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Who is still rockin' a turntable?

As a result of my other hobby, I have a hoard of radios, transistor and tube, turntables, receivers, 8 track players (auto and home), car radios, test equipment, and ephemera. It is my aim to have a functioning 8 track player in my RT. I have one of those car 45 record players, but that was before the era of my car. I had the AM thumbwheel radio converted to AM/FM stereo, and I intend to run the 8 track through that. The radio is configured so the tone control knob can also control balance and the fader. The dial still only shows AM frequencies, so it is very stealthy.
 
I wouldn't mind having a late 70s to early 80's 1/2 DIN passive EQ with RCA in, maybe even a matched pair (I know, dreaming) to put in my cassette pod for my Satellite.
 
I foolishly got rid of all my stuff. It seems life is a circle, if you wait long enough it comes back around. You guys have some seriously quality equipment. Thanks for the trip back!!!
 
Eight track mechanical parts are still available as they are almost exactly the same as a professional CART machine. Continuous Audio Recording Tape was used at radio stations for commercials and announcements up until about 10 years ago.
My eight track parts stock is about gone. Haven't had a eight track on the bench in about 5 years.
 
Mike Szadaj said:
Sounds kinda like a Blaupunkt equalizer I have in my 1986 (don't throw rocks) SS Monte Carlo.
Click to expand...


One "grail" for me would be the one that had two separate EQ systems in one chassis and you could switch between them to adjust. I need one curve for my 10's in the back and another for my 5 1/4 or 6 1/2 in front.

Second place would be a pair of 1/4 DIN 5 banders.

...and third would be an earlier look silver face unit, but those are hard to find passive without being a booster.
 
Speaking of analog...this thread prompted me to go into my storage shed awhile back and lug my 60 pound reel-to-reel back into the house. I've been going through some boxes of tape my dad gave me, a lot of them are from the 50s, 60s and 70s, there are some great old memories on there. I'm currently going through them and digitizing them so I can give my dad his old recordings back on CDs. My machine is an early 70's Sony TC-854-4 which is a four channel deck that can take 10" reels. It looks rather funny with some of my dads 2" reels that he used to mail to relatives. There are also a lot of factory pre-recorded albums available on open reel on eBay, but they're too expensive for me to experiment with.
vinSony854-4a.jpg
 
Photon440 said:
Speaking of analog...this thread prompted me to go into my storage shed awhile back and lug my 60 pound reel-to-reel back into the house. I've been going through some boxes of tape my dad gave me, a lot of them are from the 50s, 60s and 70s, there are some great old memories on there. I'm currently going through them and digitizing them so I can give my dad his old recordings back on CDs. My machine is an early 70's Sony TC-854-4 which is a four channel deck that can take 10" reels. It looks rather funny with some of my dads 2" reels that he used to mail to relatives. There are also a lot of factory pre-recorded albums available on open reel on eBay, but they're too expensive for me to experiment with.
View attachment 748549
Click to expand...
Looks like an even nicer Sony than my grandfather had, and he was a musician.
Chances are you may be able to find a
HI-FI stereo VCR (preferably with adjustable audio input levels) and if you also find some good quality tapes, you can use it as an AUDIO recorder. In EP or SLP mode you can make a 6 hour tape with high quality audio.
In 2 hr mode it is even better quality.
 
You know, I used to do just that. I had a Hi-Fi VHS with adjustable input volume controls so I had stacks of music tapes. I had this JVC model
113vintagee.promo_.jpg
HR-D725, somewhere around 1985. It was a $1,100 deck back then. The sound was fantastic, I think this one had a 90 db s/n ratio. Twenty years ago when I got my first CD recorder in my PC, I switched to discs instead.
 
Photon440 said:
The sound was fantastic, I think this one had a 90 db s/n ratio.
Click to expand...
Yes! 90+dB s/n ratio is common for the format in the better players.
I have a D-VHS and it records 1s and 0s on a VHS tape. I also have a hard drive + DVD-R unit. The hard drive acts as a temporary storage device, making editing easy and recording to DVD unnecessary unless you want to keep a copy long term.
 
The best digital format that is relatively "available" to the consumer, but only for playback, no recording capabilities, in my opinion is SACD.(SuperAudioCompactDisc)
There's a decent library of artists and titles. I have a Sony ES SCAD single disc player that retailed back in 2004? for $3,000. I have other ones, and they can be WAY cheaper, but this particular model has a FireWire output that connects to a FireWire input on my ES receiver. The receiver has 7 Sony S-Master Pro digital amplifiers built in, so it is one of only a couple of combos that allow for the SACD digital signal to be output without conversion, all the way to right before it hits the speaker wire outputs.
SACD is one of the highest fidelity audio formats, that is an identical version of the original sound.
The HD audio available via computer and memory stick is a damn good format as well, and some downloads are available in SACD format too.
 
I have found that 128/44 mp3 is just fine for me.

I can barely hear a slight increase in fidelity at 192, but the space trade off isn't worth it unless it's something I really like. Anything over that I can't hear a noticeable difference.

This is coming from someone who used to be able to hear above 20K (I used Realistic "death star" tweeters that responded to 23K in my speaker builds), and used to have better than 20-20 vision and could see the square "pixels" in first gen LCD monitors..

Below 128 I can hear the "square" components of the digital waveform, though.
 
YY1 said:
I have found that 128/44 mp3 is just fine for me.

I can barely hear a slight increase in fidelity at 192, but the space trade off isn't worth it unless it's something I really like. Anything over that I can't hear a noticeable difference.

This is coming from someone who used to be able to hear above 20K (I used Realistic "death star" tweeters that responded to 23K in my speaker builds), and used to have better than 20-20 vision and could see the square "pixels" in first gen LCD monitors..

Below 128 I can hear the "square" components of the digital waveform, though.
Click to expand...
With storage costs so low now, I have terabytes of unused disk space so I save everything as FLAC and am not worried about using space. However, I still convert down to about 128 mp3 when I make compilations for the car so I get more songs and let the road noise mask any degraded quality.
 
I still have one, have it hooked up with a cabinet full of vinyl albums under it. However, I don't think I've used it in 10 years or more.
 
Lol, maybe 4 years ago I had to put a belt on my old Technics bottom feeder....
upload_2020-2-23_15-54-44.png



Last week I replaced the 5 (five) belts on this MX-235 cassette......

upload_2020-2-23_15-58-11.png


Thanks to :eek: Al Gore's amazing internet, a youtube video that played only music (no voice) with the video gave me the courage.
A PITA but it's working again.

upload_2020-2-23_16-12-59.png


upload_2020-2-23_16-4-19.png


upload_2020-2-23_16-7-13.png
 
That's the cassette deck I wanted before I got my Sony dual record, dual adjustable level, real time counter, remote controlled model.
 
This is the one I had before I got that Sony.

Not a bad deck for something from Radio Shack that a 16 year old could afford.

Made tapes that rivaled those done on much higher end equipment.

realistic sct-80.jpeg


That was a hard pic to find.

It checked off nearly all of the features I was looking for in a first deck-

Full logic controls
Auto reverse
Chrome tape bias
Separate L/R record levels
Dolby NR record

The weak point was the LED level indicators.
They were outdated even in 1984 didn't match the FL display on my receiver.
 
Last edited:
I had nicer HK stuff in the garage before I gave it to my son last time he was home. Pots and switches needed some attention.
It was a way to get rid of some "stuff" .....
upload_2020-2-24_11-40-14.png
 
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