maxg

No, rights don't pass to someone just because he has a physical recording in his hands. He'll own the acetate, and nothing else, no rights to release it. He could sell a dub to a bootlegger but that's illegal and would diminish the value of his acetate. Under normal circumstances I would agree with you - but this might well be the only copy in existance - other than that made digitally from it. This is, in effect, copyright by default - you need an expert in copywrite law for this kind of thing..

Oh boy - are you going to get flooded out now!! Right - lets put together a list of a few really classic pieces and see how we go. I will give you the versions I have - but there are always alternatives: Bach Violin Concerto - Nilla Pierrou Lansmusikensemblen Claes-Merithz Petterson Opus 3 8012 S Germany Bach Brandenburg - Concerto English Chamber Bengamin Britten London K38C 70041 S Japan 1 Super Analogue Beethoven Piano Concerto 5 - Rubinstein Josef Krips RCA Victor Red Seal LM-2124 M US Beethoven Symphony 3 - NBC Symphony Arturo Toscanini RCA Victor Red Seal LM 1042 M US Beethoven Violin Concerto in D - Heifetz Boston Symphony Charles Munch RCA Victor Red Seal LM 1992 M US Brahms Violin Concerto - Jascha Heifetz Chicago Philharmonic Fritz Reiner RCA Victor Red Seal LSC 1903 S US Dvorak Cello Concerto - Pierre Fournier Vienna Philharmonic Rafael Kubelik London KIJC(M) 9215 M Japan Elgar Cello concerto / Sea Pictures - Jacqueline Du Pre / Janet Baker London Symphony Sir John Barbirolli EMI ASD 655 S UK Frank Symphony in D minor - RCA Victor Symphony Sir Adrian Boult RCA Gold Seal GL25004 S UK Gershwin Concerto in F / Cuban Overture / I got rhythm variations - Earl Wild Boston Pops Arthur Fiedler RCA Victor Red Seal LSC 2586 S US Grieg Pier Gynt - Adele Stolte Leipzig Vaclav Neumann Philips 6570 017 S Holland Holst The Planets - Los Angeles Philharmonic Zubin Mehta London CS 6734 S US Liszt / Enesco / Smetana Rhapsodies - RCAVictor Symphony Orchestra Stokowski RCA Victor Red Seal LSC-2471 S US Mendelssohn/Schubert Symphony 4 (italian), - 8 (unfinished) Symphony Vienna Philharmonic Karl Munchinger Decca VIV 33 S UK Mozart Don Giovani (Highlights) - Kiri Te Kanawa Royal Opera House Covent Garden Colin Davis Philips 6570 097 S Holland Puccini La Boheme - Maria Callas Del Teatro alla Scala Antonio Votto EMI 063-18298 Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 3 - Vladimir Ashkenazy London Symphony Andre Previn London KIJC-9204 Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade - Chicago Symphony Fritz Reiner RCA Victor Red Seal LSC-2446 Stravinski The Firebird - Colombia Symphony Stravinski Colombia MS 6328 S US Tchaikovsky Concerto for Violin - Meditation - Tibor Varga Festival Jean-Marie Auberson EMI PA-V50-1-001 S Germany Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 - Vladimir Ashkenazy London Symphony Lorin Maazel London KIJC9225 S Japan 1 Super Analogue OK - That will do for a start. Do not attempt to get all of this at once - go slow - buy, listen and feedback so we can adjust the list in the light of things you do and do not like. Some things we can take as read - everyone loves the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and I never met a hater of Sheherezade. All the major violin concertos (in my pompous opinion) are here - that is my bias towards strings - sorry - try any one and let us know, Other than that a few pianos, a symphony or 2 touch of opera - most of the bases are covered. You also have music covering about 300 years so we might build a picture of the period you like too. Enjoy the process - glad you liked the Grieg - I posted mine in the list for reference.

As Mark cleverly spotted - I said tone and I meant Timbre - sorry all - my bad - I was trying to steer the thread away from a minor skirmish that was starting to look like the approach road to Bagdhad and not concentrating sufficiently. Back to the debate (the original one if you please).

Fascinating auction - read all the details. What is not clear is - who owns the rights to the music on the acetate? I have a feeling that if you own the disk - you own the rights. As such - it is a bargain. Rip it, clean out the surface damage and the scratches - cut a CD and you will get your money back many times over. Nice find Allan.

"Well, the skipping also occurs when I just have the stereo playing a little loud" This is a Jeff little loud. The man that was convinced 60 wpc would not be enough for him on his KHorns. MY guess - there may be nothing wrong with teh CD player itself - but there may be structural damage to the property.....[] OK - just teasting you there Jeff - borrow a CD player from a friend and see if it has the same problem. If it does - get a joggers CD player, if it doesn't - forget to return it...

