JohnnyB

I had a handwired PTP phono preamp that had dynamics that would knock me around the room. The tubes were vintage mil-surplus, but I can't find replacements. I'm not expecting the Vincent to recapture the sensation, but I'm hoping the dual-chassis design will improve s/n ratio and dynamic range. I'll find out by the weekend, I hope.

I recently picked up thIs AudioTechnica low-output moving coil cartridge (LOMC) for my vinyl rig: LOMCs excel at extracting the subtleties of musical expression from a record's groove. So to check it out I played this LP of a Spanish concerto for guitar and orchestra played by Pepe Romero and conducted by Andre Previn. It was a great recording to show what my new cartridge could do: It sounded so good I immediately ordered this phono preamp from Audio Advisor with (relatively) massive power supply to bring out the best in an LOMC. On the left is the 2-chassis layout, with the phono stage on the bottom and the power supply on top. Power supply interior: Note the power supply's beefy shielding, isolation, and relatively massive transformer and capacitors. I'll be finding out when it arrives Saturday, but I figure the shielding and isolated transformer will lower the noise floor and the capacitors will provide current on demand for musical crescendos. To my pleasant surprise I got it for the closeout price of $229.95 marked down from $450-$500. That button on the front of the power supply switches between the capacitance and resistance settings required for moving magnet and moving coil cartridges respectively, which will be handy for switching between my favorite two cartridges. I can't wait for delivery day Friday.

At last I'm able to present my subjective impressions of new $34 AT-95VM with bonded conical stylus. I like it for a number of reasons: It has a rich, forward soloist range, whether vocal or instrumental, with a pleasing blend of the backing instruments. This makes it particularly engaging if you're listening to Sinatra accompanied by Nelson Riddle or Count Basie, or any number of pop/rock groups such as The Cars, Police, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, etc. The cartridge body has built-in mounting threads, making installtion siimpler and with no need for bolts to secure the cartridge. The supplied bolts fit the thread pitch in the cartridge, which may not work with bolts from other sources. If you have any mono LPs, you can switch between stereo and mono recordings without swapping (and re-balancing) between stereo and mono cartridges. My 2014 Beatles in Mono releases sound superb, even when compared to my moving coil mono cartridge (which requires rebalancing the tonearm and changing the gain and capacitance settings on my phono preamp. The mono cartridge is lower in noise because it's a true mono which tracks above accumulated dust i in the bottom of the groove, but the AT95-VMC comes very close. The conical stylus is a good match for LPs stamped before the mid-60s. Starting with the $34 AT95-VMC, you can upgrade economically to a nude and/or exotically shaped stylus for less the price of most all-in-one cartridges with a nude-mounted high end stylus. For example, I got Audio-Technica's flagship cartridge with nude Microlinear stylus, the At150MLX, for $259 in 2008 directly from Japan when import goods were cheaper; stateside they were $599. Currently the At150MLX has shot up to $770. The AT-95VMC ($34) plus the microlinar stylus ($169) totals at $203. Similarly, the same cartridge ($34) plus its upgrade nude shibata stylus ($199) comes to $233. By contrast, the shibata-equipped Ortofon Black cartridge weighs in at $699. Again, $233 is a steal. The microline stylus is shaped like the cutting head when mastering the LP. The shibata stylus was created to track 4-channel discrete LPs to groove oscillations up to 40Khz. They remain lush and unperturbed when tracking the inner part of an LP's groove where it's tight. I have been using the base AT-95VC on a wide variety of music: a capella vocal, the Beatles, power pop, '80s rock, small group jazz, big band, and even large scale orchestra, even my Balalaika Favorites, which is in mono. It sounds superb with this $34 cartridge, and I have been using the AT150MLX for13 years.

