Question: Does anybody listen to "High Fidelity Stereo" music anymore?

[JRicoC]

 

... However, I think vinyl is not the best form of analog by far, tape is.

 

 

So who's going to be the first one to post a pic of his reel-to-reel rig?

[foppy]

It's actually a lot easier and cheaper to collect vintage hi-fi and mid-fi than guitars--especially if you're at all capable with basic electronics.

 

You can find fun old speakers, TTs, and receivers in thrift stores regularly. And there are deals in abundance on craigslist. If you're willing to refoam old speakers--basically a low-level arts-and-crafts project--you can score very nice-sounding Advents, Acoustic Research, EPIs, Dynacos, KLHs, Boston Acoustics, etc. etc. for next to nothing. In the last month or two I've picked up lovely old Altec Coronas, BA A60s and A40s, etc. etc. at thrift stores. Recapping old speakers helps and isn't very hard.

 

Currently my main system isn't so impressive--a Marantz 2226B, a pair of KLH model 6s (from the late 50s), a newer turntable and i-Pure dock for digital. But it cost very little and was fun to assemble. And the light show from the Marantz is awesome.

[nighthawk15]

In a day and age of 3 TB hard drives and cable Internet being the norm, why do people act like "raw, lossless recordings" are so out of reach of average listeners? At full CD quality with a high capacity hard drive, you can hold more lossless files than you will ever listen to in the next 10 years. I used to be really into digitizing vinyl, and honestly, the vinyl industry is so fueled by nostalgia that it's hard to get them to see that inner groove distortion and pops and cracks are not something that gives life to music, it's something that wasn't on the master tape that shouldn't be in the final playback. I had an excellent vinyl playback setup for a long time and I cleaned my records and needle very well and I rarely had any distortion or cracks or pops or anything. It was also pretty obvious, too, that a lot of records were very well made but a significant number came from the factory with issues. Uncentered spindle, over-compressed masters, shrink wrap causing warping, etc. And when you had a really good CD, it didn't sound worse than the record, it sounded more or less the same, and regardless, you could burn the vinyl to a CD and few would be able to notice the difference. I have no problems with people who think analog > digital, I think there's a lot of sense in that. However, I think vinyl is not the best form of analog by far, tape is.

 

 

I could see how tape could be better. Seems like there's less to go wrong. Honestly I'm not a massive audio phile, and am just now learning about vinyl, so do pardon me if I make a dumb statement or 2:lol:

[yanktar]

I got some old B&W DM6's. "The pregnant penguin". These were top of the line speakers from late 70's. Before it crapped out on me I ran them with an circa mid 70's big-ass Yamaha receiver cr2040. I got a revox deck and a technics sl5 direct drive turntable I got at a garage sale new for $5. Also got a betamax; watch old videos and concert tapes I copied. Need a good amp. Only got a 50w per channel modern 2 channel technics receiver. Doesn't do the speakers justice. Mostly listen to WMA's through headphones though. Problem is the space the stereo stuff, records and cd's takes up. Also got a pair of cerwin vega RE series 3 ways I got at a garage sale for $15. They're loud I guess.

 

 

Cool stuff! The CR2040 was part of a series of GREAT receivers by Yamaha. My brother has one of the series--I think the same. Still going strong, but they were so big you could put legs on them and use them as an end-table!

Cerwin Vegas were known mainly as speakers you blasted Deep Purple, Led Zep, and BOC at insanely painful levels because otherwise they weren't what you'd call "accurate" speakers.

[yanktar]

One thing to do is scare up some big ass amp from the 70's. I've got a Marantz 4400, 57 pounds of thunder and backache. All watts are not created equal, despite what any specs may say. Corvettes and Civics can both go 65 mph, but when you need the acceleration, well, you know.... I was running it into 4 Bose 901's. Quad heaven, especially Dark Side of the Moon and Santana...

OLD 901s or the new {censored}?

