surprisetech

Keep an eye on the Facebook Group: Australian Vintage Hi-Fi, Stereo & Audio There's a Yamaha KX-390 on there at the moment that has just been serviced. Dolby B/C/HX Pro. Play Trim. Headphone O/P with level control.

Not 'modal', but you might like Chuck Mangione. Chet Baker might be up your alley too.

Neat, robust and well engineered products.

Those wire antennae can be 300 or 75 Ohm, but I'd guess 300, which means you would connect it to the pair of 300 Ohm Terminals. If it is 75 Ohm, then if you're going to connect one of the wires to a 300 Ohm terminal, you need to check which one (if any) are connected to ground. i.e. With unit turned off, check for 0 Ohm reading between the 75 Ohm earth strap and each of the 300 Ohm terminals with a multimeter. If neither is grounded, then you need to connect the second wire to the earth strap, not a 300 Ohm terminal.

It can be a black art sometimes this RF stuff! I had the privilege of working with some brilliant RF engineers in my time at Philips and even they would tell you that. When we first moved in here I set up a simple folded dipole made from 300 Ohm ribbon and strung it across the back of the equipment cabinet which fortunately is almost at right-angles to the transmitter path. It gives very good results, including no multipath issues on PBS on most days! As soon as I had the time, I installed a splitter from the TV antenna and got it connected to the tuner. This gave me better FM signal strength across the board, but gives me the multipath issue on PBS. Being a typical combo TV antenna catering for VHF Channels 2-12 & UHF, it doesn't have any elements ideally suited to FM, so more prone to receiving reflected signals on FM. Luckily, the ST-17 has 2 FM antenna inputs, so both remain connected and I switch to the simple antenna for PBS. Hopefully will get the dedicated FM Yagi into service soon.

You can still have issues when you have full signal strength, but probably unlikely in your location. Does the G6000 tuning behave the same with different FM Mute and/or Mode settings? A yagi antenna might help with adjacent or alternate channel interference depending on transmitter locations, but fortunately in Australia our FM band is not crowded, so adjacent or alternate channel interference is very rare. It would also minimize multipath distortion where you receive a direct signal and a reflected signal for the same station. This mostly happens when there are mountains or high-rise buildings within range that the signal can bounce off. In this case the Yagi helps by giving you more gain on the direct signal and more rejection of the reflected signal. Making sure the horizontal sections of your 'T' antenna are oriented correctly will also help. They should be at right-angles to the signal path from the transmitter. If they are parallel with the signal path then you are more likely to pick up reflected signals. I've got line of sight to Mt Dandenong as well, but on the other side of the mountain. Got great reception on most stations, but some multipath issues on PBS because it's a lower powered transmitter, most of which is beamed to your side of the mountain, and I have the other mountains & hills to the North & South. We've only been here a few months so I'll be installing the yagi I brought with me from the old place as soon as I get a chance.

Orthodynamic tragic here! I think they are worth repairing. Although depending on which part of the headband is cracked, it might be difficult. If those posts that connect the headband to the cups are intact and the thicker plastic parts are OK, the rest can probably be repaired DIY. The reason Yamaha stopped making them, was the high cost of production, not because the technology went out of date. Current manufacturers are still producing orthodynamic models. The frequency response is very linear and extended and I find the bass reproduction is still so clean right down to the lower registers. And they're almost impossible to blow up. They are relatively inefficient, so they don't match up as well with headphone amps that have a higher O/P impedance or low output power. They do well on Amps & Receivers because the headphone output is almost always tapped off the speaker outputs. My HP-1s are still in regular use at home. I've also had mine since new. Purchased on the advice of an older work colleague whose son worked for Rose Music, the Yamaha distributor, and was very excited about them. The thin plastic & suede part of the headband on mine cracked too, but I sourced a sheet of suitable flexible plastic and bought some thicker suede and carefully cut out the pieces I needed using the originals as templates. The leather earpads on mine are still OK but that's because my wife has always had excellent leather cleaning & treatment products around. (No, she is not madame lash, it's for her saddlery!) So from the time they first started showing signs of wear & drying out, I have treated them every couple of years & it keeps them looking like new. Not sure how to rejuvenate them if they're really worn, but a good leather treatment in combination with a little black shoe polish to restore the colour might be worth a try. I picked up a pair of HP-2s about 8 years ago that were in remarkably good condition. The owner had kept them in their original box when not in use. The driver element in them is a slightly smaller diameter, but performance is hard to distinguish from the HP-1s. That meant I could have a pair at work as well. Then a couple of years ago I found a pair of HP-50As. Also with the smaller diameter element, this model was supplied as an accessory with their top-of-the-line organs and were wired in mono. The headband is a completely different design and a lot more robust. I re-wired them for stereo operation and they come to gigs with me for doing the prelim mix for our band. I've listened to lots of other cans at the hifi shows and in stores and while many are impressive, they haven't given me the urge to update. I guess if money were no object, I might find something else I preferred, but at sensible prices, I haven't so far. I have a pair of B&W P-3 which excel for portability and sound great, but I still prefer the HP-1s for serious listening. If you decide not to repair, I'd happily buy them off you because I dread having to try and find parts for mine if anything serious ever goes wrong with them!!