Friday update: I just wasted 2 hours writing a description of Audio-Technica's AT-95VM moving magnet series only to have a virus take over my screen with no escape but pressing the power-down button, thus wiping out everything I wrote. Now I need a nap. So here's the URL to Audio-Technica's well-illustrated description of their AT-95VM series: https://www.audio-technica.com/vm95seriescartridges/index.html I bought the entry-level model with the bonded conical stylus for $34. I've been playing a wide variety of records lately and will post my opinion of its performance later this afternoon.

Audio Technica has a brilliantly conceived new line of moving magnet cartridges. More info to come Friday.

I tend to agree. Some displays of virtuosity fit in with the music and raise the energy of the songs, but when overdone, it distracts from the song. I got a CD of Eric Johnson from the local library. I was interested in checking him out because he was touring with G3 and got a lot of good press here. But after slogging through his solo album, the pentatonic meedly-meedly got to me, leading me to conclude, "It's Still Wank 'n' Roll to me." To be fair, I think too much reliance on the pentatonic scale is getting to me. I recently played a British classical orchestral album of Ralph Vaughn Williams symphonies and tone poems. Vaughn Williams frequently adapted/rearranged orchestral works based on rural English folk songs. Being folk songs, these also relied heavily on the pentatonic scale (minus the meedly-meedly), and to my surprise I rapidly tired of the folk reliance of the pentatonic scale in spite of Vaughn Williams' lush orchestations.

My stepson gave me this vol. 1&2 double vinyl remastered180-gramg repress for Christmas: This music evokes fond memories going back 58 years when I was 8 yrs old. This album shot to #1 in 1962 and the singles got lots of airplay on our local top 40 stations. To hear its biggest hit, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-YqaTDDCDM. I got a new phono cartridge and I was breaking it in on the Ray Charles, some gems from my jazz collection, and this amazing album: This is a meticulously mastered and 180g pressing from a 1963 recording. It was recorded by Mercury Records, using a Westrex cinema-based machines 35mm tape recorder. 35 mm film is about 2-1/2" wide and runs at 24 frames/sec, which means the sound was recorded on about 1-1/2"-wide tape running at about 24 inches per second. The recording clarity and musical quality is stunning. This recording was made at the height of the Cold War. To soften some of the tension, there was some USA/Soviet cultural interactions, and this recording was one of them. (Another was when Russian folk dancers appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show about the same time) The musicians were the Osipov Orchestra (Wiki article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osipov_State_Russian_Folk_Orchestra), and featuring a full-sized orchestra comprised of Russian folk instruments. The balalikas ranged from large bass ones (pictured) going all the way up to violin range. They also used accordions or concertinas, which add a lush color to the arrangements. The balalaika players are monster virtuosos. One of the songs is "Flight of the Bumble Bee" picked at full speed. Check it out at https://store.acousticsounds.com/d/11026/Vitaly_Gnutov-Balalaika_Favorites-180_Gram_Vinyl_Record. Hear the opening number here:

I just finished watching all 8 episodes of Ken Burns' documentary, "Country Music." In one segment, Dwight Yoakam was on-camera describing what a spot-on, poignant lyricist Merle Haggard was. The thought of Merle's lyrics (and, I suppose, his passing in 2016) got Dwight so choked up he could hardly make it through the segment.

I played this CD in my car a few days ago. I'd had the LP version since my sister gave it to me for my birthday in 1969. I was quite taken by the high energy chart, "The St. Petersburg Race" from the film, "Run Sunward" That film has the distinction of having no entry in imdb.com I found out that it was a film about offshore high-speed boat racing. It turns out one of the major figures in this film is Don Aranow, who was a great boat pilot and also founded Magnum, Cary, Cigarette, Donzi, and Formula speedboats. There are a couple of bio-dramas about him including "Thunder Man" and "Speed Kills." His boats were popular with organized crime because his boats were plenty fast for smuggling. The Cigarette boats made 500 hp and could top out at around 90 mph. His shady side caught up with him and he was gunned down in a classic mob hit in 1987. Anyway, I justs discovered that I don't need to order a $40 DVD of "Run Sunward" from this website; it turns out I can watch the whole thing on YouTube, and I'm really glad I didn't spend the money as the film really shows its age. If they really want to keep it around, they should rewrite and re-record the narration. It turns out that "The St. Petersburg Race" in the soundtrack refers to an open-water race from St. Petersburg, FL to Port Lucaya on Grand Bahama Island off the east coast of Florida. The film also showed a 440-mile offshore race from Long Beach to San Francisco, CA.