[yanktar]

I have a pair of Infinity speakers from the late 80s, when they were a high end speaker company, not the purveyors of mediocrity that they've become since Harman bought them. I've since retired them since I couldn't find speakers that sonically matched them for a home theater system. I also have a nice AR turntable, but it's not currently hooked up. I now listen through a home theater system composed of Focal speakers driven by an Onkyo receiver, and a Velodyne subwoofer.

Wow! I love that old AR. It was just about the very last of their legendary series and I thought the best-looking of them all! I have a couple of the others with the cue, and a bunch of the earlier ones--the original! It was an amazing turntable that performed as well as T/Ts costing ten times as much, yet was durable, accurate and the best at resisting vibration---and it was made out of JUNK! Really. Pure crap! cheap composite board (not even the good stuff), crappy pot metal, and yet many of them are STILL running and still accurate.

[yanktar]

Hey, a fun thread! I listen to this guy Through these guys Usually in my Brown recliner (no picture availible)

Wow! Vintage late 60's? What speakers?

[yanktar]

 

So who's going to be the first one to post a pic of his reel-to-reel rig?

 

 

Never got a R2R. By the time I could afford such for home use they were pretty much gone the route of 78s. But I still have a Nakamichi Dragon Cassette deck, with wired remote!

[BoneNut]

Never got a R2R. By the time I could afford such for home use they were pretty much gone the route of 78s. But I still have a Nakamichi Dragon Cassette deck, with wired remote !

[fretmonster]

 

Lol,most of my listening is in my truck heading to a oil rig 2-3 hours away or in headphones so I don't mess her movie watchin' up:mad:

 

 

Man after my own heart. Still my favorite way to watch a sportscast - turn off the commentators and put on a CD or record.

[MyNameIsMok...]

Yup, it be us!

 

 

Oh man, it's YOU GUYS. You know, guys like me when I was in my high school days spent every damned cent of my part time job on my stereo setup. I still own a Rotel RA-1000 integrated amp, JVC dual dubbing deck, Denon CD player (the "newest" part of that setup) and some "Pow Pow Power" 3-way speakers that they just don't make 'em like that anymore. I actually use this setup to monitor my own mixes to hear what they sound like on a "home hi-fi setup", Plus that rig really does bass like nothing else. That Rotel amp has a real power to the low end that nothing else seems to have. AND there's MUSIC for those who LOVE the old album era. Check out Porcupine Tree's "In Absentia" - a really well produced "album as art form" project. Another one, newer yet: Devin Townsend Project's "Ghost", a lushly produced labor of love, it basically sounds like Pink Floyd meets the Beach Boys (the good Brian Wilson era) meets Tangerine Dream. It's uncanny. And theres more! Steve Hackett "Beyond the Shrounded Horizon" - a 2-CD set at that as well as the new "Flying Colors" release. Pop singles remain "ear candy". But for those who want a gourmet meal, you gotta search. Glad to see there are fans of the "heavy equipment" still around. I won't even get into my guitar/music production stuff - that's just as bad of a "money sink".

[GAS Man]

Yeah, tape was better than vinyl, but if it was reel to reel with that speed and encryption. But albums were rarely sold in that format. Vinyl predominated but Shefield Labs specialized in direct to disc recording which may have been better. They skipped the master tape phase and went straight to master discs (no after the take editing and mixing). Those recordings were very life-like due to the high amount of detail and lack of compression.

 

But I think analog is > digital because 011001011011010101101010110 just isn't as groovy as a wiggling stylus travel down the track. I had a musician tell me once that what was heard as "warmth" was actually a certain amount of natural distortion to analog recordings. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I do know that what I miss about the analog systems was that I was able to listen to the music at higher volumes without the harshness that I get from digital systems. I have far more money now into my current system with a $1100 Denon receiver and 7 Energy speakers (the center channel alone which cost $750) and two SVS 12" cylinder subwoofers powered with a 1000W Samson, but the music was better listening through my old Sansui and Pioneers.

