Vintage Audio Equipment Repair!

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Tom,

You need to get with UncleSpot, he repairs old guitar amps, the kind with tubes and such, he's a devotee of "Warm" sound!

Yeah, we got the 12" LASERDISC also, but only about 30 titles, half are music titles, like Elton John, and Olivia Newton John. One of my favorites is J.C. Superstar!

What you need to do is convert/record your Laserdisc titles onto DVD! But it might be easier to just go out and buy them already in that format, if they are in print? You may have some rare titles that won't be put on DVD!?

BTW, I've seen the latest Star Wars Trilogy remastered for DVD advertised on TV this last week, did you know it was out!?

-3dB at 350 Khz.....human hearing only goes up to 20khz, and that's at birth and very young, we loose a fair amount of that by the time we're adults! Having specs to 20Khz just helps in maintaining purity of the harmonics of the lower tones!

I liked the sensitivity rating of my speakers, 92db at 1 watt/1meter!!! I wonder how many people know that once you get your amp up to 1 watt, that to get any appreciable increase in discernable volume (~3db), that you have to double the wattage!? So....when shopping for amps, you should look for powers in the following increments:
1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512, along with a low harmonic distortion rating of course! Okay, time for my medication also!!
T.C.

[Ken Talbot]

Hmm, guess I really should send my old Rotel RA1412 off for servicing some day to clean up the switches and get the meter lights working again. And I should throw some fresh silicon fluid in the damping reservoir on the Hadcock arm on my LP12. Maybe then my Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs version of DSOTM would sound ike it used to back in 1979. Hey, that's all the way back before my motorcycle was made!!

[tfm3]

- 3db @ 350 kilohertz, tommy??? Do your ears hear in the shortwave radio range ? Couldn't resist. No offense, man. Typo's happen. Not many of us tube types left. Audio specs these days carry about as much real world valididity as horsepower specs. Manufactured BS.

[tfm3]

Valididty. Sheesh. Can we get a 30 minute edit time here? How about spell check faetchure.

[srq68]

P.S. Been burning vinyl to CD for years- happy to help if anyone still cares

What software do you use, and does it separate tracks for you or do you have to go back and "cut" them appart?

Also, do you use "Line in" or "Mike" for your PC input?

I have many LPs that I need to save onto CDs...

Thanks

[tommystinson]

No, that wasn't a typo. I didn't claim to be able to hear it, but my preamp will handle RF up to that point. I'll be happy to supply a PDF of the spec sheet if there is beer involved. I agree with TC that "direct" human hearing can only go up to about 20KHz. There is a lot of interesting research that indicates that "inaudible" frequencies help to create spatial cues to localize sound sources. Without really boring people, Nyquist theory limits frequency response in a PCM system to 1/2 the sampling frequency. I.E. Compact Disc Fs=44.1 KHz=22.05KHz upper frequency limit. To truly reproduce any square wave, sampling frequency needs to be extremely high. Many people prefer the soundstaging of vinyl vs. CD perhaps due (in part) to the extended high frequency response of a good cartridge. Specs mean very little, that is why I included that one in my post. Distortion matters, but more in "type" than the "amount" of distortion. If 1-2% 2nd harmonic distortion is present, it probably isn't even audible. A small raction of a percent of, say, 13th harmonic is present, the system can sound like crap. It used to be that all CD players had a "brick wall" analog filter around 20KHz to filter the garbage that occurs near the 22KHz limit. Any steep analog filter can create serious linearity problems, which led to a "fix" called oversampling. Oversampling allowed the brick wall filter to be moved further away from the audio band. This created another specification race by manufacturers just like watts, distortion, etc. Ironically, some companies have given up on both the analog and digital filters with excellent sounding results. (Audio Note) Audio is a funny thing. I have a subwoofer (HSU Research TN1220HO) that can actually reproduce 12 Hz, albeit -6Db. There is no music there, and only elephants can actually "hear" it, but it does have a pretty wild effect. If my family room door is closed, it can reproduce the pressure change recorded on a classical CD if someone opened the door of the hall during the recording. You don't hear it, or even really "feel" it, you can sense it. This post is weird, because of my plan to sell my tube rig. With my new wife, new house, new dog, broken XS, etc. I never sit down and just listen anymore. When the Hi-Fi gets fired up, it's to play a movie. I'm looking at the Rotel 1067 receiver. Not cheap, but less thar my tube stuff by far, and should sound decent. If you made it to the end of this post, you have my gratitude. If someone needs any tubes for radios and such, shoot me an e-mail or pm. I'll trade for XS parts. gpslaser@yahoo.com

[TopCatGr58]

Hey there Srq68,

First, I use a patch cable with RCA's on one end for the tape/record out of my stereo.....you can't hook it directly up to your turntable, you need the amps RIAA equalization processing to get the full dynamic range from the compressed LPs.

The other end has a stereo mini jack that I run to my INPUT on the sound card....it can handle the stereo signal.

I record each track separately, so it does take some real world time to do it! The waves can get quite large if you record an entire album side of tracks, and then try to separate them. Remember, ~10mb per 1 minute of music! After I capture the track, I can then use the same program....a simple wav editor prg that came with my soundblaster card....I trim off excess silence from the beginning and ends. I can also use it to remove some of the more obvious snaps and pops from the recording. But its' best to clean up your vinyls as much as possible before capturing. You can still get the Discwasher system!

As you playback the wav, you look at the waveform and listen for the pops, you set the cursor just in front of where you hear the pop, then you zoom in, you can get down to the millisecond and beyond!!! Then I highlight the offending pop, making sure the wav form is crossing the baseline at both ends of the pop, then I EDIT AND MUTE it, either 1 channel or both depending on if it's in both! This way, you don't REMOVE the time of the sound, just the sound itself, and since it's usually a millisecond or two at the most, you don't hear any gap in the music at all!!!!! I don't like to use the Snap/pop removing software cause it tends to dull the crispness of the sounds, especially the mid-high tones!

