Any audiophiles here?

[quadophile]

Hello,Just joined the forum and was curious to know if there are any audiophiles here?

[Guest LilBambi]

But of course there are :thumbsup:Welcome quadophile! Are you the quadophile of pcreview forums?

[quadophile]

But of course there are :thumbsup:Welcome quadophile! Are you the quadophile of pcreview forums?

Thank you for the welcome. Yes I am the one from PC Review and it was Urmas who introduced me to this form.

[Guest LilBambi]

Awesome! A big welcome from the other side of the pond! :thumbsup:Urmas is a great guy! So glad he told you about our little neck of the woods here.

[quadophile]

Awesome! A big welcome from the other side of the pond! :thumbsup:Urmas is a great guy! So glad he told you about our little neck of the woods here.

From the other side of the pond? I am on the same side of the pond as you are

[Guest LilBambi]

Now see how wrong an assumption can be? ;)I thought you were on the same side of the pond as Urmas for some reason.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Hiya, Quad (if I may)! Welcome to Scot's! It's a fun place with a veritable nuthouse of whacky regulars. Enjoy! Oh, and audiophile? Not like I was in my youth. However, I do use Linux as my primary operating system!

[quadophile]

Hiya, Quad (if I may)! Welcome to Scot's! It's a fun place with a veritable nuthouse of whacky regulars. Enjoy! Oh, and audiophile? Not like I was in my youth. However, I do use Linux as my primary operating system!

Yes this is my kind of place where there are nuts just like me What do you mean by "Not like I was in my youth" if you are one you will remain one there is no going back or giving it up

[Guest LilBambi]

:lol:Now, you asked a question...about audiophiles....any particular reason?Do you have some favorites you'd like to share with us? Or some hardware you like, etc.?We have been audiophiles from way back ... in fact we still have working Reel-to-Reel recorder/player with some great old 60s-70s music on them, as well as a ton of 8-tracks and a working 8-track player/recorder, a working recording/dubbing/playing cassette recorder ... this all in our wall of electronics with all our video stuff. and of course CD players/recorder as well but that wouldn't be all that unusual.As far as music goes; give me anything from the 40s-80s and I will mostly be happy, but my favorites are from the 50s through the 70s.

[quadophile]

:lol:Now, you asked a question...about audiophiles....any particular reason?Do you have some favorites you'd like to share with us? Or some hardware you like, etc.?We have been audiophiles from way back ... in fact we still have working Reel-to-Reel recorder/player with some great old 60s-70s music on them, as well as a ton of 8-tracks and a working 8-track player/recorder, a working recording/dubbing/playing cassette recorder ... this all in our wall of electronics with all our video stuff. and of course CD players/recorder as well but that wouldn't be all that unusual.As far as music goes; give me anything from the 40s-80s and I will mostly be happy, but my favorites are from the 50s through the 70s.

I had posted a message on PC Review about cloning a cd in K3B and at the same time exchanging PM with Urmas who asked me to do a short review/howto on the software. He also mentioned about this forum so I decided to pop in and ask the question in the hope that I might bump into some audiophiles here.Good to know I was already talking to one

[Guest LilBambi]

Yep, but there are many audiophile Highlanders (the affectionate name for Scot's Newsletter Forum members) on the forums.Great idea! I would suggest you pop over to BATL (Bruno's All Things Linux) here on the forums and post a topic. Eric or Urmas may move it to the subforum Bruno's Classroom after you post it. Sure many will appreciate the review/howto/tutorial on how you did it! K3b is an awesome Linux program!

[amenditman]

Welcome to Scot's quadophile.Many of us old time audiophiles are here.

[quadophile]

OK as and when I get some free time I will work on it.

[Guest LilBambi]

No pressure! :)If you can, that would be great!

[ChipDoc]

Hi Quad - welcome to Scot's! My name is Paul and I worked in Broadcasting for twenty years before finally coming to my senses and becoming a professional computer geek. Your name reminds me that I once had the privilege of visiting WGCR (now WGDR) in 1976 when it was the first quadrophonic broadcaster in the US. They're at Goddard College in Plainfield, VT.At any rate, despite the fact that we do mostly computers over here, there's a pretty startlingly diverse group here. Glad to have you among us!

[amenditman]

Back in the day, that would be when I first found out about computers circa 1978, we had a quadrophonic rock radio station.102.5, played deeper album cuts from the 60's and 70's.Now they broadcast in stereo, smooth jazz.Oh, have we aged that much?