 

I've been tempted before to look into digital to analog converters to see if that would bring the 70s back for me.

[MyNameIsMok...]

analog compression & distortion> digital compression and aliasing

[Emory]

"But '68 -'78 was a truly magical period of excellent musicianship, songwriting, and some impeccably mixed, warm recordings. Too bad about those 8-tracks though. They never stood a chance. "

I also had quad 8 track in my 68 Camaro. THAT was fab listening environment. And a Wollensak 8 track dolby recorder and 8 track player at home.

One time for fun got blank quad tape and put Hendrix's "1983 a Merman I should be" (the long underwater thing on Electric Ladyland) on front channels and Songs of the Humpback Whale on the back....

The Bose 901's I had were series IV models. Hung from the ceiling, later got deal on some Bose bases.

Oh yeah, vinyl: I must have had every device know to man for keeping the pops and cracks at bay. Record vac, de-ionizer, brushes, whatever. I was soooo happy when cd's came along. "Last forever" they said. HAH! I'll have to take some pics of some I have that the micro organisms have been eating the aluminum off inside the plastic....

Not my actual speakers, but same looks etc

[yanktar]

Yeah, tape was better than vinyl, but if it was reel to reel with that speed and encryption. But albums were rarely sold in that format. Vinyl predominated but Shefield Labs specialized in direct to disc recording which may have been better. They skipped the master tape phase and went straight to master discs (no after the take editing and mixing). Those recordings were very life-like due to the high amount of detail and lack of compression. But I think analog is > digital because 011001011011010101101010110 just isn't as groovy as a wiggling stylus travel down the track. I had a musician tell me once that what was heard as "warmth" was actually a certain amount of natural distortion to analog recordings. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I do know that what I miss about the analog systems was that I was able to listen to the music at higher volumes without the harshness that I get from digital systems. I have far more money now into my current system with a $1100 Denon receiver and 7 Energy speakers (the center channel alone which cost $750) and two SVS 12" cylinder subwoofers powered with a 1000W Samson, but the music was better listening through my old Sansui and Pioneers. I've been tempted before to look into digital to analog converters to see if that would bring the 70s back for me.

Beta Hi-Fi was the final nail in the coffin of R2R. A $400 Beta Hi-Fi VCR used just for audio could EASILY out-perform a $1200 or $1500 R2R--and STILL analog! All because the Hi-Fi system piggy-backed on the spinning video head giving effectively HUGE tape speed. Consequently both frequency range and dynamic range kicked R2R's ass for everything but editing. Then VHS Hi-Fi came out to catch up and to put it on the same level as Beta Hi-Fi. You could make an 8 hour party tape that rivaled any studio machine...on your VCR!

 

Why by R2R for a home system after that?

[shaun126]

 

Wow! Vintage late 60's? What speakers?

 

 

The Marantz stuff is early 70's.

 

I do not have any vintage speakers ATM. I needed something compact, and have a nice sounding pair of Paradigm Titans that fit the bill.

[yanktar]

 

The Marantz stuff is early 70's. I do not have any vintage speakers ATM. I needed something compact, and have a nice sounding pair of Paradigm Titans that fit the bill.

 

Well, I was close! I don't think Marantz changed models much from the late 60's to the early 70's, until about '73--not sure.

It's easy to pick up GREAT speakers from that era cheaply on eBay. And if you can re-foam woofers (which is easy), people dump GREAT speakers in the GARBAGE for that--that's how I got the Pioneer HPM 900s we are using. 4-way, multiple crossover equalization settings. $30 speaker foam kit, white vinyl and a wash of the speaker grills.

I have a pair of Early 60's AR 2As I refinished (they are wood, not vinyl), refoamed, re-grilled and replaced the crossover pots. Look and sound like new, but it's a bit of an old-fashioned sound--a bit muddy in the mid-range, but...that's early 60's.

