doogie44

Sorry--taken now

Beautiful clear and atmospheric sound from the OTL configuration--also a tube roller's dream. It's Mullards NOS for me. GLWTS

Pending delivery

OK—can do. Please supply your details by personal message and I’ll take it from there Regards, David

Item: Early Music CDs Extra Info: All good stuff. Not listening to these--but you might wish to? Prefer pickup; 'could' post at your expense

Item: 1xCanon and 1xLumix pocket camera from my Dad's drawer. Extra Info: I have no info about these. They might be kaput. Nevertheless, I wondered if somebody in SNA wanted to tinker with them or start a camera museum... Prefer pickup; 'could' post at your expense.

Item: Several SSD and a HDD Extra Info: Removed from various desktop computers after purchase/upgrade of new desktop(s). I have no use for them--they have been in a drawer. They were all quite functional at the time (although I obviously can't vouch for them now as I have no way of testing). You might be able to utilise them? I certainly can't. Prefer pickup; 'could' post at your expense.

Item: Paul Witzig Trilogy Surfing DVD Extra Info: Unwanted gift Pickup preferred; happy to post at your expense

Any good forensics lab could probably find your DNA/earwax on the front somewhere...?? Nostalgia plus.

This model sounds quite phenomenal, a music lover's dream. And tube rolling 'to taste'... Just imagine the cost of a full-sized power amp with OTL topology? GLWTS

Good old AM radio shows...and serials like 'Behind the Green Door' and such for kids... always a fight to sit in pole position at the kitchen counter for dinner with 2 siblings. Let's recall fondly the fantastic Arch McKirdy's 'Relax With Me' & 'Music to Midnight' shows for a thorough introduction to cool jazz. Occasionally at 10pm I still think of him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_McKirdy As a teenager I thought the 60s pop was wonderful in every way, and recorded vast swathes of songs from the airwaves on an AKAI M8 Reel to Reel. Only the introduction of FM broadcasting in 1974 improved things! I still have a Retro playlist on Qobuz of most of those songs As Blah Blah fondly implies, all seemed possible in those new exciting worlds of our intimate enjoyment

Are we talking LPs second-hand and library collections here? We are. Here are the record stores that accounted for much of my spare time and cash in Sydney for several decades! Slightly off topic, but in the zone is/was the US Information Service Record Library in Margaret St, Sydney; all through the 60s I visited there after school to borrow Ella & Louis, Charles Mingus (including his solo piano album), Bill Evans, Miles Davis and such, from the huge collection. These were premium recordings, often the double gatefolds, and an enduring introduction to the Great American songbook. Wot fun. My local library at Mona Vale also had many thousands of professionally cleaned LP treasures (eg a very large Lyrita catalogue and many EMI/Deccas and European labels). O happy day when they shifted to CDs and sold most of the collection for a pittance (eg all the Bach cantatas (Harnoncourt/Leonhardt) on Telefunken pristine vinyl for $50). The Pitt St Mall had the Angus & Robertsons record division (or the shop next door?...can't recall) with prime LP recordings and imports very often on sale in the early 1980s. Sometimes I could barely carry all those purchases home on the bus. I also fondly recall the vast repository of second hand records at Ashwoods in Pitt St, Sydney: Ashwood’s was also a popular music store which, in 1951, turned over about 10,000 records each week. The shop relocated in 1987 from Pitt Street to Castlereagh Street, before its final move to 129 York Street as Ashwood’s Music and Books. One customer recalled: "When it was full of records all jumbled up with only rudimentary order, so to shop at Ashwoods was to search deeply through the history of recorded music. The records all had the trademark round edged square price stickers and the price scrawled in pencil on the record itself, perhaps to stop any price tag switching. The store had a spiral staircase leading up to a less-used upper level, most of the action happened downstairs among the men (and it is usually men) flipping through records." [From 'Sydney Bookshops', by Joan Lawrence & Richard Blair] Not forgetting: Bob Gould’s Third World Bookshop opened at 35 Goulburn Street in 1967. In the 1970s he moved across the road; he also had a Third World Bookshop at Woollahra. Robert (Bob) Stephen Gould (1937-2011) was a political activist and book dealer. In all, he opened 12 bookshops, including the Pitt Street Bargain Co. and the Book Arcade in Leichhardt piled high with books: always his shop style. In 1989 he opened Gould’s Book Arcade at the city end of King Street, Newtown, with shelves crammed and books piled along the floors. [From 'Sydney Bookshops', by Joan Lawrence & Richard Blair] Bob's LP stash was a huge, chaotic, motley collection of towering and teetering records covered in dust BUT you could often find real gems there...eg Johnny Hartman US pressing, and any amount of original Aussie rock. Of course there were many other smaller places specialising in exotica or niche LPs, and the 2MBS-FM Record Fair reigned supreme in the 1980s and 1990s after the onset (?onslaught) of the CD. [Even your average op shop/Vinnies might have some ffss/ffrr Deccas, or whole mini quality collections, landed entire in a box after some poor sod's recent demise.] Happy memories of satisfying those collecting urges for reasonable cost. Then 2MBS-FM itself started selling their outstanding LP collection! Halloo, hallay, O frabjous day... Brickbat: even today I am still encountering the infuriating el cheapo LP price stickers that festoon many a vintage cover. No amount of coaxing will ever remove the sticker without also taking some of the cover with it! Grrr (sound of muffled profanities) [I have been waiting a long time to use that emoji] I rarely buy new LPs these days because I am a born again streamer when it comes to new music. When I do, I confess I use the US or Aussie audiophile online services. Having said that, the remasterings from Analogue Productions and Music Matters (to name a couple of producers) are outstanding. Who could possibly be a fan of the crappy LP product you see in some places that amount to nothing more that a poor vinyl copy of an inferior digitised recording?? I am not. I understand why new record stores are not actually viable as they were in the past. I'm just pleased that the tradition continues in an altered form--hopefully with the emphasis on quality. But the current prices! Bring me my smelling salts.... When I play an old LP treasure to a young family member they just cannot believe the sonic quality. My mission continues, even though now I am now the old sod with too many LPs (all of which I can't listen before the 'final session' starts). Stop me before I start reminiscing again.

