thebes

Yup. Can't figure out how to post a link via my cphone but do a search for " SuperDuper Ohmygod score"

Oh yeah, forgot to mention I paid $50 bucks for mine.

With that budget Heritage is an excellent choice. If you get the Cornwall freshen up the caps, its a simple xover. Same thing with the 8b, the caps are over 70 years old. Hopefully it will have the original GE EL 34's, which are actually Mullards, and the signal tubes can be replaced, if needed, with NOS American tubes. I've used a number of pre's both solid state and tube including a Marantz 7T, but I prefer tube-based. My favorite is NOSVALVE's NBS pre, but sadly they aren't made anymore. Take your time with any changes and let you ears be your guide.

Welcome. My main system uses my Marantz 8b and I've used it with a variety of different Klipsch speakers. What's your budget and new or used speakers?

Well now that you've eliminated the sound dampening from the dog and his mat they'll probably sound awful.

Take for example the demise of a Bruce Springsteen album for a fruit bowl. The horror..the horror

Granted the vinyl revival is starting to wane a bit, was at a Barnes and Noble a few days ago and their record section has shrunk by two-thirds. Now some of this is nothing new but there is this outfit called Uncommon Goods and they are now taking old record and turning them into things like drink coasters and can openers! Problem is, one man's cast-off is another man's treasure and who knows how many musical rarities are being slaughtered in pursuit of goofy gadgets. Here's a link to their record themed offerings: https://www.uncommongoods.com/search?q=records

Here's another one by Taschen, Capitol Records, saw it at Costco, can't remember the price. Also the Dylan book is now out as an audio book featuring ten artists (Jeff Bridges, Sissy Spacek, Rita Moreno and others) as well as Bob's melodious voice.

"Just choose what you want to send me Thebes. I trust your taste in gifts" I don't know, you are a hard one to shop for. How about cash instead. Say six figures or would seven be better? Travis, this means you wont be getting the Dylan book. One of the songs he analyzes is The Eagles classic, "Witchy Woman".

Oh boy Thebes, gizmos and gadgets, speakers and wires and cables and amps an such! Tubes and DACs and TT’s and Pre’s, ah hah! Tell us more Thebes we can’t wait to dance around the Christmas Tree, twisting away to mounds and mounds of stereo wire. Now, now children, enough of those toys for boys, time for some grownup stuff. I’m talking books. Books, you grunt, a slowly forming frown spreading across your cro magnom forehead. Yes books I say. Special books. Two to be exact. First up, the man I’ve newly christened “The Guitar Sage”, the master wordsmith Bob Dylan himself. He’s just put out an eclectic and charming tome titled, “The Philosophy of Modern Song”. I’m about half-way through it and it’s quirky and complex, simple but sophisticated, in other words, it’s almost a typical Bob Dylan tune, written large. Almost all the songs he visits and comments on are from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, but that’s hardly a surprise, and some are so obscure one might wonder if they are a window into his own song-writing soul. Already some controversy surrounds it. It appears that he used an auto pen to sign several hundred special order big money copies of the book. According to himself, he was suffering from vertigo when it came time to sign the books so he used the auto pen. Full refunds for those copies are being offered by Simon and Schuster, but I bet some folks hold onto theirs because now those copies will be even scarcer and probably worth more. Too cerebral for you, you grunt. Well than get down on your haunches, dangle those overlong arms and prepare to beat your chest because good ole Thebes if offering you a book completely filled with pictures! But not just any pictures. 750 Rock album covers! Simply titled “Rock Covers” by Taschen books, it takes the covers alphabetically and has the ones you’d expect and some I’m sure you’ve never seen. Most have some commentary associated with them. I’m up to the D’s and am enjoying it thoroughly. Oh, and if you have an Ollie’s near you, you can grab it for 8 bucks, not the $50 it originally sold for! Well, what are you sitting there for? I don’t hear any car doors slamming, rubber burning on the way to your local bookstore so get going!