You know I never throught........what I mean is that when I asked...........the point of this thread was to.......... What is it about amp threads? Mention amp in the title of a thread and people start killing each other by page 4 - and it always gets to page 4 too - not many other subjects do - but amps puts a fire into people's bellies. Now I dont want to get into the Craig / Mark thing - there is obviously something else going on there that no-one else knows about. Now back to the original subject: Tone - I am seeing references in responses to speed, bass, power again, but not too much to tone. Even speed and tone do not have to be related IME. Just recently I reviewed a pre-amp for ACA. Tonally it was spot on - but I asked the question in the review - can it dance? It does not, imho, have the speed it should. Despite this - it did make a violin sound like a violin, a paino like a piano and Callas like Callas. What it did not do was make fast popular music sound right. Lets look at this another way. I go to someone's house to listen to their system - say an ACA meeting. We listen to the system and there is something wrong - the system is tonally off - something is amiss. We play a number of records (say) and they all come across this way. I would immediately suspect the cartridge alignment tracking as the culprit - or something else with the TT. We test the CD player - same problem - I would, in order, suspect: The speakers. The preamp. The system's power supply. The amp. The wiring. In other words - taking the TT to be 3 or 4 first choice things to check the amp comes in 8th or 9th. Even then I would suspect some kind of impedance mismatch or fault with the amp and so on before accepting that this was simply a tonally deficient amp. Request: Keep comments on this subject - other subjects in a new thread if you please. No more personal attacks. No references to power in the responses - I do not think this issue relates to the power of the amp. Thanks

OK - I now get what Mark was originally talking about - but I think this is drifting into the whole amplifier chain (pre-amp, phono stage if applicable and power amp) which is not exactly what I understood we were talking about. Timbral inaccuracies from the power amp? Well I have had a few power amps in my day and that is simply not a problem I would ascribe to them (except for a very early Yamaha surround sound amp in 2 channel mode - but even there the grain was more of a problem there). I have had amps that were not capable of driving my speakers well, amps that were a poor match to my pre-amp, amps that needed to play loud to play well, amps that broke down and amps that played well. I have had big and loud and small and refined - but I dont recall an amp I could point to as being timbrally inaccurate in, say, 5 years.... Now before you dismiss this as a simple - Max isnt sensitive to timbre - actually I am - the main comment on my system from others is quite how lifelike and tonally accurate it comes across - it the basis of how I put my system together - if not how I actively chose my power amp. Not saying any of these suppositions and posts are wrong of course - just outside my experience...

Mark raised an interesting question in another thread that got closed down on the basis for assessing an amp. The implication was most of us choose an amp - apparently - on the basis of its output power but not on the basis of its tone (as an example of an alternative). I for one am not sure I want my amp to have any tone at all. I expect to get flavour (or colour - choose your language) from the front and back ends of the system along with the pre-amp - but the amp....shouldn't that be as close as it can be to straight wire with gain? Thoughts?

Oh the FIAT! Oh my God look at it - simply gorgeous. Never seen one before - never even heard of it. I wonder if it was ever sold in Europe. Dont give a rat's about the performance, handling, braking etc. etc. I just want it in my drive to look at it. I'm dying here. That is a must have. Allan - buy the vette and tell me where the FIAT is.[6]

At least double what I charged for the first one yer sarcastic sod.[] I am gutted the SET thread got locked when it did - it was just starting to become fun....

OK, OK, I can accept that some are getting a bit bored with the posts on the forum these days - but washing machines and dish washers as an alternative? Puh-lease!!

Mark, Something went horribly wrong with your font - can hardly read a word.

"Reasonably healthy level"? What would that be at the listening position? 70 dB? 80 dB? 90 dB? "unrealistically low volume instead" What would that be at the listening position? 70 dB? 80 dB? 90 dB? So lets say 80 dB - for either - randomly, and lets say we are listening to a recording with a huge dynamic range - say 40 dB (rather rarer than any of us care to admit). So that means the peaks are 100 dB and the troughs are 60 dB. With just about any amp we are not going to clip a Khorn unless we are sitting a long way away especially if we are listening to a stereo pair. Conversely - most of us can hear 60 dB fine. What is interesting is that should we raise the bar a little - as Paul seems to be suggesting and go for 90dB then the peaks are 110 dB (again at the listening position). Subject to how far away you are you might easily be clipping your 20 watt amp too. Go 10 dB higher than that and you are clipping most of the tube amps out there. Now with 500 wpc.....[] Having said all that - I am not a big fan of low power SET amps either. The problem is not the volume but the driving of the bass. It may be just me - or I may still not have heard a good / well implemented one but on every ocasion I have sat in front of a system driven by a SET amp the bass has been sorely lacking. Who is it talks about thwack on here? Definitely missing in action on SET amps that I have heard - but it is more than that - the whole reproduction of the bass is........mushy? Now when I say bass please do not think of some god aweful electronically generated beat machine. I am refering to bass as you might find on a piano, tuba, double bass, etc etc. Just aint there. Forget a church organ. Again - I havent heard all SET amps so who knows what might be lying in wait out there for me.

