Clipped and Shorn

Whisking away the curls to keep them from interfering with the record cutting was something I saw the professionals having to do also at the Scully Lathe. The whole operation was so "analog" and old school, amazing, and it all is exemplified in that blow up of the actual grooves. = Z'nX

Wow, that machine looks to be in beautiful shape. Have you ever thought about cutting a record just for kicks. I'll bet you could still find blank discs somewhere. Len would know. Contact him through: http://www.hrsrecords.com/index.html =Z+X Actually, I have an old Meissner 4DR portable disc record recorder/player with two arms ~ one for cutting, one for playback. My dad used to record with this thing instead of reel to reel tape.

"Off & On" Mark Levine and the Latin Tinge. and ALL the Moacir Santos I can get my hands on. -Z&X

You just reminded me, the best sounding vinyl grooves and crop circles are made the same way. -Z&X

I was hoping that someone would proclaim that they know alot more than Linkwitz and there is a valid technical reason why you wouldnt want to use an active crossover with a Klipschorn. Your contributions are very appreciated and don't feel bad about not owning a Klipsch --- I'm beginning to understand that the noun "Klipschorn" is used like "Fridgedor". Furthermore, if you started with stock Klipsch and merely replaced the crossover, the horns the bass drivers and the cabinet you would be where you are now .. A highly modified Khorn which you choose to call an Altec. BTW what crossover are you using and do you delay any of the drivers? Actually I have several two channel systems in various spaces on my property, some using active crossovers and some not. A couple of the "nots" are Klipsch Cornwalls powered by an Eico HF-81 and Klipsch Lascalas powered by a diy homebuilt SET using either 45s or 2A3 . My Altec system is a large homebuilt bass reflex cabinet housing Altec 416 for the bottom end. The cabinets were tuned to something like 40hz if I recall. Contained in the same cabinet (in its own housing separated from the rest) is an Altec 515. Also used is an Altec 511 horn+Altec 806A drivers. The JBL 2404H tweeters are tied in with a JBL 3105 passive network. The system is driven by three amplifiers and I use a Rane AC23 active crossover which sounds just fine to my ears and yes, although it took me awhile to dial it in because I did it by ear, I do use the delay functions on the Rane to align the planes of the Altec 416B and Altec 515C drivers with the Altec Horn, and this makes a significant difference. I also incorporate an Aphex 204 Aural Exciter. Between the Rane and Aphex I have a lot of potential tweaking I can do to make a very wide variety of vinyl recordings and CD recordings sound there best to my ears. The Blueberry Extreme preamp that I use has no tone controls and these other electronic elements in the system more than compensate for that giving me maximum flexibility. Currently I use an upgraded Dynaco Mark III (tube) or a Carver TFM-55 (ss) for the bass, a diy SET with 300B monoblocs (Sowter OPTs) for the mids, and a highly modified/upgraded Dynaco 70 (built by Mark Deneen) for the top end (Horn+Tweeter). The only system I have with horn loaded bass is the LaScalas which I like for some things, and sometimes for certain recordings I actually prefer the bass reflex sound. So you see, this Altec system is really not in the category of a modded Khorn since I do not have the horn loaded bass which is what most people keep when they do radical mods on their Khorns. The "bass bins" for the Khorn is the keeper it seems in these other mods. Seems also that most of the Khorn mods have to do with fixing the harshness or limitations of the mids, something which I achieved nicely with my large Altec system. There is nothing more beautiful than the mids of an Altec 515 in the proper setting. My Altec 511 horn with the 806A drivers are damped with an application of that clay-like stuff, as are the horns in my Cornwalls. Firing up a system with one amp and speakers with built-in passive crossovers is a different kind of involvement than firing up a system with three amps and an electronic crossover + aural exciter. I appreciate both approaches at different times. Different modes of listening from simple music appreciation and relaxation to serious musicology. - Si and Yes

There are shift keys on both sides of the keyboard... How old do you have to be to use the one on the right side? -Si & Aes

An interesting thread, for a change (just kidding). All the talk of Butterworth and Linkwitz seemed like a high cholesterol breakfast. Although not Klipsch, I am very happy with my diy 4-way (tri-amp) Altec system with electronic active crossover ( I use a passive between the mid horn and the JBL tweeter). I have not grown tired of the ability to tweak and adjust while listening, although most of the time I leave the crossover settings alone. Then again, in another space, I am also happy with my stock LaScalas and home-built SET/ 2A3 and Blueberry preamp. -Sea & Ess

I have watched a cutting head on a Scully Lathe in operation through a microscope which most lathes have and was astonished at how irregular the grooves are. At one point the grooves even appeared to collide. The engineer said this was normal. Such is life in the analog world. http://www.hrsrecords.com/index.html c&s