Hopefully your wav editor prg has a volume meter, or you'll need to play with the sound card properties to adjust the input volume to the maximum without Clipping.....squaring off the top and bottom of the wavform which induces distortion! I then save each file with the name, putting an 01, 02 etc in front of each name depending on what order I want to place it in the CD. Then after capturing all the wavs, then just use your CDburner to create your audio Cd with the wavs. BTW, make sure they are in 44.1khz/16bit stereo format to be recognized as CD audio type wavs for burning!

Feel free to PM/email me with any more questions/techniques!
T.C.

[tommystinson]

TC, I almost forgot. When I discuss power with boomer kids and stuff, I simply use: 2x as loud needs 10x the power, assuming the same speakers. 92 db is pretty good!

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Tom,

Yeah, I wish I could find this old cartoon I saw, showed a couple of engineers in a radio station looking at the Graphic EQ board, and talking about needing to up the db a few in the 12khz range, or some such technical jargon.....and then the inset was a "dude" walking along with a single speaker radio held up to his ear, just jamming away.....impervious to any distortions!!

Pearls to swine!?

I did a fair amount of reading in fidelity mags and buyer's guides back then when I was looking to get my audio equipment, thankfully the FCC had recently incorporated some new standards for specs, the db/1watt/1meter for speaker sensitivity and the amps wattage ratings and such! I think/hope I learned enough to make a sensible purchasing decision, along with using my ears of course as well!!

And then at home speaker placement is also very critical in getting the sound quality you want, near the floor and walls to increase bass response, carpet and curtains will decrease bass, far enough apart....6' or more for good stereo separation, having the speakers at the height that is going to correspond with your ears at most of your listening positions, sitting vs. standing, etc.!

I was one of the last people who wanted a CD player in my car, the dynamic range was so wide, that you either had to have it cranked up to hear the subtle quiet passages, which then blasted you out during the louder ones!! Modern/Pop music isn't as much of a problem as Classical/Orchestral stuff(DSOTM exception)! This is why I actually liked the cassettes 45-85db range, got it above the noise floor of the car without blowing my speakers and ears with the strong parts!
T.C.

[tfm3]

Excellent thread. I use Sonic Forge 6 for vinyl to .wav recording. Technics 1200 TT with Stanton 680 cartridge. Apt-Holman discrete phono preamp driving line level input on SB16 audio card. I record entire album sides and edit the files later-dedicated Seagate 40gig drive just for the music stuff. Great to read brands like Luxman and Rotel tossed around here. I agree 100% on avoiding the automatic snap and pop filters. Better results doing it yourself. Volume meter on the editing program is essential. Had to redo several of my early efforts when I discovered some passages exceeded dynamic range well past clipping. What an awful sound that is. Been having fun lately converting mp3's to cda files to play in my truck. Not exactly audiophile quality results, but with the ambient noise floor in an '84 F250 diesel it doesn't really matter anyway. Expensive hobby. No point in having a killer amp unless you've got killer speakers.

[tfm3]

http://www.audioholics.com/about/index.php
Good info here. A littlle like this forum, for audio types. Tommy, have you checked out the new Anthem product line? [replaced Sonic Frontiers.] Made a difficult decision a few months ago when I declined an offer to purchase a Golden Tube Audio SE40 I'd just repaired for a dealer. [third one in the past year]. The coupla spare bucks left in the bank as a result of that call allowed me to show up cash in hand to pick up the 11H and drive it away about a week later.

[srq68]

I record each track separately

Hey TopCat
I did some research on the net and found this freeware: Audacity 1.2.1. This program lets you "cut" tracks whereever you want. You can now record one track with the entire side of an LP and cut it precisely later on. When you load up the soundfile you'll see the graphs and select where to edit.
I tried it and it works fine, you can cut/copy/paste part of the file too.

[tommystinson]

Hey tfm- yes I'm pretty familiar with the Anthem stuff. It's been out for a while, I think (late '90s?). It was originally SF's entry level tube stuff, although I believe all the new stuff is solid state home theater gear. Paradigm bought SF then pretty much killed it. Such is life, I guess. I've pretty much settled on the RSX 1067 from Rotel, or else Arcam's new receiver. Thoughts?

[tfm3]

Haven't had the pleasure of auditioning the new Arcam gear,nor the latest Rotel stuff. Most of my exposure to hi-end audio came crashing to an abrupt halt when we departed San Francisco for the old west. Already too many dealers and installers here for a limited market. Took me about six months to meet all of them. I have plenty of thoughts on international distributors buying up perfectly good independent product lines and smashing them to bits while retaining the original branding, but this is a civil forum.
Topcat- I remember cutting that cartoon out of a back page from Mix magazine years ago and taping it to one of my nearfield monitors. It may quite possibly predate the digital age [I know I do!] After 25 years of loud mixing I can't hear the difference between good solid state and tube audio anyway. After 100 miles on the 11H with a shattered left exhaust I couldn't even hear the phone ring when I got home.

[REFFI]

Shoot! I've got vinyl and reel to reel I'd like to burn to CD's. Some of my reel to reel stuff is unique (though I'd guess not a lot of you are interested in the Zumpella/Lorenzetti senior recitals). I have Laser Discs, too. Could they be burned onto DVD's? My reel to reel still works if I speak to it gently. I bought it in '67 from the Navy Exchange and had it overhauled by TEAC in '85. They really don't make them like they used to.

Ralph

"I ride erect."