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neveronfriday
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Posts posted by neveronfriday
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Have you actually seen any of these?
I got acceptable offers for both the Peterson (Duos) and Ella (in Hollywood) sets, and seing them I kind of understood why they're priced in such a big league. They're nicely presented, in a 45 single format with booklet and all. I guess that manner of presentation has it's price!
I have the Ella and Peterson. Removed the CDs from that asinine packaging immediately, stored the boxes away ... and decided never to buy any of these sets again.
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I found this small "extra" booklet in a copy of the 2001 reissue of "Red Hot and Cool" and thought I'd upload it to Image Shack and link to it here.
It doesn't really add anything new, but ...:
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I've always wondered how Amazon currency conversion works:
As of (right) now:
amazon.com: $59.98
amazon.co.uk: £51.49
amazon.de: Euro 53,99
And that for 3 CDs?
Yeah, right.
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Thanks, Dan.
Will try that today.
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I have never spent enough time reading up on this flac stuff. I have my entire collection ripped to flac and that took enough reading ... EAC, accurate ripping and all.
What I want to to do now is create one single CD from a whole bunch of different flac files which have, to say the least, hugely different volume levels.
How do I do that?
Reverb gain -> wave - Burrrn?
Can someone help me out with a quick (total) idiot's guide?
Thanks.
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I have three kneecaps and a very robust sternum.
I can take it.
Wear a robust helmet too!
[photo removed]
My haircut, exactly.
I'm in the clear.
Well, I don't know what you heard but there's always work to match speakers and amp etc. If you love your speakers and none of those tube amps did it for you okay. But there's likely a tube amp out there that would. But yeah, people hear things differently.
But I won't let your statements go unchallenged re: too much warmth and not everything coming out that goes in. This happens in solid state as well as tube. I have tube amps that have no added warmth at all and have such a simple circuit (just a resistor and a capacitor in the signal path, hand wired, star grounded, nearly the only wire in the amp is the lead wire on the parts themselves) and there's no loss of detail. I've heard solid state amps like this, but they cost about three times as much.
Glad you have something that you are very happy with. I do too, and it's tubes. The system I have now reproduce tapes I recorded in my garage apartment of the eighties with two bands I have recorded with more realism and accuracy than any other system I've had. This is music that I performed in and recorded in my very own room. I know what it sounded like, and I get no additional warmth or reduction of detail. I'm very happy. Until I win the lotto, I'm set.
I call this a "no contest".
Let's leave it at that.
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I have three kneecaps and a very robust sternum.
I can take it.
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[...] that their sound wasn't what works for my brain and ears as well as the sound of tube amplification in general. [...]
Forgive me, but I was counting the minutes until a "tube" comment would pop up.
I should have bet this month's wages on this one.
Would have doubled everything.
I'm not a tube fan.
Too much "coloring".
Sorry.
Please take a solid swing at me.
Edit: Let me explain (no idea if anyone will post re this comment in the meantime). Upon recommendations here and elsewhere, and because I'm holed-up at home for the time being, I was able to try seven different tube setups (not replacing my Dynaudio 1.8 Mark II speakers, mind you). All of the ones I tried had the following problems:
a) They add too much warmth.
b) They don't follow my credo of "what goes in must come out"
c) They need a whole new system to "tame" that sound (which I like, at times!)).
I would have to trash everything I have to go the tube route ... and don't have the cash to do so.
Hope I could "tone down" my initial statement somewhat.
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[...]This machine, known affectionately as the "trashcan" is what first lit my musical pilot light.
[...].
Holy sh*t.
R2D2.
I'd love to have myself one of those.
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It took me a long time to get the sort of fidelity that I remembered in that system [...]
I don't know about you, but I've had my problems with "accepting" better-sounding systems in comparison to my my old stuff because my ears had gotten so accustomed to the sound I was hearing (both from speakers AND headphones, the latter having always been the more difficult to replace).
I remember walking into that above-mentioned audiophile shop and frowning at a, f.ex., a $40.000 setup saying ... "Doesn't sound much better than what I had".
Because of this experience, I usually remain very quiet when people (I'm also often guilty of this) lament about the "younger generation" not having an ear for what "sounds good". Hell, I was "conditioned" (is that the right word?) by past systems I had and am very aware of the problems this can cause. I have had hundreds - if not thousands - of students at the school I teach at that have always had this benign smile on their faces when I started talking about "good sound". If I get the chance to play stuff for them on a good system for longer (!) periods of time, they might get with the program (and I'm glad I managed to "convert" some), but many, in my eyes rightfully so, say that "what I have is good enough for me."
I don't mind at all because a) I was like that myself and b) am happy about anyone actually listening to music, no matter what it is and what it sounds like.
Still, much like that NYT article quoted elsewhere on O., I do agree that we are experiencing a cultural change by ways of which "good sound" might, in the long run, not be recognized anymore .... simply because there are increasingly fewer venues/situations to experience it in.
That's why I keep yelling and screaming all the time.
Call me Jekyll.
Or Hyde.
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I remember Phil Seamen congratulating me on the superior sound quality of a Dansette portable record player I was using for interval music in a club in Leeds in the sixties. He must have been taking the piss!
