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That is my take, but maybe I'm wrong
I only use my gun whenever kindness fails
Follow Ups:
nt
- nubz - :-)
.
I love hunting down, restoring and listening to vintage gear. I also have a love for the hands on. I'm currently finishing a ground up build of a tube line stage (3-12AX7, 1-5AR4) using the best possible parts, automotive paint job, etc. I started it in 1999!
When I do a resto, I completely disassemble, repaint, restore and swap out almost every part except for transformers and most semiconductors. Creating a "brand new" vintage piece is like being reborn. My friends are always offering me deep green for these gems. Sorry boys!"If you hear it, it's real."
This addiction can be for life... and one fine morning you wake up (if you are not dissimilar to I) and with a slight shock you dare to look take a look in the mirror; and find yourself a older, greying, balding, perhaps pot-bellied and a little nore 'dry' & cynical and less 'liberal' than you recall - sh!t happens.My oldest pieces are stacked 57's with top mounted Decca Kelly ribbons closely followed by a 10b - I wouldnn't change them for the world. Vintage I guess, but oh so graceful :-)
Enjoy your journey,
.
Gotta have some sort of hands-on hobby to keep me out of trouble...
Nothing to see here. Move along now. There's a good fellow.
nt
Not so much the DIY thing although I do partake in this when necessary. I've made up my own cables, done minor repairs/modifications but to tell the truth I hate soldering - even though I have qualifications in cable manufacturing and PCB manufacturing - so I only do what I have to.
I do like my vintage tutntables though. I have a lovely Thorens TD150 from 1965 fitted out with an SME 3009-II Improved with a Shure V15-III MM cartridge sat in a Custom-made American Walnut plinth.
It's a beauty. Perhaps not the most desirable deck around but it sure makes some great music.
lotta non posters. no way to know without a direct poll.
diy-ers have to talk, ask, re-ask. loudest bunch so they may appear to put a face on the board ...
nt
--
Al G
Think your answer is No.
Impossible to narrow down the info, the interests here, or the goals that way.Just to grab the automobile metaphor from below, if this were the Mercedes Benz Asylum, would we expect that all posts would concern the 2007 model year Benz ?
Nope, you'd be way off to consider only the immediate present.Which is what makes pubs like AbSound and SPhile so deadly-dull, dead-end-street, flat and ignorable.
Their advertising base is well organized to push the few, the uninspired, the Current models.... *Meanwhile, you'd also be way off to think that history stopped with the glory of the Model X back in 1967 or something. Progress in the Analog Lp field has continued to advance against all odds, even into the Digi-download Era .
If you've noticed a willingness around here to consider non-current gear, I think it's because there's not really much to discuss about a new Rega table, say -- (okay, put on the belt, plug it in, done)-- let alone one of the many knock-offs of same..... whereas some elaborate old Thorens or something may have a lot of settings, adjustments.... Engineering aspects that are not 'hands-off' to the User.
Acceptance of vintage (or better, Classic) gear doesn't imply any religious devotion to the past, however. A typical user here may have 9 out of 10 state-of-the-art components in a system that also features a turntable from 1955 as it's front end. And have Sound Quality that is incomparable. No rules, no oath of loyalty necessary.
And because of the acceptance of classic gear, the general willingness to consider do-it-yourself where applicable can at times be necessary, but also, just fits. If you are choosing a component partly because of it's 'hands-on adjustability', then it stands to reason that you are fairly well acquainted with Doing It Yourself, no ?
Last, of all possible Asylums, I think it's worth noting that one of the most 'hands-on' technologies in the system is the Lp Analog record player, so it naturally comes to : if you're here in the first place, there's going to be a pre-existing acceptance-of, and an agreement on, that mindset, that arrangement.
The idea is that of infinitely adjustable parameters being preferable to the audio no-brainer.
The "pick-up-remote-press-play" approach is not what we're about here, generally speaking.
We're about a perfectable (if never perfect) Source Technology, about 'Optimizing' what continues to be a work in progress, whether new, vintage, or hybrid.....J.D.
((* It would seem right to point out the occasional exception, ie the half-article or so that gets under the wire by Dudley or Fremer...
But even those must generally comply with servicing a current Business Concern, eg an article about vintage Moving Coils can only happen by being about the retipping agents, an article about vintage Idlers will only occur if it can be about the sellers of new plinths, etc etc.
