I'm amazed. It still works.....

[electra225]

I've been hauling my records home from storage. The only record player I have in the house that MIGHT have a chance of working is in my old Symphony. I hadn't used the record player in at least a couple years. I probably halfway went thru the changer when I restored the electronics in 2012 or so. I removed the sales cover from the turntable and hit "go". It started turning. Then I stacked a mono Duane Eddy record, "Have Twangy Guitar-Will Travel" on Jamie onto the spindle and turned it to "auto". The tone arm came over, touched the edge of the record, dropped the record without stalling, and sat the tone arm on the leadin strip without dropping off the edge, or starting in the middle of the first song (or worse!). I was stunned. I only had one channel until I fiddled with the function switch, then all was well. The old record was not the nicest one in my collection, but it sounds pretty good. I reckon this proves you can't really ever kill a Magnavox.

Edit....I'm playing one of the Eddy Arnold records I haven't heard in probably 25 years. "Somebody Like Me" RCA Victor Dynagroove LSP-3715. This one is in stereo, and sounds pretty good. Not as much bass as I expected. Digitizing records sure cleans them up. This very moment is the first time I have played a record of any kind, for any reason, in almost two years, since I took my "Laboratory" apart. This could get to be addictive. I may put on a whole stack of records to see what happens. I may have a bug in the old Symphony someplace. I need to run the volume control significantly more advanced in "Stereo" mode than in FM or Tape to get the same volume. Maybe a 6EU7? Or a dirty connection?

[Motorola minion]

Playing records is a bit more labor intensive than streaming but the entertainment value got me motivated in the shop. Even when I serviced a cheaper unit like a BSR, etc., playing a record on it afterward and having it behave is its own reward. I got immense satisfaction from playing my "shop-worn" records to test a customer's finished unit.
This often was to see just how bad a record could be and still play so you could tolerate it!

Some of the worst players I have ever serviced had been used regularly for years, never serviced but limped along, then left dormant for decades. Besides fixing all those original issues, you have to unfreeze everything else that needs to move or rotate. The best players may have been used lightly but regularly (every year?) serviced before their ultimate retirement.

[William]

Congrats on playing a record, Greg. To me, there is nothing like it. And, our old vintage consoles really do records justice. I played a variety of records today on the Imperial and enjoyed every one of them. Everyone, keep spinning those records and enjoying your consoles with the music that brings you pleasure.

Bill

[electra225]

I was saving my "good records" to play on special occasions and only on "modern" (mid-1970's !) equipment with their accurate tracking and lightweight tone arm. What am I saving them for? When I go, they end up in the dumpster. I am going to process them to digital, then use them as I wish and enjoy them. If they get noisy or scratched, they can go to the dumpster in less than prime condition, so who cares? I put a stack on the Symphony and it played them all, both sides, then shut off after the last record, just like it's supposed to work. And, yes, Bill, I do intend to enjoy the records again.

[chazglenn3]

The whole reason I got into consoles was to get back into vinyl. I didn't have any albums when I got the console, but I've been building a new collection slowly. An ad on the company classifieds for a free Zenith started the obsession. Of the four consoles I have kept, the Concert Grand and Zenith YT-960 both play the radio and turntables fine. The Sylvania had the amplifier recapped but now needs the tuner/pre-amp done and the Dual 1009 needs to be serviced. The Fisher is the worse of the bunch, needing everything done including cabinet work. But it was free!

[TC Chris]

I was saving my "good records" to play on special occasions and only on "modern" (mid-1970's !) equipment with their accurate tracking and lightweight tone arm. What am I saving them for? When I go, they end up in the dumpster.

Don't forget that there is a big vinyl resurgence right now. Pre-pandemic, I'd go to thrift shops and annual library sales and look for LPs. In the town where my Chevy lives there's a used-recordings shop, mostly rock and mostly LPs. I've been donating old vinyl that's way outside my taste range, stuff from the 1950s and early 60s in the "easy listening" genre (think Mantovani). But then I go over and pick a few LPs to buy. (94 cents each for the kind I buy; last time they were on sale at half price). Some of them are in really good condition and when I get one of those, 'm always grateful for the previous owner who passed on this gift of a good-sounding record. For lots of stuff were not really owners; we're just temporary custodians.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

I love the fact that my DuMont console has a working Garrard. In the 80s after I got a Yamaha CD player around 1983, due to some moves I gave away some of my LPs (they're heavy!) saving only my favorites, thank heaven I didn't get rid of all of them. A lot of classic-classical, avant-garde classical, all the way to Velvet Underground, early Bowie, Hendrix, classic rock, prog rock like Yes, ELO, to Motown, blues, old classic country etc, you name it, my taste is extremely catholic in the "small c" sense.