"Superior" does sound a bit exaggerated but, in retrospect, every upgrade I went through in my life was a serious step up the ladder. That first stereo I posted above probably sounds like crap today, but it was pure bliss for me in comparison to what I had owned before. Maybe Phil Seamen had a crappier machine at home? Just a thought. -
When I had no choice but to buy my own I was baited & switched at some stereo store and before I knew it I was walking out of there having put about $700 on a charge card, knowing I could hardly handle it.
I remember the first day I dared walk into an "audiophile" shop when I had secretly saved (didn't need to, as it turned out, as my wife then revealed that she was also interested in getting a better setup [so I would shut up, I guess]) enough to perhaps buy into a decent stereo setup.
The owner (someone I still buy stuff from 15 years later) remembered what it was like for him and also baited me with a set way above what I could afford. The difference (they don't come like that anymore): He offered me to pay up whenever I had the cash ... and take it all home right there and then. I guess I looked trustworthy. I paid up within 12 months .. and he got a customer for life.
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I started in 1970 with a record player that looked something like this:
Portable so I could move it from room to room. Bought with my first wages in my first part time job washing dishes. It drove me mad as it randomly skipped so I sellotaped a penny to the cartridge!!!! I have LPs that still have the aural evidence.
On arriving at university (1973) I'd had enough but had little money - I bought a cheap 'stereo'. It too needed the penny treatment.
In late 1974, after having a well paid summer job, I bought a Garrad deck (without case) and got a friend to rip out the stereo deck and replace it. This Frankenstein's monster got me through university. A good summer job in '76 got me a reasonable amp which improved the sound...but the Frankenstein fell apart on the train journey to start my teaching course in Exeter. Fortunately I had enough summer money to buy a Pioneer deck which was my first proper deck.
When I started real work in '78 I bought some Wharfdale speakers and, a bit later, replaced the Pioneer with a Rega Planer (which drove me nuts for 18 months as everything seemed to be affected by terrible wow....turned out to be the cartridge I'd just moved from the Pioneer...all very Heath Robinson!).
That particular tale might explain why I am not a vinyl nostalgic. All I remember is skipping discs, inner groove distortion, flutter and wow and rice krispies.
My first CD player arriving in 1985 marked the start of comfortable listening! How I envy the students of today who can carry it all in their pockets and never have to worry about the balance of a tone arm and the effect it might have on the discs!
a) That "thing" looks (cool and) exactly like one we had in one of our guest rooms. Ours was (yuck) an ugly light gray/dark purple (looked like something Foose (know him?) could have cooked up) and was the machine I heard my first Charlie Parker on!
b) I have the same problem with LPs that you allude to. For too long I had cheap crap that made it all sound like 2012.
To be brutally honest, I turned into a CD fan because I simply didn't want to have to adjust turntables (I also often thought I was too dumb to do it correctly), buy phono pre-amps and do the out-of-the-bag-back-into-the-bag dance every effin' moment. Stupid, I know, but that's the way it was.I didn't really get interested in much better sound (= became an audiophool) until I got my first decent wage in the early 90s. Until then I spent my time furnishing my various new places and buying useless stuff like fridges, a bed and book shelves (books .... another passion of mine).
Thanks for chiming in, Bev.
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I had some time these past days to do some extensive Googlin' and actually came up with my first "stereo" that I was given by my parents for my confirmation, the first pair of headphones that also made that thing sound good ... and the second stereo I got for Christmas years later (I still had the headphones from the first then).
(01) My (own) first "stereo", a "Dual HS 130". I was 14 years old and "graduated" from a Grundig "radio recorder" to that set. My neighbors loved that upgrade as I - from that day onwards - "squeaked" music out my tiny room into the surrounding neighborhood. One could also stick a thingie in the middle that held a stack of LPs and made them drop down, one after another (much like a jukebox):
http://wega.we.funpi...5/dual74-19.jpg
(02) My (own) first pair of headphones, the Koss HV/2a ... which was, for me, the equivalent of a Ferrari sports car. Those cans were the shit and they lasted well into the 80s. It took me an entire year to "lose" the sound and get used to a different pair of headphones.
http://www.freewebs....28Medium%29.JPG
(03) My second stereo (end 70s) is, historically, an interesting set. It was built by Aiwa and marketed by BASF (a company known the world over for its chemicals (and, cassette tapes), not any stereo equipment). The second pic has all the components I had, plus speakers.
http://telefunken.te...basf65xx-01.jpg
http://telefunken.te...basf65xx-02.jpg
Anecdote: With that second stereo I became "party master". Those things easily fit into a smaller bag and were carried everywhere. The speakers had quite a bit of "oomph" and had a tendency to overheat once in a while, necessitating an interruption in partying for about 15 minutes until we could turn the thing on again.
***
I do get very sentimental looking at these old pics. I loved those things when I got them and my parents still smile when we talk about that stuff. Because I have been a music nut as long as I can remember, those "upgrades" were highlights of my life, other important moments not withstanding.