Beauty is in the eye (or ear in this case) of the beholder.

Well well well - what a surprise! Another SET discussion turns into a war zone. My amplifier is digital and 500 watts per channel and that makes me very important. I can say without doubt that therefore: 500 wpc should be considered the minimum for any system regardless of listening habits, room sizes, volume levels, musical preferences etc. 1 KW is overkill for any system. SS and tube are the old outdated technologies to use - like commuting to work on a horse - you can do it but why? A 500 wpc amp will drive just about any speaker ever made - to huge volume levels - it is therefore the smart choice too. Only a digital amp can provide this kind of power efficiently (85-90%) - anyone running any other technology of amp should be burned at the stake for wasting the earth's precious resources (to get crap sound). Only a digital amp can create this kind of power in a small box. The amp weighs 11 Kilos (under 25 lbs). The only reason anyone would listen to any other technology of amp is that they are in so much pain from moving the thing they dont notice the crap sound. Anyone claiming they enjoy the sound they get from their amp with a measly 200 wpc (or less - can you believe it?) is either lying or deluded. When refering to writings from the 1950's to justify your position on amp power you are merely demonstrating that you must have been dead for the last 60 years - or have access to a very old library. Things have moved on a bit since then Grandpa - we went to the moon (40 years ago mind), own computers and mobile phones, 4WD, turbos, indoor plumbing etc etc. Stop comparing the sound of your underpowered and pathetic amps to a TV - even my TV is 40 wpc! Did I mention how important I am? I am a star of audiophile videos for crying out loud! They are even writing about me on German audio forums now. I have seen and listened to more systems than you can stick a shake at - they were all crap compared to my magnificent creation of course. If you absolutely must have tubes - put them in your pre-amp where they belong. Well I enjoyed that! [] (Please do not take this post seriously - but feel free to flame away if you must.)

Dont talk to me about the damn car! Just got it back from 3 months in the garage being repaired (big shunt). Get in on Saturday morning and notice passenger side front window is open slightly (your window is ajar - lets not go there - an old car that talked). Anyway - press the button to wind it up and it promptly drops like a stone into the door. No button pressing will yield a result - although the motor is working. Bugger!! Figure out how to get the panel off - and remove the speaker from the front door to be able to get to the mechanism. There is a small piece of plastic (guess 10 cents worth) that the motor connects to in the mechanism - its broke and no obvious way to fix it. Go to garage on Monday morning (having proped the window in place with a pair of screwdrivers) and tell them I need this plastic bit. How much can that be - $5? Oh no - they dont sell the plastic bit. They dont sell the entire mechanism either - only the entire mechanism with the motor. How much? $420!!!! And another $250 to fit it. Anyway I got the fitting down to $50 but still had to pay the parts. Goddammed cars!!! Oh - go for the Lincoln. I have been seriously unimpressed with Mercedes of late - their build quality is nothing like it used to be.