To my mind the company should have been honest with its recording chain. I'm a vinyl guy and while I love the detail in most cd's the vinyl gets me grooving. It's often easier on the ears yet somehow brings more to the table than digital. However, that's a great generalization. After all many records were recorded for vinyl using digital methods, particularly from, say the late 80's on when you had multiple formats, cd, cassette, eight track and vinyl. You had vinyl releases recorded using digital methods and digital releases made using tape. One telling point in the article is that Mo-Fi is able to do bigger runs on a "One- Step"using the digital technology, thus increasing their profit. The article indicates that master tapes could take a beating on those larger runs without that cheating, something the holders of the tape (ie record companies) would not want happening. This is a classic case of greed ruining an iconic brand or product. New Coke anyone? It's particularly stupid because the people that buy these pressing are fanatics about their music, not some casual buyer.

Mo-Fi, one of the vinyl industries purveyors of top quality-top pricey record re-issues has been nailed for putting out records with the use of digital, rather than, analogue, files in its pressings. No telling how long they have been doing this but they were outed by a record store owner who also has an online audio talk show. Big names, such has Michael Fremmer, who took Mo-Fi's side have also weighed in. My feeling is that it was wrong and will probably affect re-sale value on those particular pressings, and anger their numerous vinyl junky fans. Following is a link to the article, but if you can't access it I'll post some excerpts below. https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/08/05/mofi-records-analog-digital-scandal/ How a Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire MoFi claimed its expensive reissues were purely analog reproductions. It had been deceiving its customer base for years. Mike Esposito still won’t say who gave him the tip about the records. But on July 14, he went public with an explosive claim. In a sometimes halting video posted to the YouTube channel of his Phoenix record shop, the ‘In’ Groove, Esposito said that “pretty reliable sources” told him that MoFi (Mobile Fidelity), the Sebastopol, Calif., company that has prided itself on using original master tapes for its pricey reissues, had actually been using digital files in its production chain. In the world of audiophiles — where provenance is everything and the quest is to get as close to the sound of an album’s original recording as possible — digital is considered almost unholy. And using digital while claiming not to is the gravest sin a manufacturer can commit. There was immediate pushback to Esposito’s video, including from some of the bigger names in the passionate audio community. Shane Buettner, owner of Intervention Records, another company in the reissue business, defended MoFi on the popular message board moderated by mastering engineer Steve Hoffman. He remembered running into one of the company’s engineers at a recording studio working with a master tape. “I know their process and it’s legit,” he wrote. Michael Fremer, the dean of audiophile writing, was less measured. He slammed Esposito for irresponsibly spreading rumors and said his own unnamed source told him the record store owner was wrong. “Will speculative click bait YouTube videos claiming otherwise be taken down after reading this?” he tweeted. But at MoFi’s headquarters in Sebastopol, John Wood knew the truth. The company’s executive vice president of product development felt crushed as he watched Esposito’s video. He has worked at the company for more than 26 years and, like most of his colleagues, championed its much lauded direct-from-master chain. Wood could hear the disappointment as Esposito, while delivering his report, also said that some of MoFi’s albums were among his favorites. So Wood picked up the phone, called Esposito and suggested he fly to California for a tour. It’s an invite he would later regret. That visit resulted in a second video, published July 20, in which MoFi’s engineers confirmed, with a kind of awkward casualness, that Esposito was correct with his claims. The company that made its name on authenticity had been deceptive about its practices. The episode is part of a crisis MoFi now concedes was mishandled. “It’s the biggest debacle I’ve ever seen in the vinyl realm,” says Kevin Gray, a mastering engineer who has not worked with MoFi but has produced reissues of musicians such as John Coltrane and Marvin Gaye. “They were completely deceitful,” says Richard Drutman, 50, a New York City filmmaker who has purchased more than 50 of MoFi’s albums over the years. “I never would have ordered a single Mobile Fidelity product if I had known it was sourced from a digital master.” Record labels use digital files to make albums all the time: It’s been the industry norm for more than a decade. But a few specialty houses — the Kansas-based Analogue Productions, London’s Electric Recording Co. and MoFi among them — have long advocated for the warmth of analog. “Not that you can’t make good records with digital, but it just isn’t as natural as when you use the original tape,” says Bernie Grundman, 78, the mastering engineer who worked on the original recordings of Steely Dan’s “Aja,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic.” Mobile Fidelity and its parent company, Music Direct, were slow to respond to the revelation. But last week, the company began updating the sourcing information on its website and also agreed to its first interview, with The Washington Post. The company says it first used DSD, or Direct Stream Digital technology, on a 2011 reissue of Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” By the end of 2011, 60 percent of its vinyl releases incorporated DSD. All but one of the reissues as part of its One-Step series, which include $125 box-set editions of Santana, Carole King and the Eagles, have used that technology. Going forward, all MoFi cutting will incorporate DSD. Syd Schwartz, Mobile Fidelity’s chief marketing officer, made an apology. “Mobile Fidelity makes great records, the best-sounding records that you can buy,” he said. “There had been choices made over the years and choices in marketing that have led to confusion and anger and a lot of questions, and there were narratives that had been propagating for a while that were untrue or false or myths. We were wrong not to have addressed this sooner.”