Even Ken Kessler's occasional classic-gear article is only grudgingly given absolute minimum page-space by HFNRR.
Half Credit, boys.
And none for any credible sense of "Audio Journal" that deserves the name. ))
J. D.,
.
Currently building Bottlehead Foreplay, built Seduction earlier this year. Have 2 FM3s purchased off eBay. Also Pioneer SX-626 in garage.
..
ggg
but can solder a bit and fix and fool around some.Reality is when you are mid aged and mid career and have an active outside life and family responsibilities, our hobbies can be quite limited.
I love old vintage, see my systems. My main system still has a Linn Sondek LP 12/Basik Plus and K9, a Nakamichi 682ZX, a JVC HR 5000 SVHS/VHS VCR and a Hafler DH 330 FM stereo tuner with Parsec LS 4 attenna.
With a vintage table I can own a top of line table(circa 1984)..no way could I afford top of the line 2006.Your basic AR suspended manual table. I believe these were around 500 dollars in 1984. That was about my monthly pay as a Staff Sergeant in the Army. I guess I haven't changed much..I would have spent a months pay on table then nor would I now..Vintage or used thank you very much..
I began doing DIY tweaks when I realized that tweaking my living room's sound (and now, in the new house, my listening room), isolating my equipment, etc. would cost more than I wanted to spend, i.e., "another set of Walker cones or dinner at a fine restaurant." My stomach won that round."Wait for my wife to sew up 'socks' for sound absorption panels or buy some good but inexpensive panels". GIK acoustics won that decision.
"I'll never buy a used, old piece of equipment...or should I get a rebuilt older unit that matches my panel speakers?" Mapleshade (Scott tube integrated) won THAT round!
I think it's inevitable that you'll build or create or do SOMETHING by yourself, without any manufacturers' help! Or, have a pocket deep enough not to care whether you do or don't!
If I had more money, I'd soon be broke...but I'd have more LP's!
Go visit one of the Porsche 911 or Ferrari forums - you'll should find similar ratios of vintage car owners - and a similar focus on the DIY knowledge necessary to keep them running for less cash. There will also be the guys who paid cash for the latest '96 turbo and only allow it to be touched by master technicians. Plus all viewpoints in between.It's human nature and not unique to the VA...most worshippers of things electromechanical fall out this way. Each cult even has snobs - don't ask a 12 cylinder Ferrari guy whether the 8 cylinder cars are "true" Ferraris or not.
But we are more like a car forum, with many different makes, models and years
I only use my gun whenever kindness fails
time is just to limited. No desire for vintage as I already owned old stuff :)
My current active system consists of DIY SET Amps (300B), preamp(6SN7), Hagerman Cornet phono pre, tube-output DAC as well as a Fisher FM tuner I restored. I have two Thorens TT (160 & 125). Speakers are Klipsch Cornwalls with crossovers I upgraded.
For money spent, it may be that vintage 'tables offer a better value than new ones, at least in the sane price ranges (say, under $1000 US). And, lets face it, once you get above the most basic of the new tables, you're talking serious money for a new table and arm . . . and you still haven't bought a cartridge or a phonostage or the cables to tie it all together.Even though I bought my table and arm used ... and therefore at a substantial discount, when I tally up the dollars I have spent solely on vinyl playback (table, arm, cartridge, phono stage, 2 pairs of interconnects), it exceeds what I spent on my integrated amp and SACD player (also purchased used) by a substantial whole number multiple . . . and that doesn't even count the cost of the RCM that I also bought.
Worse, I dream of even more ways to spend money on vinyl playback: an SDS speed controller or an Origin Live DC Motor retrofit -- another cool $1000 either way.
Lots of 'em, if you look.
I would say 2-6% like to DIY. On this forum that percentage might be just a little higher since this type of DIY can be a great deal of fun.
.
Close to the Edge, down by the river....
-Ray
it's not completely about the romance/nostalgia. Some, but by no means all, of it is awfully good once it's refurbished...Quad ESLs, serial #s in the low 9 thousands, circa 1964
Heathkit UA-2s, circa 1960
(Vintage preamps don't interest me too much, though. And modern turntables are just fine.)
Dave
Later Gator,
Crank up your talking machine, grab a jar of your favorite "kick-back", sit down, relax, and let the good times roll.The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
(NT)
nt
all the best,
mrh
..but it doesn't/didn't always work out !
Greetings from Rob in the UK.
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