analog original coming from the turntable.

I am quite surprised that the music has a warmer more balanced feel from the analog source! Not beleiveing my ears, I brought my wife into the room and let her hear both ( should didn't know what was coming from where, just hearing the music twice. She had the same impression.

I know all the specs favor the digital version, and I was able to get the digital very close to the analog after tuning the A/C amplifier digital channel more closely to the phono channel.

But the botton line is that I am now attracted to those old LPs. My inlaws gave me their collection which had been sitting on a shelf for years, including a lot of 78's. I now have LPs music from as early as 1906!

I picked up an ultrsonic cleaner to remove years of grime from the albums I now own, and cleared off a large shelf for the albums. I'm also storing them in anti-static sleeves once they are pristine.

I am surprised I enjoy them as much as I do. It's as much about the past as it is about the music I think. One more hobby that has proven to be wuite enjoyable.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

Old vinyl, back when they cared about music and true stereo separated notes and vocals.

I held onto all of my old equipment and finally went digital so I gave it to goodwill and now Best Buy is selling them again. Old transistor and tube stuff sounds good.

 

[TJC]

Old vinyl, back when they cared about music and true stereo separated notes and vocals.

I held onto all of my old equipment and finally went digital so I gave it to goodwill and now Best Buy is selling them again. Old transistor and tube stuff sounds good.

Back in the early 70's I had an old 1962-63 Fisher 500-C Amplifier that was superb. They are now selling for $1500 refurbished. I kept the image large to show it in all its glory. This unit wasn't mine but it is identical. Very very high quality build.

I horse traded it for a 57 Chevy Bel Air with tuck and roll pleated seats, and new paint. But the entire drive train was on the ground.... heads off, and short block full of rain water sitting on the pistons with rust rings at the waters edge. I ended up rebuilding that 283 V8 and driving it all through High School.

Parents came home from a 2 day trip to find it in the front yard!

I wanted the Fisher, but I wanted the 57 2 door Bel Air more.

!

 

[Fawnbuster]

I started out with really bad cheap plastic 1 way speaker set that liked to vibrate lol and a hand me down receiver just as bad, but I had the only 8 track recorder that I knew of! Lol that dreaded kathump in the middle of a song when it changed tracks. Then along came good ole Service Merchandise and there some what sound proof hifi display room where a kid could go in and actually punch in the numbers and pick the receiver, graphic equalizer and big 3 way speakers and find your favorite fm rock station and crank it up, nothing better than test driving before you buy. So thru a combo of a birthday present from Mom and me saving my paychecks from McDonald's I bought the next 5 items over the summer...

The ADC Eq, Technics SA303 stereo amplifier, had killer crisp sound and the led power bands that flashed with the volume green, yellow to red, make your ears bleed with some Van Halen! I also had a Technics cassette deck recorder and a Technics direct drive turntable that was tuneable like a timing light. And yes @AzScorpion the needle and arm assembly where dampered so it didn't damage your album. Guess I was destined to be a part of the cool kids damper club but didn't know it.

The receiver has the flywheel tuning where you can spin the tuner knob and the needle could go from one side to the other with the flick of a wrist.
And when everyone was sleeping I would just plug in my studio quality over the ear headphones and jam away. Ear buds today can't even come close to that sound quality and I have both.

Classic rock never sounded better...

 

[Fawnbuster]

This pic isn't Service Merchandise stereo room but you get the idea, had to write down the code # for each item then go in the side room and push the correct button for each component. Of course someone ahead of you cranked the volume up on most of the receivers so your ears bled when they came on.

 

[TJC]

I remember! The gear and the sound rooms!

I have a Technics SA-250 AM/FM Stereo receiver and Technics KDV-50 Cassette deck sitting on top of a pair of Cerwin Vega D3 speakers in my bonus room.

I had given the set to my parents when I upgraded and they sat in their home for 40 years until they passed on a few years back. The orange red foam cone surround has disintegrated over the years, and I just picked up a kit to repair them a month or so ago.

I liked the SA-303 better, but I was 20 years old living in Colorado 1500 miles from home and just starting out. Money was tight.

I plan on refurbishing both units and repair the speakers over this winter.

My present system is far superior, but I have a lot of memories from years ago tied up in those components. So they will stick around as long as I do.

It's nice to reminiscence every once in a while. Fond Memories.

BTW, I had an Audiovox Quadraphonic 8 track Deck in my first clunker car.

 

[Fawnbuster]

I remember! The gear and the sound rooms!

I have a Technics SA-250 AM/FM Stereo receiver and Technics KDV-50 Cassette deck sitting on top of a pair of Cerwin Vega D3 speakers in my bonus room.

I had given the set to my parents when I upgraded and they sat in their home for 40 years until they passed on a few years back. The orange red foam cone surround has disintegrated over the years, and I just picked up a kit to repair them a month or so ago.

I liked the SA-303 better, but I was 20 years old living in Colorado 1500 miles from home and just starting out. Money was tight.

I plan on refurbishing both units and repair the speakers over this winter.

My present system is far superior, but I have a lot of memories from years ago tied up in those components. So they will stick around as long as I do.

It's nice to reminiscence every once in a while. Fond Memories.

BTW, I had an Audiovox Quadraphonic 8 track Deck in my first clunker car.