Yes you could be correct, don't know for sure. However, there is no mid-horn which, in my personal opinion, is where the magic lies. Of, and obviously no folded horn for the bottom end.

A used in good shape pair of KG 1.5's would fit the bill. Great sound, for their size but not horn loaded.

Sounds like a lot of my dates back in the day. For things that bounce around so much you'd think they'd be easier to grab ahold of.

LaScalas: https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/ele/d/richmond-high-end-audiophile-stereo/7492090456.html Heresy II's: https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/ele/d/alexandria-vintage-klipsch-heresy-ii/7494433186.html Heresy IV's: https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/ele/d/alexandria-klipsch-heritage-heresy-iv/7498132837.html Hersey II's: https://baltimore.craigslist.org/ele/d/elm-pair-vintage-klipsch-heresy-ii/7503715070.html More Heresy 11's: https://baltimore.craigslist.org/ele/d/baltimore-klipsch-heresy-ii/7503282025.html Khorns!!!!!! https://baltimore.craigslist.org/ele/d/glyndon-klipsch-klipschorn/7490393924.html

Yup. 78's. Perhaps the greatest source of Americana music. Almost totally abandoned, even by audiophools, collectors, artists and historians of the roots of much of American, and other cultures, early recorded music. I admit, I only have a few, and can play them, but do not have dedicated needle, which is what you really need. But then in the Washington Post this week there is article about this guy whihc I've excerpted here: Joe Bussard "Since the early 1950s, Bussard (“Everybody thinks it’s pronounced ‘buzzard,’ but it’s Boosard,” he says) has been acquiring 78 rpm recordings of the earliest and rarest examples of blues, bluegrass, jazz, country and gospel music. The collection of discs he has amassed is considered by many fellow collectors as one of the finest and most eclectic of early American roots music in the country. In the basement of his unassuming home, some 15,000 records fill the shelves. In the world that pays attention to these things, Bussard’s treasure is legendary. Filmmakers have made documentaries about him. Writers have paid homage. Fans and musicians from all over the country have journeyed here just to see the records and listen to Bussard tell how he traveled the back roads of Appalachia and the South to find them. And they come to hear the songs. In his basement, time has stopped. There are no computers, no flat-screen televisions. Other than two newer turntables, there’s almost nothing that looks like it was made in the past 50 years. There’s a 300-pound speaker cabinet he bought in 1960, photos on the wall from the ’50s, and rows and rows of records from the ’40s, ’30s and ’20s. Bussard’s collection “is almost mystical,” says Ken Brooks, a fellow 78 collector who first learned about Bussard when he watched “Desperate Man Blues,” a 2003 BBC documentary about him. “It’s so deep and wide. He has blues records that nobody else has. Country records that no one else has. Jazz records that no one else has.” In the book of Bussard, the spirit and soul and depth of American music can only be heard on the oldest 78s. Modern music, he’ll tell you often, is “awwful, just awwful.” And by modern, he means anything since Elvis Presley, and the Beatles and “all that crap” destroyed music altogether. For Bussard, real jazz ended in 1933. And the last good country song was Jimmy Murphy’s “I’m Looking for a Mustard Patch” in 1955. In his basement redoubt, Bussard walks over to his wall of records to make another selection. The records are all in identical faded green sleeves with no marking to differentiate them. They are not ordered alphabetically or by year or by label. Only he knows the system. “If I get Alzheimer’s, I’m really in trouble,” Bussard says. He pulls another record from the shelf — “Death May Be Your Paycheck,” by F.W. McGee, recorded in 1928 on Victor — and flashes a wicked smile. “Wait till you hear this.” What he wants, more than anything, is for people to listen to the far-flung, wild, beautiful music found in America before recordings became commonplace