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MeloManiac

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Everything posted by MeloManiac

  1. Rather than adding yet another cabinet to our already full house, we decided to repurpose these ancient apple crates and upgrade them to vinyl records storage. After all, we are firm believers in recycling and circular economy. That's just part of my fascination for vintage gear and vinyl records... Thanks for all the replies!
  2. I have actually two of these in my home (plus some bigger ones.) I'll have to start negotiations with my spouse and see if she's willing to reorganise the household. I hate going to Ikea. Feels like having run a marathon when I get back home.
  3. Below is a picture of my collection of 'new' vinyl records I bought in the past two years. I have two more plastic boxes like this one. The second one is filled with my 'old' new albums, which I bought since the 1980s, and the third one is filled with second hand albums I bought in the local thrifstore in the past two years. Then there is a stack of LP boxes, because they don't fit in these plastic containers. I also invested in plastic sleeves for all of my albums. The thing is that I ran out of these plastic containers, and I don't think they 'll still have them in the shop where I bought them. So I'm looking for advice on how to store my albums. I listen to them all the time, in my living room, and I have very little (or no) space for a LP storage cabinet. Please consider I'm living in Europe, shipping furniture or boxes from the US to the old continent costs a fortune (as it does from the UK now too...) They seem to have quite a lot of things here: https://www.gear4music.be/nl/dj-apparatuur/vinyl-accessoires/vinyl-opslag but I have no idea what would be the best for me.
  4. If you put four linear tracking arms on it... You get a square circle! šŸ˜ I read a review of this Bergmann tt last night and this pro said that the accumulated distortion of most linear tracking tonearms is much worse than the slight distortion one gets from a standard tonearm. This tt is an exception because it is 'air bearing' : the tonearm (?) and the platter are floating on a cushion of air, so there is no friction, hence no distortion.
  5. https://bergmannaudio.com/galder-turntable-bergmann-audio/
  6. Talk Talk, Laughing Stock Now I own all their studio albums. Today the 'discount' period starts in Belgium. I bought these three classic albums for 40 euro (3 for 2 promotion).
  7. Taxi Driver, original soundtrack, 1976. Bernard Hermann Edit: The music by Bernard Herrmann was his final score before his death on December 24, 1975, and the film is dedicated to his memory. EDIT: For a Scorsese film, Taxi Driver is relatively light on popular music: the extensive pop culture quotation that many people associate with his films would come with bigger budgets. The only noticeable instance in the film is a scene where Jackson Browneā€™s ā€œLate for the Skyā€ plays as Travis watches American Bandstand. Thereā€™s a lyrical reference of sorts in the way that Betsy quotes Kris Kristoffersonā€™s ā€œThe Pilgrimā€ to describe Travis: ā€œHeā€™s a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction/Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.ā€ But thereā€™s one literal needle drop that is easy to overlook, and it might be the most audacious of Scorseseā€™s career. It comes in one of the few scenes that does not involve Travis at all, a discussion between the teenage prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) and her pimp Sport (Harvey Keitel). As he attempts to seduce Iris, Sport puts a record in a stereo, drops the needle, and out comes a slight variation of Bernard Herrmannā€™s score for the movie. Itā€™s genuinely jarring when it happens, a postmodern moment thrown into the middle of a movie that to this point has felt grounded in psychological realism. It would be like if The Graduate had a scene where Benjamin Braddock went to a Simon & Garfunkel concert and they played ā€œMrs. Robinsonā€ for him. (https://thespool.net/features/taxi-driver/ )
  8. Eric Clapton's eponymous first solo album, 1970. Instantly lovable! (not a Keanu Reeves look-a-like)
  9. I own the RP160M, which are very similar and I get the most out of them with a 1970s H/K430: twin powered, separate power supplies for each left & right channels.
  10. Consider this a confession of a 'guilty pleasure'... Rondo' Veneziano (1980/81) When I was about 12 years old, I convinced my parents to buy a 'stereo chain' and they invested in a formidable one of the Onkyo brand. I still have it in my house. At the time, in the shop they 'demo-ed' it with a record that is a bizarre mix of baroque and rock drums/rhythm. We got the record when we bought the stereo, so we listened to it a lot at our home. In the years that followed, I got to learn a lot more music of all genres (mostly classical and hard rock, when I was young, Jazz and blues and all the rest came to me in my adult life), and it's been a very long time since I listened to Rondo' Veneziano, because I considered it Kitsch with a capital. So... this morning I put it on my turntable, after ignoring it for about 40 years! Very nostalgic moment, I must admit, and boy, this records sounds bright and shiny too! What a pleasant surprise! RondĆ² Veneziano is an Italian chamber orchestra, specializing in Baroque music, playing original instruments, but incorporating a rock-style rhythm section of synthesizer, bass guitar and drums, led by Maestro Gian Piero Reverberi, who is also the principal composer of all of the original RondĆ² Veneziano pieces. The unusual addition of modern instruments, more suitable for jazz, combined with Reverberi's arrangements and original compositions, have resulted in lavish novel versions of classical works over the years. As a rule in their concert tours, the musicians, mostly women, add to the overall Baroque effect wearing Baroque-era attire and coiffures. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RondĆ²_Veneziano ) This is from 2016, same musicians as in 1980s...