Lately I've picked up some more LPs at yard sales, taking whatever I come across, listening to it all at least once, and oddly I find that I now do like some of my folks old "easy listening" and Tiki stuff: Martin Denny, Ferrante & Teicher, Enoch Light, Percy Faith, Mitch Miller, Les Baxter, and yes, even Mantovani (great string section! his version of "Summertime" is great), in addition to more well-recognized period stuff like Nat Cole, Johnny Mathis, Peggy Lee etc etc. I guess it's the nostalgia of remembering my folks listening to that stuff all the time. I made fun of it for years, and yes, it's corny at times, but a lot of it has excellent musicianship, and I can appreciate it for what it is, much is very professionally done, Lawrence Welk is just one example of many. It may be nostalgia, a place where I find myself more and more as I get older. but somehow it warms the cockles of my heart. My philosophy is that when it comes to music, as the Duke famously said "if it sounds good it is good", and to me it's mostly all good... (mostly... I draw the line at Death Metal and thug-rap, that stuff DOESN'T sound good!).

Lately I've been seeing a lot of console coming with record collections included... win-win!

[Firedome]

BTW I have a bunch of 30s/40s sheet music from my late uncle, maybe 25? many well known classics, if anyone wants them it's free to you for USPS Media Mail postage... first dibs gets it.

[electra225]

There may be a resurgence in "vinyl", but there is not a resurgence in something to play them on. The stuff you can buy new isn't worth hauling home. The general public can't get a period machine serviced, and don't want something "old" hanging around. It has to have Bluetooth. I don't see the music we enjoy ever being popular again. Most people under 50 have never heard of Lawrence Welk. They never sang "Polly Wolly Doodle" or "Wait For The Wagon" in music class. Many schools don't teach grade school music anymore. Mr. Harris taught us to identify the artist within the first three bars of the song. We had to know all the big band leaders, the instruments they played, and their theme songs. We had to be able to instantly identify LW, Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, Billy Vaughn, and those guys. We had to know about all the more famous country artists. We had to know the classical composers. Mr. Harris was not much on classical, so we didn't play a lot of classical, even the concert band.

I never learned to appreciate much of the more modern rock music, and certainly not the heavy metal and grunge material. Modern top-40 country is almost as bad. BTW, "vinyl" isn't really what records are made of, is it? I thought they were poly-something. Polystyrene, maybe?

[TC Chris]

There may be a resurgence in "vinyl", but there is not a resurgence in something to play them on.

Not true. Today's NYT "Wirecutter" feature was on recommended turntables. Imagine that. They had to explain that depending on your equipment, you may need a preamp (a sidebar explained what a preamp is, and a cartridge, and a tonearm), and identified some products with built-in preamps. They also looked at one of those Crosley portables (agreed that it was beyond crummy). The current problem with LPs is that there aren't enough pressing machines to meet market demand. It has become very cool to release your recording on vinyl, but Wal Mart and Amazon are buying in such quantities that smaller artists can't get their stuff pressed. I think I've read that LPs exceeded CDs in dollar sales last year--or was it in number of discs? In any event, there's an active and growing market for new LPs and for new turntables.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I'm sorry. I'm not going to pay $30 for a reprint of Beach Boys tunes from the 1960's. You can have all the turntables and vinyls you want, you still have to own an amp and speakers to hear music. To rephrase my statement, they don't make anything today that is as good as the stuff I have had and used for over 40 years.

[TC Chris]

The new turntables are pretty good--speed-accurate, light-tracking, repairable, rumble-free over modern speakers with good low-frequency response, good performance via quality cartridges, etc. The piece I saw today in the NYT was actually published originally in the summer. Here's a link:
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/revi ... turntable/

My daily driver is an entry-level Harman-Kardon from the '80s or a Marantz from the '70s. Both are belt drive. I should revive the Dual 1019 and 1009.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

There's plenty of excellent new turntables from about $150-200 to inifinity from Audio Technica and others. Many out there want new but luckily nobody here has to buy new stuff, we like to play with what we grew up with! Anything new from $200 up will be at least as good as anything that came in a console and will be far gentler on records.

IIRC from organic chemistry courses 50 yrs ago LPs are vinyl chloride acetate, more commonly known as polyvinyl chloride.
I recall making it in the lab as a precursor to something else, I forget what.

I've seen new LPs for around $16 and up and have no problem with that if I can't find a good used one. But one good thing about liking a lot of the music that most like here, the good stuff from the '30s to '60s, is that the market isn't all that hot for it so it can still be had used quite cheaply!

I have Garrard AT6 in the console that works great, a Garrard 50 in the "office", and Dual 1009 and Phillips 212 for when I want safer tracking for particularly beloved LPs. Even with my old ears the difference between a good LP and CD is still very evident.

[electra225]

I bragged too quick! I jinxed it!

The changer brings the tone arm back to rest after the last record, but it won't shut the stereo down. Sometimes it will, sometimes not. Drat....

Otherwise, it's beautiful.