Looks like new. Love the big steam locos. I wonder how many sets are being brought out of storage this Covid winter? GLWTS

4 months ago we moved house and I've still got a pretty long 'to-do' list. It's 10 acres and there's all sorts of stuff that needs doing around the property. Basic Hifi/AV setups were all done early on, but the mounting and cabling of the surround speakers is still to do. Hoping it will be done by end of lock-down, but if the weather is reasonable on the weekends, the chainsaw, brush-cutter, post-hole digger, fence strainer, etc. are taking precedence!

I used an engraving service for my last DIY project and it turned out very nice. They were very helpful and didn't mind doing a small one-off job. Price was quite reasonable I thought. http://www.graphicengraving.com.au/

It's funny how some seemingly obvious features on an AVR at that price point come and go. I had an RX-V667 for a while. One of the main reasons I chose it was for the pre-outs and multi-channel inputs. I've got over the need for the MCH inputs, but the front pre-outs on my current Marantz were still an essential requirement.

Have a look here: https://www.excelhifi.com.au/audio-visual-receivers/ I purchased a refurbished Yamaha Universal DVD player years ago and more recently a DALI Centre speaker from them. They've also done repairs on two older Yamaha Receivers for me. Never had any problems with any of the purchases or repairs.

If you do a search on the Forum for "ripping vinyl" and similar terms, you will find a few suggestions here on StereoNet. Or a Google search on "ADCs for ripping vinyl" will give you heaps of options. The Schiit Jil, Thorens MM 008, Rega Fono Mini A2D, NAD PP 4, all look like great consumer solutions and I doubt the VCR solution would better them. While there are pro-audio internal sound cards for PCs that have appropriate shielding etc. and can provide excellent results, having your ADC device external to the PC (so that PC noise cannot be induced on the analogue signal before conversion), is a much more cost-effective solution. I probably don't need to tell you not to bother with standard internal sound cards or sound cards built in to motherboards! I digitized a little bit of vinyl and a lot of cassettes a few years ago. Products like the USB phono preamps listed above weren't around then, but there were a few very good and affordable pro audio products to choose from and there are even more now. Downside of the pro-audio products is that you still need a phono preamp. I used an A.R.T. USB Dual-Pre for the ADC and Roxio software with excellent results. The ART USB Dual-Pre is only 16-bit/48kHz. I consider that to be more than adequate for vinyl or cassette ripping given the FR, DN & SNR of those mediums, but current products do offer much higher bitrates if you feel it's necessary. For the vinyl ripping I used the Phono pre in a Rotel RA-870BX. Connected the Rotel line out to A.R.T. inputs with a stereo RCA>Phone cable, then ART to PC via USB. For the Cassettes I went straight from a Yamaha KX-500A deck to the ART inputs. The VHS hifi audio specs are impressive, but technology has moved on and even my humble ART USB Dual-Pre matches or exceeds them.

Sadly missed. His contribution to the Australian blues scene was enormous. He used to do regular music-related book reviews for 'Off The Record' on RRR and always so insightful. See if you can get one of his DVDs. He had his own special style on stage.

Yes. Had a very nice early Sanyo HiFi VCR and used a couple of high quality TDK tapes and made up 4-hour compilations of music for parties, background, relaxation, etc. Worked a treat. However, in this day and age, why would you backup to tape rather than a NAS or hard drive? If you really want them on tape for playback, I'd be inclined to digitize your vinyl to a hard drive at a high bitrate with a high quality sound card or external ADC first, then use those files to create your tapes. That way you have backups that won't deteriorate, as well as your tapes, which will.