[quadophile]

Back in the day, that would be when I first found out about computers circa 1978, we had a quadrophonic rock radio station.102.5, played deeper album cuts from the 60's and 70's.Now they broadcast in stereo, smooth jazz.Oh, have we aged that much?

I remember a record in our collection Decca's Phase 4 Stereo with Girl from Ipanema on it and I was crazy about it. No we have not aged, just seasoned!

Edited October 25, 2010 by quadophile

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Well, Quadophile... here's the short version of my story:For nearly 25 years, I was a component level bench technician who specialized in RF Communications and Consumer Audio. I was trained and certified by many of the oldtime manufacturers... Fisher, Pioneer, Marantz, JVC, Sony, Bang and Olufsen, etc. I guess you could say that audio was my thing at one time. Unfortunately, the world moved on. No one fixes anything to component level in this country any longer. Little girls fix it in China for two bowls of rice a day, then they re-sell it to us as "refurbished". And so it goes...

[amenditman]

Eric,One of my favorite projects ever was to completely refurbish an old Fisher tube set with high grade , NASA surplus, components. Re-wired a bunch of circuits with nice silver tinned wire to reduce resistance and strengthen the signal. Most of the old vacuum tubes worked and I was able to get replacements at that time, 1987 or so. Don't still have it or the notes from that project.Plugged in my phonograph and played the best sounding stuff you ever heard.It even made CD's sound better.The soundstage was so deep you can't even come close with a transistor set. (I understand it is possible to tune a transistor set up to sound like a tube set, but I have never listened to one that came close)

[ChipDoc]

The soundstage was so deep you can't even come close with a transistor set. (I understand it is possible to tune a transistor set up to sound like a tube set, but I have never listened to one that came close)

Transistors have a tendency to give a very sharp and bright sound because they react more or less instantly. Tubes smooth out those sharp edges because of their relatively slow reaction time. It can be done quite easily with transistors by simply delaying their reaction, but as a culture we've become more used to thinking of that bright sharp sound as "real" so that's the way they're tuned.

[Guest LilBambi]

Ah, yes ... the old analog versus digital debate.It's all in the ear of the beholder ... and the sampling rate and precision of the recording say some.

Today, advances in analog-to-digital conversion methods have improved the quality of digital recordings. Some people say that high sampling rates and increased precision have erased any distinction between digital and analog. Others disagree -- sometimes passionately. There's a sizeable population of audiophiles -- people who want the highest quality in sound systems possible -- who insist that analog systems provide a better sound.

Does digital sound better than analog? (HowStuffWorks)You really can't beat the warm wonderful analog sound of a Fender electric played through a tube Fender amp and speaker cabinet...ah.....

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Tube amps... GOOO-OOOOD!

[amenditman]

I miss that set up.I wonder if I have the patience to build another one.

[ross549]

As an Electronics Technician enlisted in the US Navy, I understand completely. However, I think the issue is less of "component Level" troubleshooting... it is the proliferation of extremely dense electronic chips. So much runs through these things, that it simply makes it impossible to really test the board.We certainly can't stock thousands of replacement IC chips (processors and the like), so it is more feasible to replace the assembly. It was frustrating on deployment since some of the parts were simply not available, such as a surface mount component other than a chip, which meant we had to still turn in the assembly, when it was something we could have fixed ourselves. :(Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

You are right Adam. Nowadays, with tiny surface mount components, it has become nearly impossible to figure out specific tiny components responsible and even harder to replace them safely. Board swapping has become almost a necessity.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

And, of course, there's the fact that the product (for the most part) are so cheap to manufacture these days that they're just not worth repairing. No on is going to take a DVD player that they paid $69.95 for into the shop and pay an estimate charge of $45 just to have a tech tell them that it's not worth repairing because the laser is bad.

[ChipDoc]

At Wally-World you can actually get a perfectly serviceable DVD player with a remote for $19.95... I got several to donate to Calla's pediatric ward.

[amenditman]

I can't remember the last time it was cost effective to get anything fixed properly.It's all FRU this and thats (Field Replaceable Unit), no more fix what's wrong and only what's wrong.Half the time the 'new' part has other problems which creep up over time. Do all the manufacturers just use factory refurbished parts for warranty repairs?Are there any that use new OEM parts?

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I'm sure many use new, but when it comes to complete board or sub-board replacements, refurb is the way to go.

[Guest LilBambi]

Very true, all of that.It's one of the things that drove Jim to close his shop....just not worth keeping it open since everything went to such tiny components that are not worth fixing. Much more cost effective to get a new or refurbished unit than fix it.About the only thing worth fixing is something that is a collector's item, or is old and has a lot of sentimental value.