In case my experience is of use to other members? Many moons ago, I was whingeing here about my digital speeds affecting my Qobuz music at home. I had a Deco M5 mesh system, NBN, broadband modem, and a Netgear router several years old. Despite everything I couldn’t relax completely while listening to my system, because there’s no telling when it would play up (this is the brave new world we live in). Now I have upgraded to a superior deco system (the Deco mesh X 75) https://www.tp-link.com/au/home-networking/deco/deco-x75/ which apparently is a gee whiz ultra- capable technical improvement: I now have no more sudden drop outs, no more occasional stuttering, and very consistent speeds. Musical bliss returns. I only mention this mundane fact to emphasise that previous advice from SNA, and the consensus from 2 separate lengthy visits from Internet network gurus at home, assured me that my previous system was more than adequate for purpose. Being a self-confessed digital idiot, I accepted this – and was content to blame Qobuz. Now I am not so sure. Am I ever sure about anything digital? I always suspected that the problem could be solved. It has been. Just count me amongst the happier ‘digitally ignorant’ members on this form!

Welcome. Your path mirrors mine. Much early recording, loving opera, Sgt Peppers and 2MBS. And a Dual 1229 (I gave this to a member last year). There are plenty of nostalgia lovers on this forum…

My Qobuz screen now has a bottom pop up that says that ‘the rights holders have not made those (Lyn Stanley albums) tracks available’. I never considered this issue until now, because I was so busy appreciating the rarities and live recordings and remastering opportunities in the catalogue generally. I doubt that Lyn Stanley herself is the cause of all this; she is a regular live artist at audiophile shows. Let’s hope there’s a resolution.

Be still my beating heart Hoping that your next lottery ticket enables you to have everything!