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b) You are right, I have no earthly use for the damn site, which is why I very quickly tried to get out from under it. You may not know that the FB bastards have written their program so that it is a breeze to get in but very difficult—if not impossible—to get out. I find no defense for that sort of thing. I appreciate and tried Bill Barton's step by step exit strategy, but it does not work for me. So, regardless of how I "come across," the fact is that this site is a trap that needs to be investigated.
Hm.
I recently deleted a second account (completely separate via masked IP, masked mail address etc.) and it wasn't a problem.
Bill's step-by-step above is missing one essential part: You also absolutely need to get rid of any cookies FB set on your PC because if you return to the page, the cookies kick in and you are "recognized" again.
P.S.: Although they state so, I really don't believe that they delete your "deleted" account from their servers. That's my paranoia kicking in (plus a lot of reading up on the inner workings on their server cloud setup), I guess, but if you read their (ass-long) terms in detail, they don't have to. They actually have the nerve to state that everything you post on there "belongs" to them and they can do whatever they like with it. There's lots of pussyfooting (verbally) around that section in their terms, but it's all BS. So, I chose to delete everything but my name, which is all I need to navigate that monstrosity. In the long run, if you know how their server cloud works, my info will be gone (because unused for a [server-set] pre-determined period of time). If I then decide to delete my account in the future, it will only have my name left in the DB ... until that's gone as well after a while.
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Chris, I'm the last person to defend Facebook's way of doing things, but you do come across as someone whining about something that
a) he doesn't know how to use and
b) he doesn't have any use for.
I find that to be rather odd.
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I have been on Facebook for ages and I haven't the foggiest notion what the complaints are about here.
You guys are doing something wrong.
Yes, FB is a data-hungry pain in the neck, that Zuckerberg is an ass and I have removed 99% of my personal info recently to make sure some ass doesn't sell it off, but with just the tiniest bit of reading about how it works, any member can nail it shut completely.
I have no idea what these "spam" people are supposed to be, and what other problems you have. I have never, ever received a single spam mail which originated from being on Facebook (I know, because I use a special mail address for FB plus two other sites).
I have never ever received any phony mails. contact attempts or viruses, or whatever.
And I'm on there every bloody day.
I recommend buying a "Facebook for Dummies", if it exists.
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... you know the inventory of places like "Newbury Comics" and "Mosaic Records", both 5000 and more miles away, better than that of your local two supermarkets.
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Interesting, but the review makes it sound more than sketchy in many places.
I'm going to wait for some more solid reviews.
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I think Hans is doing a good job.
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Looks like I got the Pacific Jazz Piano Trio's !!!!!!
Finally.
Congrats.
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I'm a huge fan of Jones & The Dap-Kings.
Have everything (almost, I think) they've put out.
My weekends often start with their releases.
Just ... fun!
Groovy.
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All "Cross Country Tour" selections will be in the box. Covers the years 1956,1958-62. Check it out here ahmadjamal.net/discography.pdf
@Bill: Ah, great. Thanks for that! Just saved me some money.
@ Hans: Doin' my best! :=
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The name "Jamal" always reminds me of the only CD I ever lost: CD 1 from the double-CD "Cross Country Tour: 1958-1961 (Chess)".
Still pi**es me off every time I see that half-empty digipak in my collection.
I love that reissue.
I have absolutely no idea how it could have gotten lost.
It only traveled from shelf to player and back again.
Poof.
Gone.
Checked, double- and triple-checked a million times.
Put it in the wrong cover?
Behind another CD? Different case?
...
Nope.
Will now replace it with a second copy as, if I'm not mistaken, that material is not on the Mosaic set.
Or is it?
I'm often too weak these days to consult a thread for more than the most basic info.
Things should improve at my end once my health has been brought back to normal via that radio treatment this upcoming weekend.
Until then ... I don't read more than a few lines online a day, if at all.
So, sorry, for not checking this thread thoroughly.
P.S.: The Jamal Mosaic is top-of-the-list for me.
Will buy as soon as it is out.
A quick (personal) update ...
in Miscellaneous - Non-Political
Posted
OK.
Last Thursday I got the "all clear" ... cancer free.
It's difficult to describe how insecure one gets about one's own body and how one starts distrusting anything anyone says, but so far, nothing has spread to the lungs, the brain or the lymphatic system.
I'll add a couple of bottles of Venezuelan rum to make sure it stays that way.
I've been away a lot, whenever I had the chance, to replenish my energy reservoir and to just meet lots of friends and live it up ... that's why I'm posting here again.
I wanted to ...
a) thank everyone for their mails and personal messages (they were a great comfort),
b) I wanted to thank Hans (J.A.W.), especially, for helping me out,
c) and I wanted to apologize to Flurin (king ubu) for not having gotten back to him re those many mails he sent (I'll get back to you this weekend).
I have been more than grumpy lately, because I had to turn my life upside down, so if I stepped on anyone's toes (can't recall) these past 5 months or so, I'm sorry. Just write it off to my old age.
The little time I afforded myself online, I spent shooting off one-liners to make it look like I was around.
I really wasn't.
Cheers!
Volkher (neveronfriday/deus62/Grumpy/...)