I opted to obtain, in bulk, a large supply of "botique" electrons, which, if used properly, more than compensate for using glorified lamp cord. You want to get the extra extra virgin cleaned and polished electrons in the 55 gallon drum for the best results and best deal. Using these special electrons AND expensive cable would be frivolous overkill, imo. A Ferrari on a dirt road is fast enough. -Clocked & Smocked

Unlike a broken clock which is correct twice a day, saying happy birthday fini everyday only makes you correct once a year. In all my years I have only met one other person who had two birthdays per year, and also one that had 7 birthdays per year. Then I gave up space travel, so that is about it. c&s

Check to see if the old tube radio has been messed with aside from the plug being snipped off. Does all the wiring underneath seem to be intact. Trace things out in case there are any obvious signs of broken wiring or tampering. Blow off dust/cobwebs with your compressed air. Can you tell if someone perhaps replaced some parts with what looks like newer parts? Is there a fuse somewhere in the circuit where the AC power cord goes in? Is it blown? Can it be replaced. This radio would have had an old fashion two prong AC plug which you can still get. You should get hold of a Variac. Doesn't need to be a big one. The last one I got was on eBay. When you feel confident that there are no booby traps or obvious shorts or whatever waiting for disaster, you could plug it into the variac and gradually give it some voltage, see if a pilot light goes on (if it has one), figure out which is the on/off switch (could be contained in the volume control (?)). The only tube you would see start to glow would be the 80. Be prepared to turn off even the low voltage if you detect a problem or smell something like burning. If things are ok, you can gradually bring up the voltage more and see if the thing starts to warm up and make any audible hum through the speaker. Eventually and gradually if you bring it up to near operating voltage and no parts have totally failed you will hear something out of the speaker, if you attach a ground wire and some makeshift antenna to the designated terminals, you might tune around and hear a station. When we see a pic of underneath, recommendations could be made to replace certain nasty old capacitors. All the tubes for this radio are readily available and not particularly expensive or anything, I might even have some lying around if you can figure out which one(s) have gone bad. You might even have some in your stash. Don't mess with anything you don't understand, especially any adjustments that have to do with the "RF", that means any little screw adjustments on parts you don't understand that have to do with tuning in stations etc. We would also like to see a pic of the front to tell what kinds of switches you have, you never know, some of these old radios even could tune in short wave. Sometimes you can dig up information online, even old schematics for the particualr model. There are many radio restorers and enthusiasts out there who may know something, you can learn by googling. c&s

What you have pictured is a basic old AM tube radio, which if you knew what to do, could likely be made to work, hopefully the "electromagnetic" loudspeaker is intact, but even those can be repaired. If you could work on it yourself it might be fun to fix, but probably not worth having professionally restored. This does not really have much potential as an external amp from what I can see. The glass tube pictured is the rectifier. Looks like maybe an old metal 6L6 for the output. As for the other tubes, you never know about them, they need to be tested. Old radio repairmen often put bad tubes in the boxes out of which came the new replacements. I didn't notice any sought after or valuable audio tubes in your short list, mostly older tv and radio tubes. We would need to see the whole list or a pic of all the tubes with numbers on boxes to tell if anything is worth getting tested as potential audio amp application. Sometimes the tube in a box could be different than the number on the box. Bad or weak tubes can appear fine visually. It might be fun to see a pic of the underside of the radio chasis. There are always radio collectors and tube hunters out there who might buy this stuff from you "as is", thus helping in your quest to save up for equipment you want, but don't expect too much, then again, you might be surprised. c&s

There was Mike Zuccaro who people used to refer to. Google around. There is the possible issue of receiver alignment, not sure if Craig gets into that, you may want to ask him. Vaccum Tube Valley is a good source also, I used some of their print-outs to do some basic work on mine, changing out the selenium rectifier and some other simple mods. In the process I discovered that one of my output transformers was bad, luckily finding a good used one on eBay to make a replacement. Beyond that and replacing tubes I wouldn't recommend getting into it unless you want a diy adventure with soldering, guess you already made that decision... C&S -Cleaning and Soldering

Yeah, man, let's see his birth certificate.