I have a dedicated (largest) room at home in that it's tuned exactly to my system (that would be difficult to do in any other room of my house). I call it the music room, of course. Thanks to having a tolerant wife it's always OK for me to listen AND the room functions more as a family room and lounge room too. No TV, but 2 big leather lounges and a Persian rug. Listening to 'their' music and having Hip Hop/Taylor Swift/Ariana Grande dance-offs with the 8 grandchildren keeps me in touch with the outside world. I always have to keep an eagle eye on the youngest though, with the glowing valves! Only one small burn and several burst balloons so far... oh well. Quite a bit of the daytime I must listen softly to what I call 'background levels' but that's the cost of doing family/marriage business (I might then use my headphones). I always like music louder than she does. Very often I'm playing flute and harp recitals or opera excerpts for my loved one as we read together. She does draw the line at a lot of very modern music should it 'sully' the airwaves of 2MBS-FM Fine Music--particularly around dinnertime, or if she's tired. If friends come over at night the upstairs bedroom closes off nicely in an acoustic sense. Nor does the REL S/510 sub penetrate to the nether regions of the dwelling through the floor as I feared it might. The neighbours can't hear anything from this music room: bonus! At least one day a week I'm all alone in the room--with only Qobuz and a few thousand LPs and a warmed-up system--you can guess what comes after that kind of sonic foreplay! Mission Control refers to it as 'blasting" my music. But if I owned a Lamborghini of course I would drive it fast... I regard myself as extremely fortunate. It's best that we all manage to enjoy ourselves together, n'est-ce pas?

You're lucky you weren't dreaming that you were looking for a toilet everywhere, and couldn't find anything suitable... until...!!! Keep up the good work

Your list of brutish qualifiers omitted "marmoreal ".... But, none of these descriptions fits the free-flowing, fluid flights of fancy you entertain us with! The best-fitting word for the receptive reader is WHIMSY. A vastly under-rated exercise. Love your ramblings

May 1,000 flowers bloom.... may I suggest that the concept of the perfect system is not an alien one to members? Or is it rather the search for the 'perfect sound'?? Absolute sound? And what kind of listener are we talking about anyway? Technical nerds. Accurate recording process reproduction nerds. Music loving nerds. Others. The perfect system, in my opinion, should involve the listener emotionally, far beyond the technicalities of sonic reproduction and cerebral processing. I invoke the Goosebump-O-Meter for such measurements when needed. One look at the gear of SNA members and the gear available generally should tell you that there is NO consensus on what sounds best for any one person. Any great system with good topology basics and good synchrony should be able to get you there. Just like having sex: everyone has the capacity but there's a lot that can go wrong. When it goes right you are pleased that you paid attention. Just my 2c worth.

We've been waiting for you, Godot! It's a tough gig being an Antechinus. While we are listening to hi-res music they are preparing for the best--and last--naughty they will ever have... From Wikipedia: Mating is intense for Antechinus and can last up to 12 hours in some species. The males mate with a number of females and the litters have a number of fathers. During the short breeding window, males expand their home range and are often active during night and day. Male die-off occurs because of an increase in free corticosteroids in the blood, which causes a suppression of the immune system and gastrointestinal ulcers and which result in male mortality. An increase in free corticosteroids is thought to allow males to utilise their reserve energy and maximise their reproductive effort, even though the increase usually proves fatal. If there were no male die-off, there would still only be a small likelihood of males surviving to the next mating period. Thus, it is far better for the males to invest heavily in one breeding season than attempt to survive to the next one.

I 'think' I can distinguish 24/96 from CD quality 16/44, and that 24/96 quality is the rate I set in my Auralic Aries 'preferences'. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with a well-recorded digital file in 16/44 as others point out. The majority of streaming music. But, take Apple Play, said to be CD quality: what is wrong with these files whenever I play them? Ultimately dissatisfying... possibly Apple has stooped to the compressing game as well? Spotify and Apple have missed the Hi res bus (such as it is). Their marketing and corporate greed speaks volumes to me about their disdain for quality music reproduction. Yesterday I was playing the highest resolution streaming files I could find of some very well-recorded favourites (Steely Dan; Carpenters; Beatles; assorted Prince, The Cure, Jimi Hendrix. None were as good as my equivalent LPs. Some came close. One very close indeed. I'll stick with Qobuz. Further sonic streaming improvements ahead, let's hope. Just my 2c worth

In case it's useful? My Dad's original Akai M8 had these: Valve complement: 2 x EF86, 2 x 12AX7, 2 x 6BQ5, 2 x 6X4, 1 x 6AR5

I did not mention this in my response: I have been in Sydney my whole life. I am just 74 years old.

Welcome! Your short vids are an inspiration. I especially liked the "Taking a walk in my backyard"... I hope that you get a lot of audio thinking-stimulation here at Stereonet. It's about the music, after all, and 'despite' all the tech (my take anyway). Music is healing. Who cares what age you are? You and your team have a great attitude--it shines through. Best Wishes, David