xr7segfault

www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/06/07/bush.taxes/ Bush's tax cut was signed into law today, including the retroactive part where we will be sent refund checks. Soooo... Is anyone looking to sell a pair of Heresies for around $300 after July 27 or so?

I picked up a gem of a turntable yesterday at a flea market. It's a JVC L-E600, linear. I'm a real gadget freak, so I enjoyed opening it up and seeing all the optical sensors that track the tone arm and all. It works perfectly, but unfortunately, it needs a cartridge. Here's where it gets interesting: I got an audio-technica P-mount. It was too big and it lacked a screwhole in the top of the cartridge, which the JVC's had. However, I found out that the removeable needle fit perfectly if I removed it from the new cart and put it in the JVC's, provided that I trimmed the plastic around the needle somewhat to accomodate the tonearm. I also noticed that the new a-t cartridge was the same size as the JVC's, under the glued-on plastic shell. I removed that, and I noticed that the metal shell of the cartridge itself had a provision for a mounting hole in the top, in the exact same location as the JVC's cartridge. It was blocked by a piece of plastic, though, and I'm hesitant to drill through it because I'm afraid I'll make a hole in something important. I don't have much experience with turntables. Does anyone know if it's safe to make a mounting hole in the top of that cartridge, or do I need a different one? The size is identical and would fit in the tonearm perfectly if I could anchor it with that screw. I don't have much experience with turntables, I'm only 18 so I grew up as they were dying out. I can remember when department stores sold a variety of cartridges and stylii, but not very clearly. If anyone could give me some info, I'd really appreciate it! Oh, and so this post isn't COMPLETELY off-topic: Those old albums sound really nice on my Klipsch speakers! I found an old RCA Red Label classical music album at the same flea market. I was STUNNED at the sound quality, even with the old needle and all. This message has been edited by xr7segfault on 05-19-2001 at 03:13 PM

quote: Originally posted by bensilb: PS I wish there was a Bose store near me. I would love to hear their sales pitch! That's another thing--I didn't *get* a sales pitch! There were 3 salesmen at the Bose outlet. One was sprawled out on a couch in a demo room watching a movie, another was helping the only other person in the store, and the third was wandering aimlessly, occasionally chiming in with the second salesman's pitch. I asked the wandering salesman to let me hear the other speakers since they are locked to the 901s by default and you need a passcode to switch freely between speakers, he did that and walked away without a word. I guess since I'm only 18, they didn't consider me "good enough" to revel in the glory of Bose. The really funny thing is that the people at the local Klipsch dealer are very nice to me, and that store is full of $5000+ amps and such. By the way, has anyone here ever seen "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"? If so, what kind of stereo did the snotty neighbors have? Was it a B&O? I didn't know they still sold stereo stuff, I thought it was an 80's fad that was driven out by Bose.

I went to a Bose outlet for the first time today.. My KG3.5s never sounded so good! I listened to their lineup of stereo speakers; the demo music was Brubeck's "Take Five". My favorite out of the 201 thru 901 lineup were the 701s, but they were a far cry from my Klipsches. I thought that, even with Bose's bad reputation, the higher series might outclass or at least compete with my $200-from-uBid KG's. NOPE! The most annoying thing was that the speakers had this odd tendency to resonate with horns, the best way to describe it is the sound that you hear if you blow across the top of a jug. And the stereo imaging was terrible. There was a little bit of stuff from the right speaker, a little from the left, and a big random pile in the middle. The worst was the Acoustimass though. Piano music sounded nasty because tinny highs came through the sattelites, then as the notes went lower the sound would suddenly leap into the "bass module". For crying out loud, my $60 Yamaha sub/sat computer speakers handle that music better! If the 901's topped out at about $400 and everything else was priced proportionally, they would at least be competent. At least all that ridiculous overcharging allows for some really cool flat-panel touchscreens and other goodies in their stores. It's just a shame that so many people throw their money away like that.

Dark Side of the Moon is an excellent choice. Especially the remastered version. The Wall is my all-time Pink Floyd favorite, though. By the way, has anyone here tried playing DSoTM while watching Wizard of Oz? As the story goes, if you start playing the album as the MGM lion roars for the third time, the instrumentation in the album as well as many of the lyrics synchronize almost perfectly with the movie. I tried it. It wasn't a mind-blowing experience, but some parts seemed close enough to make me wonder if it was intentional. My favorite part was where "The Great Gig in the Sky" matched the house blowing around in the tornado almost perfectly, then "Money" started the instant Dorothy stepped into the Emerald City. Very cool.

A good electronics store (typically an independent.. NOT Radio Shack, etc.) should be able to help you find the belt you need. You don't really need a part number or anything. Typically, they measure the belt, subtract 10% or so from the size for age, and should be able to find you a matching belt, or at least one that is similar enough to work well. Good luck!

One of the nicest-sounding CDs in my collection is Alan Parsons, "Try Anything Once". It's kind of ELP-like in that the music is beautiful if you can ignore the painfully bad lyrics. For example: "there's no use in trying to sit on the fence/and hope that the trouble will pass/'cause sitting on fences/can make you a pain in the ***" Other than that, it has a little bit of everything to really give the speakers a workout: woodwinds, violin, sax, drums, electric guitar, and the occasional symphony orchestra. And it's all arranged beautifully, as would be excpected from the guy who produced "Dark Side of the Moon".