I have an Al Hirt Greatest hits, which includes "The Best Man," a duet he did with Ann-Margret on this album. The band leader (and my first drum teacher) at my elementary school in Cincinnati, was John Hirt, Al Hirt's cousin. They came to Cincinnati from New Orleans and studied at Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music together.

My favorite Tubes video is when John Candy as outdoorsman, Gil Fisher, takes The Tubes on a fishing expedition:

It replaced an empty spot on the top shelf of my component rack. I had had a nice Hitachi P-38 DD TT and a decent collection of LPs. I lost many of the LPs to a rain-induced flood in our basement apartment which resulted in moldy, warped records. A couple of years later (around 1982) our cat jumped off the turntable, sending it flying and crashing to the floor, after which its speed control never worked again. Here's an example of a HItachi P-38 in working condition. Mine looked just like it until the cat got through with it and I tossed it in the trash. Soon word got around that CDs (and players) were on their way so I bided my time until they became available in 1987 when I bought a CD player and started replacing my record collection with CDs. 20 years later I found that I got no enjoyment from CDs and their players, so I went to Guitar Center and bought the Technics SL1210M5G and started hitting the used record stores and thrift stores to replenish my LP collection.

What a gorgeous, lush-sounding album! I gave it a complete spin last Monday and will probably do it again tomorrow. I have the 2003 30th anniversary remaster/reissue. Bought it soon after buying my first turntable in 31 years. Glad I did.

I'm here for ya, dude.

I just ran the C22 in a Mac production history page. The C22 was in production from 1963-1968 and retailed for $279. Adjusted for inflation that comes to a Sinatra-sized $2339.21.

Here ya go. Price: US $5,695.00 You're welcome.

Also, the stereo LP wasn't produced until 1958, but some studios made and marketed stereo recordings on 3-track stereo tape. That's what Frank is threading up in the picture. Notice that the front panel of the R2R tape machine features controls and meters for three channels. This was cost-no-object high-end home audio in the mid-'50s.

Yeah, I thought about that when I finished posting. Also, in the early days of stereo recording, they recorded in 3-track--left, right, and center. In fact, here's Frank Sinatra's state-of-the-art 3-channel stereo setup back in the day:

My record-spinning and hand-eye coordination exercises Monday must have worked, because my physical therapy session at the hospital yesterday was particularly good, specifically the balance exercises which had always eluded success.

I use both speakers, and ensure that I get the same amplitude of signal to each of the two speakers to create what is called a "phantom mode," which sounds like there's a single big, broad speaker in the middle. Actually, my two main speakers create large soundfields. They are panel speakers, each of which has an 11" x 44" radiating surface, both forward and rearward, which is reflected by the wall about 4-1/2 feet behind them. This creates a realistic wall of sound which--although it doesn't convey left-to-right sense of location--it does convey a front-to-back sense of depth. When you think about live performances, very few convey left-to-right placement except in the most general way. The sense of live precise, individual placements of instruments and voices rarely occurs, and a 2-speaker mono arrangement (especially if the speakers are dipole or bipolar) throws a realistic sense of a room-filling soundstage. Mono LP also has some other advantages in realism and fidelity. In a stereo record, you have a V-shaped groove that holds both horizontal and vertical modulations. The vertical modulations convey the left and right stereo channels. The lateral (side-to-side) modulations convey the center, mono channel. Over time, the V-shaped stereo channel gathers dust and gunk, and become noisy, The mono channel modulates side-to-side and doesn't accumulate so much. I've rescued old mono albums from thrift shops, often for $1 each. There is so much fine dust and some gunk that these records are too noisy to enjoy with a stereo cartridge. When I swap in a mono cartridge, which doesn't pick up the vertical modulations, the noise disappears and I only hear the intended mono center channel. I have some 50-year-old mono records picked up at thrift shops for $1 each which are dead quiet when played by my mono cartridge. The mono playback has another advantage in that the cartridge only has to trace one modulation in the groove--the side-to-side mono track. A stereo cartridge has to simultaneously trace the lateral mono track and the vertical stereo track. This can sound thin and nasal where the mono playback sounds lush and full. Of course, the mastering and pressing can determine how dramatic these differences are.