and swallowed up regional idiosyncrasies. He wants people to hear the music created before vinyl, before 8-tracks, before cassettes, before CDs, before one-stop shopping on Spotify. “Wait till you hear this,” he says and puts on Jesse Stone’s “Starvation Blues” from 1927. And then it’s “Florida Rhythm” by the Ross De Luxe Syncopaters. And “It’s a Good Thing” by the Beale Street Sheiks. And “Original Stack O’ Lee Blues” by Long Cleve Reed and Little Harvey Hull. And on and on and on. But whenever Bussard had free time, he jumped in his Ford sedan and went in search of shellac gold. He bought from dealers and at estate sales, but mostly he drove on twisty back roads through the hollers of West Virginia and Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and down through the Deep South of Georgia, the Carolinas and Mississippi. He asked everyone he met if they had “any of them old records,” and they’d point him up to an attic or down the road to their cousin’s house or to an abandoned five-and-dime in town. After a while, Bussard could smell them. He found the old 78s in outhouses and spring houses, pulled them from broom closets and travel trunks. Many of the records were ordinary, dime-a-dozen discs with grooves so worn the record sounded like a slow-motion train wreck. But then, every so often, eureka! “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” is what Bussard remembers thinking when he came across a rare, unblemished gem. “I had to hold my hands down to keep them from shaking.” Bussard sometimes forgets what he ate for breakfast, but he can provide detailed background on his records, the year they were made, who played on them and how many are still known to exist. He can tell you how much they’re worth, too, but he likes to keep that part quiet. He says he has never spent more than $500 on a record. But he has sold a few for much more than that. The collection grew, and so did Bussard’s obsession. He didn’t want to trade records; he wanted only to keep getting more. It took over everything.

Good stuff. Keep'em coming. Here's a classic:

Sorry this thread is is only open to those who work with their hands, their backs and, oh those aching, aching feet. Desk jockeys need not apply. One of the good things, but at the same time, one of the bad things, is just how many musicians have had to do manual labor to put food on the table, shoes for the kids and a shawl for the missus. One of the positive side effects of the precarious nature of playing in a band, is a lot of good songs telling us about the workingman's life. So tell me which song helps you celebrate the end of the work week? Check this one out. You know he knew all about drudgery, but still had time to have...

Thanks for sharing that Marvel. Gonna have to watch it. I hope Allen is doing well. Somebody in Hollywood should do a new jazz movie and hire him to lay down the soundtrack, in mono, of course. A couple of days ago, a Jack Daniels tv commercial comes on. I've got the tube on mute so I'd don't catch the dialogue, but there is a pretty impressive looking tt on display. It's appearance was too brief to figure out what brand (not to mention cart, loading etc.)and it's far from the only commercial I've seen with a tt in it. Heck, a few years ago there was a Jason Stratham movie with a nice audiophile system in his house. He had to make a run for it, dropped a needle and the house exploded when the album got to the end. I'm guessing it was the B side.

Now that's a catty name.

One thing you can always count on, when there is a buck to be made people will pile on. Take the vinyl revival. There's the usual actors: record companies, distributors, manufacturers, the media in all it's various forms, and then the mega corps. Yup the big guys, the people with no shame, no morals, no game but to play the game and with their faithful servants on Madison Avenue, no need to actually understand anything about it, nor derive any pleasure from it. So what's got you pissed off now Thebes? Well a picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say:

Well slap my head! Duh. It's official, I am senile.