Indeed it is great to reminisce!

I had originally run speaker wire in my garage to my man cave and wood shop. My 303 died so long before covid I picked up another stereo, an older Pioneer but newer than my Technics, had a remote so it was really handy. When it died it was the tail end of Covid and space and cash where tight so I bought 2 small but heavy LG boom box Bluetooth speaker, the sound from these things is impressive. One for the garage one in the house. I can stream everything thru it via my phone. I pay for the least costly Pandora so it's no ads. I also have a small flat screen I can listen to Pandora via Roku.

I really didn't want to part with my Twchnics stuff but there aren't any shops nearby that work on old stuff and those big floor speakers took up space in the LR plus the components in the entertainment center so I gave up space so my wife could have some space for her pretty stuff.

The LG is $99 on Amazon and I can take it anywhere , it's much smaller than an old school boo. Box and hands down better sound. I even had 2 different book shelf units. When we upgraded our TV an soundbar I was able to reuse my rear surround speaker locations in tve LR and use the same wires I ran in the attic and walls years ago

 

[Fawnbuster]

These guys are old school cool !

 

[TJC]

Indeed it is great to reminisce!

I had originally run speaker wire in my garage to my man cave and wood shop. My 303 died so long before covid I picked up another stereo, an older Pioneer but newer than my Technics, had a remote so it was really handy. When it died it was the tail end of Covid and space and cash where tight so I bought 2 small but heavy LG boom box Bluetooth speaker, the sound from these things is impressive. One for the garage one in the house. I can stream everything thru it via my phone. I pay for the least costly Pandora so it's no ads. I also have a small flat screen I can listen to Pandora via Roku.

I really didn't want to part with my Twchnics stuff but there aren't any shops nearby that work on old stuff and those big floor speakers took up space in the LR plus the components in the entertainment center so I gave up space so my wife could have some space for her pretty stuff.

The LG is $99 on Amazon and I can take it anywhere , it's much smaller than an old school boo. Box and hands down better sound. I even had 2 different book shelf units. When we upgraded our TV an soundbar I was able to reuse my rear surround speaker locations in tve LR and use the same wires I ran in the attic and walls years ago

It is amazing how small things have become. I picked up a booth tooth speaker and a no name 64GB music player just larger than a match box with ear buds for my teenage grand daughter. For what it was it sounds great. Booth run a week or so between charges, and that child is a heavy user!

My A/V components have shrunk as well. The Onkyo A/V Receiver/AMP is still large, but packs in a lot of function. I still have a BluRay player but it is not used a great deal. I have an 8"x10"x0.5" OTA DVR, and next to that I have a Rasp Pi 4 that runs LibreElec that streams from my audio/ video collections from a Synology server in my small server room. I just added the Sanyo Turn table which takes up a shelf all by itself.

All self contained - my own personal cloud locally attached via Ethernet, and "air gapped" from the world. The house is wired with Ethernet and WiFi is on a seperate sandboxed subnet. Nothing goes on my servers except by flowingf through my Linux Computers with very stringent security controls in place. And everything is battery backed up to ride me through intermittent blackouts, until the genset kicks on.

Once it is in place there really is very little maintenance. Most I/T house keeping chores are automated.

No matter how far I run from work in Corporate I/T, I still do it all at Home!

 

[Fawnbuster]

Great job on the equipment! I don't have a blue ray dvd, we stream 99% of the time or over the air for the rest. I forgot how much I hate commercials lol. When Terri started working from home full time I bought a gen 6 Eero wifi with 3 hubs. And ran ethernet back to her and our bedroom just in case. I put in a plastic access panel to get to it, installed a 2 gang outlet so it's all tidy and I painted over it so it blends. Plus we now have a big display cabinet to cover it.

I had a good Sony DVD player for a long time but I bought a coded DVD player so it can play movies from all over the world. I had no idea there was a code on them. I haven't hooked it up yet, we love Brittish sitcom box set, it's called "Still game." About two Scottish retired guys going thru retirement honestly it hilarious most of the time. I had to close caption it for a few episodes so I could understand them plus I had to Google some of the words and phrases so knew what they said lol we had dropped Netflix ( where the show was on) so I bought the dad's but we started Netflix back up.

Those 2 pensioners would fit right in on here, same outlook on life and idiots lol.

 

[TJC]

My BluRay on my PC and the standalone unit are region free too. I typically rip my BD and DVDs, pulling just the movies / TV episodes on the server.

The Channel Master OTA DVR allows me to record and watch real time TV Broadcasts, but I never use anything except the recording feature. I can quickly skip any commercials with the press of a button, Very handy. No subscription, but discontinued for years.

I hardly ever watch live programming any longer. not even the news. Been that way for 20 years now.

 

[Fawnbuster]

We have friendly channel that has a bunch of channels including hunting and fishing. About the only thing we watch over the air are Colts games or Fever. Also has History channel . It has a built in DVR which is nice. As far as music goes I have a small thumb drive on both of our vehicles with hours of tunes. When we replaced our laptop I was looking at the new thumb drives and they have several that are 1 terabyte! We have a 2 TB hard drive for pics and music etc and it's about the size of a 5x7 picture . Crazy how they cram all that data on a thumbnail sized usb.

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