About a month ago I had a couple of strokes, ironically, while I was driving to the hospital to get a defibrillator implanted in my chest. I'm trying to work my way out of the stroke damage with some therapy exercises while listening to music which should help exercise my brain and re-establish my neuropaths. So Monday I put on a couple of albums to provide a soundtrack to some eye/hand coordination exercises. The first was the 2014 mono remix/remaster of Revolver by the Beatles. I think Revolver introduced the masses to psychdelic elements in pop music. Here's the full album. It's hard to cut tracks from this collection that includes Eleanor Rigby, Yellow Submarine, Here, There, and Everywhere, and many more songs of similar status. If it gets old, you can always fast-forward to the end of the current track and the YouTube player will move on to the next one. I've long been a fan of music Brian Wilson created for the album which variously became known as "Smile," "Smiley Smile," and "The Smile Sessions," and variously credited to Brian Wilson (aided by The Wondermints), The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. I guess I'm a bit of a fan, because I saw "Smile" live in Nov. 2004 with Brian Wilson and The Wondermints, after which I bought the CD and the Blu-Ray video live of a performance at the Royal Albert Hall. Years later, my stepson bought me the Brian Wilson/Beach Boys recovery and re-edit of the Capitol session tapes, and this is what I listened to. it's variously titled "Smile," "Smiley Smile," and "The Smile Sessions." i have the "Smile" LP, and really like the musical acumen and the sound quality. I start off with "Heroes and Villians," which has been a personal favorite since it charted on my local top 40 AM radio around 1966-67: And I love "Surf's Up": And "Wind Chimes" And of course, "Good Vibrations" Altogether, Revolver and Smile provided me with 2-3 hours of stimulating music while I worked on hand strength and hand/eye coordination. It sure elevated my time spent from a plodding slog to an enjoyable musical experience and improved motor control. I call that a win-win.

I used to be a stereo guy all the way, but reading Geoff Emerick's book Here, There, and Everywhere, changed all that for me when he mentioned that he and the rest of the crew spent 5 hours on the stereo mix of Sgt. Pepper's and 5 days mixing the mono version. It also hit home when I read that EMI designed and made their own tape machines, which is why a)they sounded so good, and b)they were slow to upgrade them to multi-channel machines, essential for getting an honest, good-sounding stereo mix.

I gave a spin of the Beatles' first album, "Please Please Me" recorded at Abbey Road and pressed by EMI/Parlophone in 1963. In the USA at the time, this isn't how we heard their albums. Capitol (a division of EMI) had the distribution rights in the USA and they created their own versions with a shortened assortment of tracks culled from the British albums and singles. Then they transferred them into fake stereo, panning the instruments to one channel and the vocals to the other. The mono pressings are so much richer and immediate-sounding. You really "hear The Beatles as never before." I played the whole album through yesterday and enjoyed every minute of it. There was a short deadline for recording this album and The Beatles made the suggestion that they fill out the album with their set list at The Cavern club in Liverpool. There is a ring of authenticity to this album and it also demonstrates how ahead of the rock and pop scenes The Beatles were, even at the beginning of their big break. Ignore the "Stereo" label on the album art. The one I played at home is this LP.