  11. A long time ago, some clever person at EMI thought "Let's put two classic jazz records on one cd and sell them at mid price." And then I came along, and in an unprecedented act of heroism, I bought them. šŸ˜‰ Sarah Vaughan's Snowbound is a hidden gem and I wish I had it on vinyl!
  12. Big paradigm shift here... Never realised Lola was about trans gender... Now I'm going to take a good listen to Clapton's Layla too... You never know what surprise is hidden in those lyrics.
  13. I agree. Sleep inducing at times. But I enjoyed watching their fashion, I mean clothes, and the now retro gear, that was then state of the art. The sections in which they discussed and read the tabloids was an eye-opener too. And Billy Preston... What a great guy and talent!
  14. Lou Reed's Coney Island Baby is a fine sounding album. No big hit songs here, but Coney Island Baby sounds familiar. And then of course, there's the song that could have been written about myself: "I am just the gift to the women of this world!" ;-))
  15. Here's a 'first timer' in the last week of 2021... There is a censor-BLEEP in the first track of Johnny Cash At San Quentin. Fact: the show was being recorded for television broadcast. šŸ¤ IMPORTANT UPDATE This album is MONO and sounds amazing! Except for the censored cursing, the song introductions are real fun to listen to! What a great person, Johnny Cash!
  16. OMG... Carole King even (co-)wrote The Loco-motion
  17. On Carole King... Though I recognize many of her songs on Tapistry, of course, I didn't know anything about her career, until now, that is: Carole King Klein[2] (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building and later as a solo artist. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential musicians of all time, King is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100.[3] King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK,[4] making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005.[5] Shame on me... "You make feel like a natural woman" is a Carole King song !!!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(You_Make_Me_Feel_Like)_A_Natural_Woman
  18. I'm never too old to learn... Didn't know anything about this. Seems like Reed lived in 2021 back in the early 1970s... On Lou Reed's Coney Island Baby: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coney_Island_Baby: The album has been described by Anthony DeCurtis as "perhaps the most romantic album of Reed's career".[1] Many of the album's songs were inspired by and dedicated to Reed's girlfriend and muse at the time, a trans woman named Rachel Humphreys.[2][3] According to Aidan Levy, Coney Island Baby was "as much a love letter to Rachel as it was to the nostalgic Coney Island of the mind."[4] Rachel Humphreys was muse and lover to musician Lou Reed.[1] Their relationship has been described as seminal. Humphreys inspired lyrics, songs and artwork and accompanied him on tour during the mid-1970s.[2] Raised in Bridgeton, New Jersey and San Antonio, Texas, Humphreys was of Mexican Native descent.[3] and was striking looking and tall. Humphreys was a trans woman and they met at a nightclub in Greenwich Village in New York[4] Reed was instantly attracted and they lived together as a couple. Their relationship, which lasted a few years between 1973-1977, is not well documented, but Humphreys is widely recognised as being the inspiration for the songs on the album Coney Island Baby. [5] Together they explored the boundaries of gender roles. Humphreys used both male and female pronouns at different times and both Reed and Humphreys enjoyed wearing each otherā€™s clothes.[3] Humphreys' role in Reed's life is subject to continuing interest from music and popular culture journalists.[6][3] Humphreys died of AIDS in 1990 age 37[7] at St. Clare's Hospital, New York City.[3]
  19. On special offer this week in Aldi Belgium, three classic albums: Johnny Cash at San Quentin Lou Reed, Coney Island Baby Carole King, Tapistry
  20. Allan, great collection of records, as always! Can I ask what the small bottle and the square block are, to the right of your Thorens 125?
  21. Here's another UPDATE, this time with good news. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to buy some back-up tubes for my Leben CS300. I still have the original nos Sovtek tubes that came with the CS300 amp, and I also have the set of Genalex Gold Lion vacuum tubes that the previous owner had bought when the nos sovtek tubes needed replacement. These tubes are generally seen as the best option for the CS300 on the internet usergroups. Let me tell you right now: I don't agree. You see, when the original Leben CS300 came on the market (in 2006), buyers could tell the company what tubes they preferred, and then the company would build the amp around those tubes. If the buyer didn't have a preference, the CS300 came with new robust Sovtek EL84M power tubes (M stands for military grade). So, after some clever thinking from my side ;-), I decided to buy a set of these, and also the Sovtek 12AX7LPS (longplates) pre-amp tubes. They are easily available here in Europe. (A couple of years ago, I had upgraded my tiny TubeCube 7 with these tubes also, and I loved them.) And you know what? Once the tubes are hot, which takes about 2 minutes, and I must say they get a lot warmer than the Genalex and the nos tubes, the noise I get from the powerline wifi booster is pushed completely to the background and is gone!
  22. Zalig Kerstfeest down under! Here still 12 hourd to go!
  23. Need to buy some Joe Jackson on vinyl!
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