This quaint little thread has been churning around here for nearly 5 years. My big antenna blew down in a wind storm awhile ago, but maybe it is time to get erect again. Couldn't hurt. Need to figure out some techniques for keeping it up longer. Maybe a big spring to cushion the high tensions. -Clobbered and Stormed aka K6TAJ (note the musicality of my call sign in code)

I use multi-amping (electronic crossover + aural exciter) to gain more active control over the sound resulting from widely varying recordings. -c&s

I liked Madame Xeno and her sequence. Almost seemed like a different animator and style. Quasi @ Qkdro just as entertaining as ever. c&s

That's like asking around here who owns more than one stereo set up, or more than one amp, etc. btw, I just bought my last set of speakers, some nice bargain LaScalas which are now up in my gallery/studio and they do make my diy stereo SE 45/2A3 amplifier sound like a complete success afterall. BTW, the diy Altec system in my living room turned out to be more than 8 feet tall, but that is an old story. C&S

Whatever default system I had been using for years is finally breaking down and I need to find the time to do a major overhaul. The one system that has worked fairly well has been organizing jazz alphabetically with a few special (oversize) sections for particular artists. Classical is separated roughly by early and modern and needs better alphabetizing. "Movie"/LA "jazz" has its own shelf and includes not only soundtracks but certain arrangers like Rugolo, Esquivel, Schiffrin, Sauter-Finegan, (and even Kenton) and some easy listening and some exotica is thrown in here etc. Mosaic sets have there own shelf. Latin music is the problem area and is separated by many sub categories: Cuban (according to which trip) , NY (special sections for TP, EP, TR, etc.) , West Coast, Folkloric, Percussion, Brazilllian, Charanga, Son, Merengue, Budget labels, special rareties, special pianists, oversize sections for particular artists eg. Tjader etc. In other words, the various latin genres do not lend themselves particularly to global alphabetical for me. Folk, Country, Rock, Pop, and random thrift store finds hardly ever get any organizing attention but there is a clump of George Jones in there somewhere. There are several sections of uncategorized thrift store finds. The main problem is that little special sections and special rareties eventually are not so special anymore and should be included in the larger categories or even thrown into alphabetical sections. It just seems weird to throw some things together, but the crisis is being able to find an example when needed in a reasonable amount of time. Ten inch LPs have their own shelf and include all categories. 45 rpm EPs are in their own box. 78s are either in albums or stacked (not so many that I can't find what I am looking for when needed). CDs roughly seperated into Jazz, latin modern, latin historical, and everything else. Tape cassettes have there own shelf which I can see at a glance. Looking for records here is at best like recreating a trip to a well stocked record store or at worst (although fun) searching through stacks at a thrift store except there has been previous preselection insuring whatever is found will be good. The whole collection is a major archive. It all needs work and many more rainy days..... C&S

Gary, "The Broadway Bit " reissue on Discovery (as "The New York Scene") was something I had recommend to Mark Deneen. He found a NM copy for about $25 and was thrilled with it. It is a most enjoyable recording, for sure, with Pepper and also some very cool presence of Guiffre on clarinet. Although I still have my nice original pressing of +11 on Contemporary, I did also get the 2-LP 45rpm set. I like them both. Its such a classic. Being a West Coast person I took advantage of the easy availability of Contemporary LPs (and World Pacific) in the stores all those early years of collecting. Both labels did such a careful job with their high fidelity studio recordings. They were always a pleasure to listen to. C&S

The originals ("I Get ABoot Out Of You") on Warners sounded nice too, the reissue on Discovery even better, as did their reissue of "The Broadway Bit" (retitled "The New York Scene"). Another excellent recording in this same bag (sans Pepper) is "What's New" with Condoli, Sheldon, Enevoldsen, Harper, Geller, Cooper, Bill Perkins, et al. Discovery label did very nice work with better sounding vinyl (to my ears) than even the Warner's originals. I'm sure the Rhino sounds great too, I was just pointing out that these great recordings have been around in various forms previously (not always at inflated collector prices either). While NM of The Broadway Bit can go for $200, the Discovery reissue (SS or NM) can be found often under $25. This will change as Discovery gets more discovered. C&S

The perfect Thorens tone arm replacement on eBay right now: #130294949501

Of all the Altec systems, the 19s have just about the best reputation . I think there are easy diy crossover upgrades discussed online. Many even try to build replicas of these speakers from scratch, I once pondered doing that project myself. Considering that $s are possibly an evaporating illusion, you did well to put the cash into something real. my 2 cents. c&s

I prefer vinyl, original pressing vinyl, because there is more and better music in those grooves. I try to find the cleanest copy I can but sometimes have to settle for surface noise if the LP is impossibly rare. Its not like I like the surface noise, it is something to put up with in trade for inherently better sound. Hot dogs at the stand do taste better often because they have dogs, ingredients, and cooking methods you cannot duplicate at home. Ever seen those shows about touring the country and visiting all the famous hot dog joints with lines going around the block? There is a reason. C&S

Some ham's like bugs, others may not. Since it is hard to second guess what your friend might be into regarding his specific interests or current needs in radio gear, you might want to consider a HRO gift certificate. They are a very large supplier for all aspects of the hobby. http://www.hamradio.com/ http://www.hamradio.com/web/help.html c&s k6taj