[JohnnyDD]

Cool stuff! The CR2040 was part of a series of GREAT receivers by Yamaha. My brother has one of the series--I think the same. Still going strong, but they were so big you could put legs on them and use them as an end-table! Cerwin Vegas were known mainly as speakers you blasted Deep Purple, Led Zep, and BOC at insanely painful levels because otherwise they weren't what you'd call "accurate" speakers.

 

 

10-4 on the end-table that's as heavy as a coffee table and why I tossed it when it fried rather than trying to repair it. You can find the smaller 70's Yami's online for great prices. And yeah, you're right about the CV's. Got them as spares cause the price was right.

[unworthy]

In a day and age of 3 TB hard drives and cable Internet being the norm, why do people act like "raw, lossless recordings" are so out of reach of average listeners? At full CD quality with a high capacity hard drive, you can hold more lossless files than you will ever listen to in the next 10 years.

 

 

This is exactly where I am right now. A 3TB hard drive for $140? By my estimation, that's about 40,000 uncompressed music files. Unbelievable!

 

I recently got the jones to put together a vintage iron system and I dusted off and tuned up an old Pioneer SX 1010 (from about '74) and paired it with a some JBL L80t speakers from the mid-80s. Playback is currently being handled by a Blu-Ray player for CDs and an iPod. The iPod actually sounds quite good even compared to the CDs, but I know I can do better, so I've been researching options for playback of uncompressed digital files and can't figure out how best to do it. So, how do you control playback and D/A conversion of uncompressed music files? It seems like the newest Blu-Ray players are almost there, but as near as I can tell, they're only set up to stream music from the Internet, not from external storage. I can play directly from the laptop, but I'm at the mercy of the cheap D/A conversion coming out of the headphone output. There's got to be a better way. Any ideas?

 

D

[BydoEmpire]

I do when I have the chance, though admittedly it's not often enough. I love listening to vinyl through my stereo as well. I have a Sony speakers I got from my grandfather (not high end, but not crap, either), Onkyo amp/receiver, marantz tape deck, Sony CD player and Onkyo turntable. It's not a high end system but it does the job pretty admirably.

90% of my music listening is through mp3, though, because it's at work or on the way to and from work. I don't listen to the stereo (usually) unless the wife and kid are out. Wish it were more, but it's just where my life is at right now.

[scott944]

Missed this thread the first time around. My mid 80's Snell Model KII's are at Parts Express right now, being refoamed (well, the woofers are). When they return, I'll drop some vinyl on my Dual turntable and crank up my old Yamaha integrated amp. Groovetastic, as Mr Krashpad might say (pun intended).

[Doctor Morbius]

Does anybody listen to "High Fidelity Stereo" music anymore?

I would if I still had Hi Fidelity ears.

[crisis]

This is exactly where I am right now. A 3TB hard drive for $140? By my estimation, that's about 40,000 uncompressed music files. Unbelievable! D

My 120G IPod has about 3000 songs mixed between mp3s where I have downloaded from ITunes and WAV files that I have ripped from my CDs. The difference in quality between the MP3s and the uncompressed WAVs is very noticeable when plated through my car audio system, my home system (basically a Panasonic DVD played, less than ideal, a Denon AV receiver which at least can be switched to

[crisis]

I would if I still had Hi Fidelity ears.

 

Lol. I had a hearing test for my new job and apparently I am down 3% in one ear in one mid range frequency which I was told was above average for an old bastard. I

[Darkstorm]

Purpose for mid to high end stereo system? Absolutely. For those who are really serious about getting the most out of their computer based mp3 library their are also outboard dacs to give best possible signal to send to your stereo system.

Myself being on a more modest budget I use high qaulity cable to go from laptop to receiver. Mid level receiver & cd playwer (Denon) and nice mide level stereo speakers (Monitor audio, a brand made in Uk like B&W). About $1,400 for what I have into receiver, cd player, stereo speakers, and cables to connect stuff. Better sound means better sound even if just streaming online radio station to stereo system.