If I have understood what you are asking I think you are talking about image and soundstage size. In other words a single violin played on the KHorns will sound bigger than the corresponding violin over the Heresy's. Correspondingly - a full orchestra will be much more convincing over the KHorns that coming from the Heresy's. Why? Is the question. Well - there are a lot of factors that go into the creation of a convincing sound-stage amongst which, and in no particular order are: The distance between the speakers in relation to the distance from the listening positon. The amount of bass being produced, the size of the drivers producing that bass and the sizing of the box that contains them. The height of the drivers from the ground. Volume will also play a role - up to a certain level. To elaborate a little: Different speakers vary in the optimal distance between them to create a credible image. You do not want the speakers so close together that the soundstage appears to overlap the players but at the same time you dont want them so far apart that your ear is no longer fooled into believing that the singer (for example) is actually in the middle rather than coming from distinct left and right sources. Generally speaking larger speakers can be placed further apart. Khorns - being in the corners (usually), are obviously naturally as far apart as it is possible to be. Heresies would tend to be placed closer together. What is interesting (perhaps) is that generally the closer together speakers are the greater the sense of depth to the soundstage they can create. Depth is not a strong point of KHorns and it is often relatively easy to setup a pair of Heresies that will present a greater depth to the recording than is possible with Khorns. Driver size will also play a significant role - as does the depths of the sonic spectrum portrayed. It is startling to add a subwoofer to a pair of Heresies and see how much bigger the whole sound is. Here you are doing 2 things at the same time - you are increasing the range and adding driver area. Even if you are cutting off the speakers at a certain level and playing the sub only from that level you are adding to the driver surface area dedicated to bass reproduction. Conversly - if you were to disconnect the woofer from the KHorns you would notice a distinct shrinkage in the apparent size (or better yet mass) of the produced result. Having said that I think you are correct in that it would still appear to be larger than the Heresy image (although I have never tested it). Therein comes the last of the issues - that of driver height. Heresies on risers do better than Heresies without - but I have found that if you put them on stands - raising the tweeter (at least) to ear level the increase in sound-stage is dramatic. Obviously you can have too much of a good thing - raising the Heresys such that the woofer is in line with your ear probably would not work so well. I am not 100% sure why this should be - but I would guess you start to interact with the ceiling rather than with the floor (or you are losing too much bass boost by being separated from the floor - or possibly both). The thing is that raising the Heresies to that height does just about make them the height of the KHorn (which is still in contact with the floor). Height is just a huge advantage when presenting a full scale image. The final point is with box size. In simple terms - play a violin in a small room and then compare the sound to playing it in a larger room. the larger room offers more space for the sound waves to develop providing a deeper, stronger signal is not a higher spl one. This is not unlike the comparison of the sound of a violin Verses a Double bass - bigger box - deeper sound - even if the violin is playing louder. IMHO / YMMV / AFAIK.....

As far as I know unless those Heresies were the latest model 3's then the sensitivity was not 99 dB but 96. That means you are comparing 96 with 104 - and that is a big jump. Other than that suffice to say - placed carefully in the room - and supported by a well chosen sub - Heresy's do very well indeed.

I was thinking - try to persuade your wife to do the same.....[6]

I have had several video camera's over the years and they are now all languishing in drawers around the house. My final video camera was a tiny unit from Sony that used yet another tape system (a Micro MV tape or something). It was quite good but actually the buttons were too small to use and the battery life was poor. This shot video in its own format (a variant of MPEG2) that was a bugger to find editing software for (other than their own which was somewhat limited). The upshot of all this was that I bought a Casio ES5000 still camera that happens to shoot MPEG 4 video. This is pre-compressed video of reasonable quality at its highest setting (640 * 480 @ 30 fps) and can fit about an hour onto a single 2 Gb SD card. The results look fine on my 32 inch TV - and editing software is available in many and various flavours. Probably its best feature is a past video mode that automatically records to a buffer everything that happens in the last 5 seconds. It is a real boon when recording kids or sporting events - as you never miss the critical moment. Of course - its other big advantage is that it slips into a shirt pocket - it is not much bigger than a credit card and yet, unlike the Sony, has usable buttons. I dont think I will ever buy a video camera again.

Actually I do have a bug-bear with my current DVD player. It has this feature that lets you playback a DVD from the last position it was in when it was last played. This is clever - but ultimately infuriating as you pop a DVD (or a video CD) in that you last played months ago and it jumps automatically to the closing titles - or somewhere in the middle if you stopped watching it there. I just wish it would ask first and give me the choice. For reference the DVD player in question is the Pioneer 575. I wonder if that DVD rewinder would help?[]

If you do that Michael I will keep you busy the whole time. So much to see....and now you are into vinyl the sky is the limit.

This came up in another thread - the nordost discussion thread and several people have seen it and apparently liked it. I blush to say that I am in this video so this is going to look like terrible self promotion - but, hey, its not like I am trying to sell you guys insurance or anything so what the heck: For those that have decent internet connections (256 kb/s +): - http://aca.gr/stream/aca_documentary.htm or @ - http://homepage.mac.com/savagebean/iMovieTheater11.html It is about 20 minutes long - and you do get to see some rather impressive systems. Message me if you want details on full life cover....[]

Michael, If you had not just found an opening at Klipsch I think I would be offering you a position in ACA's PR department - if we had one. [] I will post a new thread on the video to maximize the chances of anyone who wants to seeing it....

Sorry Larry - not a clue - it was not one of my recordings. I will try to find out who's it was at the next meeting and see if we can get anywhere from there.