I used to have a harman/kardon AVR45 receiver. It had a few various, fairly minor flaws, such as being too loud at minimum volume, having a slight hum through the speakers, clicking when I adjust the volume, etc. I eventually replaced it with a circa-1989 h/k 880 Vxi receiver that I found on eBay. The old 880 has a significantly different sound. It is much warmer and less harsh. When I had my KG3.5s connected to the AVR45, I had noticed a few oddities such as VERY loud cymbals. I had the bass and treble knobs zeroed, with no DSPs activated. I thought that it was a characteristic of the speakers. With the 880, however, that overly bright sound is totally gone. I didn't think that amps of similar quality sounded appreciably different, but the difference between these two was immediately noticeable. So, if anyone is looking for a good cheap receiver, try an older harman/kardon. I think they are great. I don't know why h/k changed to the bright sound (sounds better on cheap speakers, perhaps), but I wish they didn't!

I've come to the conclusion that AV receivers that normal people can afford kind of suck. I got a harman/kardon AVR45, which is a huge step above Aiwa, lower end Sony and Technics, etc. I'm still not happy with it. It hums and hisses through the speakers a little bit, I can hear some bleed-through of inputs at high volumes, it makes this annoying slight clicking/popping noise through the speakers whenever I adjust the volume, the lowest volume setting is WAY too loud for nighttime listening, the digital input is slightly noisy which pretty much negates the point of having it, etc. I scored a REAL harman/kardon receiver on eBay. It's a circa-1989 880vxi, 65 wpc RMS, lots of gadgets, and only 2 channels thank you very much. It should be here tomorrow, I'll post my thoughts on new vs. old h/k then. But I get the distinct impression that unless you spent a ton of cash, most A/V receivers are just too much of a compromise.

Look on eBay for quadraphonic stuff. Careful though, those 1970s quad receivers are in big demand and some are going for what appear to be absurdly high prices. Look around in thrift shops and such, sometimes you can find some great stuff there too.

As a non-Cornwall owner, I have to ask.. How can the coolest thing be the owner's manual?! Just curious.

Just use your speakers. If they sound OK (no scratching/static noise, especially), they're fine. I doubt that you damaged them, especially the ones that were dropped 2 feet onto carpet.

I HATE when people get brainwashed by that Bose crap. I was telling a friend of mine about my Klipsches.. He laughed at me because he thought that since he had never heard of Klipsch, they were some sort of bargain brand. I'm going to have him over to hear them soon, hopefully that'll change his mind. Sadly, he thinks that Sony, JBL, JVC, etc. make good speakers, and Bose makes the best ones. He has the Bose factory stereo in his car. As an experiement, we bypassed the big equalizer they bolt to each speaker; it could not have sounded any worse. I was astonished. Unfortunately, that didn't change his opinion of Bose, in fact I think that made him appreciate Bose more because of the "technology" they use. Pheh. If you want a good laugh, go to Best Buy and listen to the Bose section. Their 201 and 301 bookshelf speakers are astonishingly bad. Just try cranking up the volume on those puppies! I also tried the Acoustimess. Yuck. There were three different "bass modules" next to each other, I could easily tell which one was playing from several feet away. Aren't they suppsed to play freqs that are low enough to be non-directional?!

I have a harman/kardon AVR45 DOlby Digital receiver, and I'm not completely happy with it. It has a slight hiss, a 120hz hum, the digital inputs are a little noisy, and at -64db the speaker output is completely muted but at -63 it can be heard clearly from outside the room, with the door shut! And to top it off, it's made in CHINA. Definitely not what I expected from h/k. I did some thinking, and I don't think I will be using surround sound anyway, so I don't want to bother with it. So, I am looking a good receiver that's old enough to be well-built, but new enough to have a remote. Can anyone point me toward some specific models that will sound good with my Klipsches? My price range is $150-$350, and based on my criteria the vintage is probably mid-80s to early-90s. By the way, my dad has an old Onkyo TX1500 MKII receiver that's not doing anything. I haven't listened to it in a long time. How were they?

I recently purchased a set of KG3.5s, used in conjunction with my harman/kardon AVR45 receiver. If I'm within a foot or two of either speaker, I can hear both a hum (120hz, I think) and a hiss. I tried disconnecting everything except the speakers, same thing. The noise is the same in all modes, changes very little with volume settings, and is unaffected by balance, bass/treble, mute, etc. I tried different outlets and speaker/power cord positions, no change. I know it's pretty far from being audiophile-level equipment, but I thought that only Wal*Mart-level equipment puts out that kind of noise nowadays. Heck, my 20-year-old Pioneer Centrex minisystem didn't hum! Is the noise a byproduct of having such sensitive speakers, and something I have to live with, or is it indicative of a problem with the receiver? Call me cynical, but I have this funny feeling that if I took it to a service center, they would keep it for about 4 weeks and return it to me with a few extra ground wires inside, a choke on the power cord, and the same problem. I haven't had the best experiences with getting these kinds of things fixed!