You know you are getting old when:

[jamespowers]

You know you're getting old when all of this technobabble goes right over your head, and you're fine with that.

:rofl:

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

[video=youtube;kAG39jKi0lI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI[/video]

 

[Dragon Soldier]

Unless you are using six-figure audio equipment, I guarantee you that you cannot tell the difference between lossy and lossless playback.

Used to work with a live sound engineer who could do it unfailingly through bar PAs. As long as he had a comparison to work from, he also had an extremely good hit rate on estimating bit rate by ear.


On a vaguely related note, I recently obtained a modern turntable (Numark Pro-TT1), fitted it with Stanton 500 carts rewired for mono and 78 stylii.

Played through an ordinary domestic amp, the difference in sound between this setup and a mechanical gramophone is palpable, I doubt shellac discs will ever be considered Hi-Fi but nor are they ncessarily the crackly, poppy rumbly things you'd be used to hearing on vintage equipments.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The only mechanical player an electrically-recorded 78 should be played on is an Orthophonic Victrola or its equivalent. Electrical 78s will sound horrible on a pre-1925 machine because those machines were manufactured to play records made by an entirely different process. Swing-era 78s will sound their best on an electrically-reproducing player made around the same time as the records themselves. Even a tabletop attachment feeding into a console radio will sound astoundingly good.

You can get very fine results using a modern turntable, the correct styli, and a solid-state amp -- but for the absolute best results, you need to be able to defeat the RIAA equalization curve and substitute the correct 1920s-40s EQ using a graphic equalizer.

Never play postwar 78s on any kind of a mechanical phonograph unless you hate them, want them to sound terrible, and anxiously look forward to their destruction.

 

[GHT]

You know you're getting old when all of this technobabble goes right over your head, and you're fine with that.

Make that three: :rofl:

:nerd:
GHT I didn't know you spoke police language.

I was trying to be polite, but I do appreciate your humour.

 

[2jakes]

You know you're getting old when it becomes part of your language & bring it home &
expect everyone to understand wtf your are saying ! :eusa_doh:



What's your 20 ?
you copy?
I'm 10-10A

 

[Stanley Doble]

Have you guys tried any Canadian made Brunswick records of the twenties? An audiophile friend, and record collector, told me they are extremely good, very well made, on equipment that was state of the art for the times. He played me one, and even my tin ears could tell the difference.

 

[Zombie_61]

You know you're getting old when it becomes part of your language & bring it home & expect everyone to understand wtf your are saying ! :eusa_doh:

What's your 20 ?
you copy?
I'm 10-10A

A good friend of mine is a former firefighter/paramedic/EMT/dispatcher, and the specific language used in those professions became such a part of his everyday speech that he often didn't realize he was using it in his off-hours until I informed him I had no idea what he was talking about, at which point he had to stop to think about what he had said and how to re-phrase it in "normal" English. lol

 

[vitanola]

Never play postwar 78s on any kind of a mechanical phonograph unless you hate them, want them to sound terrible, and anxiously look forward to their destruction.

Thanks for reminding me. At least it is something to do with all of that early 'fifties dreck. I think I'll start with a copy of "Papaya Mama" and follow it with "Come on-a My House".

On a more serious note, a really good crystal or a full range magnetic pickup such as an Audak A-12 with a steel needle gives virtually all of the range and depth of good electric reproduction without the low end rumble and top end noise.

 

[vitanola]

Have you guys tried any Canadian made Brunswick records of the twenties? An audiophile friend, and record collector, told me they are extremely good, very well made, on equipment that was state of the art for the times. He played me one, and even my tin ears could tell the difference.

These records are fine pressings indeed, but most of them seem to be contemporaries of the American laminated pressings, made after ARC acquired Columbia, and so whilst the Canadian pressings are superior to those that came out of Newaygo, they are not quit as good as those shipped from Bridgeport.

Keep your eye out for Australian HMV pressings. They are really good, lacking that characteristic HMV crackle. Indian pressings are sensationally good, but are pretty hard to come by over here.

 

[LizzieMaine]

For my money the best sounding records of the early electrical era are black-label Columbia Viva-Tonals from 1927-31. Clean, crisp, and full of worthwhile listening. And Moran and Mack, but why bring that up?

 

[vitanola]

For my money the best sounding records of the early electrical era are black-label Columbia Viva-Tonals from 1927-31. Clean, crisp, and full of worthwhile listening. And Moran and Mack, but why bring that up?

The Viva-totals also wear very well. Those pressings will put up with abuse that would make a Victor record unlistenable. In addition to Moran and Mack (particularly enjoy "Jailhouse" and "Hades") Columbia had all of that wonderful Green Label talent, folks like Josephine Lausche and Mary Udonovich, Pesachske Burstein, Molly Picon, Vojtek Martinek, Pawel Hummenieuk, and those other wonderful European and immigrant acts.

By the way, Miss Maine, I came across a stack of slightly singed transcriptions (left over from my 2009 fire). Most are low numbered "Thesaurus" Orthacoustic discs, which recordings I'd suppose have already been carefully transferred from excellent copies, but there is also a Western Electric vertical cut disc which carries about twenty Willard Storage Battery advertisements, and several blue wax shellac transcriptions carrying five minute musical programs advertising "Ella May" and "Econo-Maid" dresses and "Wohl-Knit" sweaters. Do you know anyone who might be interestd in preserving this stuff?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Those commercial discs would be very interesting. I'd be happy to do transfers for you!

We don't get a whole lot of the green-label stuff here, but about ten years ago I found a stack of them in the swap shop at the local dump. Mostly Polish-language stuff, and since we don't have much of a Polish population here their origin remains a mystery.

 

[vitanola]

PM a post office box to which I can mail them.

I have several transcription turntables, a couple of RCA 70C/D machines, and a couple of those big old Gates things on plinths, and a Type Y Presto, but none of them have working pick ups, and all of them need to be entirely refurbished. For as few 16" transcriptions as I listen to it isn't worth the effort to me to repair them. I had hoped to wholesale the units out to a fellow who exports to the former Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, but Ming hasn't shown up at an of this year's radio swap meets.

I really like Polish dance music, the more rural the better.

Ignacy Podgorsky is a favorite:
[video=youtube;U4Rtw5jVj4s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Rtw5jVj4s&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/video]

 

[robrinay]

You know you're getting old when you look in the mirror and say
"Dad?"

 

[green papaya]

when high school kids call you "gramps" or "pops" or "old man"

 

[GHT]

You know you're getting old when you look in the mirror and say
"Dad?"

It gets worse. Time comes when you look in the mirror and think: Grandad?

 

[LizzieMaine]

If you really want to know someone's age, forget the face. Look at the hands. Nobody ever shoots Botox into their hands.

 

[HudsonHawk]

when high school kids call you "gramps" or "pops" or "old man"

Jim Bouton, noted baseball outcast and author, tells a funny story about his days trying to make a "comback" after being out of the game for a while. He was playing in an independent minor league, with a bunch of kids. He said one day, as he took the hill to face the first hitter, his young shortstop shouted "C'mon Mr. Bouton!" Bouton said he had to call time out and laugh. He was 37 at the time.

 

[pompier]

Or..... when sitting in a restaurant minding your own business with your four year old next to you and a gentleman a decade older than you walks up and says: "I bet she keeps you smiling, Grampa". My wife and our oldest daughter and a friend of the family could barely keep from busting up laughing. The grampa comments haven't stopped since.