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izationalizer posted:Also, serious question about mono/stereo: My stereo preamp can switch to mono mode. I never use it when spinning mono records; I've always figured that the sound will come out mono anyway. The question is, why have a mono mode at all? Did some people just not like the stereo sound, and wanted to fold it down? I used to have a receiver that had a mono option, too. The main use for that mono switch on a receiver is making weak-signal FM listenable. Stereo FM is transmitted as Sum and Difference signals which are then decoded: when you hit the mono switch only the Sum signal is played. This signal to noise ratio of the stereo signal is a lot worse. Car radios automatically switch to mono when the signal is weak these days. It's pretty obvious if you listen to a weak station as you'll hear it switch between lots of white noise, to clear, to noise, to clear, etc. Smarter radios decrease the stereo separation so the transition isn't as jarring. Your preamp probably has the switch to eliminate distracting stereo noises. If you can set up your environment "correctly" when you play a mono source over a pair of speakers you'll hear a "phantom center speaker." It's a neat audio illusion and the normal noises associated with record listening diminish the "with my eyes closed it totally sounds like I've got a center speaker!" effect. Mono switches are great when you're working on speaker placement and in particular, toe-in. I've got a strong preference for near field listening and getting the speakers spaced and pointed right makes all the difference in the world.
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# ? Jun 19, 2014 21:54 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 17:18 |
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MisterOblivious posted:The main use for that mono switch on a receiver is making weak-signal FM listenable. Stereo FM is transmitted as Sum and Difference signals which are then decoded: when you hit the mono switch only the Sum signal is played. This signal to noise ratio of the stereo signal is a lot worse. Car radios automatically switch to mono when the signal is weak these days. It's pretty obvious if you listen to a weak station as you'll hear it switch between lots of white noise, to clear, to noise, to clear, etc. Smarter radios decrease the stereo separation so the transition isn't as jarring. This answer is thorough and interesting beyond my wildest dreams. Thanks!
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# ? Jun 20, 2014 13:31 |
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Holy poo poo. brb gonna go sell off my firstborn.
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# ? Jun 21, 2014 00:06 |
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Ballz posted:
I hope when I die my family can live eat off my unfinished works forever.
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# ? Jun 21, 2014 00:12 |
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So there are some crazy sales going on right now. Newbury Comics is doing 25% off the entire store, which is great because it pushes 90% of their stock down to manageable levels. More importantly, if you can stand the filthy hipsterdom, Urban Outfitters is doing a massive purge of their older vinyl stock to make room for the 100,000 copies of Lana Del Rey they just bought. A bunch of stuff that ranges between $25 and $35 normally is marked down to $10. I picked up the latest Sleigh Bells, Franz Ferdinand and Neko Case records today, and barely avoided grabbing Come On Pilgrim by Pixies, Stay Positive by Hold Steady and Master of My Make Believe by Santigold just to not completely murder my budget. Selection varies by store, but whatever stuff they thought 20-somethings would like that 20-somethings didn't actually like (saw a lot of De La Soul) is marked the hell down. CRINDY fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Jun 21, 2014 |
# ? Jun 21, 2014 02:02 |
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rudolfsadder posted:I hope when I die my family can live eat off my unfinished works forever. They call this technique "Hendrix Familying".
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# ? Jun 21, 2014 03:54 |
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Had a pretty good haul of dad rock 45s today at the local Goodwill. I picked up all of these for $21: Styx- Come Sail Away Pat Benatar- Love is a Battlefield Tracy Chapman- Fast Car Eddie Murphy- Party All the Time Van Morrison- Moondance Kansas- Dust in the Wind Eric Clapton- Wonderful Tonight John Cougar Mellencamp- Jack and Diane John Cougar Mellencamp- Hurts so Good Elton John- Take Me to the Pilot/ Your Song Billy Joel- Only the Good Die Young The Animals- House of the Rising Sun Nena- 99 Red Balloons Carly Simon- You're so Vain Johnny Nash- I can See Clearly Now Ray Stevens- Yakety Yak ELO- Evil Woman Men at Work- Down Under Loverboy- Working for the Weekend Berlin- Take my Breath Away UB40- Red Red Wine Dead or Alive- You spin me Round (like a Record)
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# ? Jun 21, 2014 04:26 |
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CPL593H posted:They call this technique "Hendrix Familying". As far as I know, that's the last of original Jimi Hendrix material that isn't released yet
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# ? Jun 21, 2014 14:54 |
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LooksLikeABabyRat posted:Had a pretty good haul of dad rock 45s today at the local Goodwill. I picked up all of these for $21: I like your taste.
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# ? Jun 21, 2014 22:17 |
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CPL593H posted:They call this technique "Hendrix Familying". It's better than the family just living of reissues of their existing releases. Let's face it, nothing better is going to come out of those tapes.
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# ? Jun 21, 2014 22:21 |
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Mail call! Nice! Oh, come the gently caress on. Welp, I guess that's what I get for buying a thing off ebay, spine split from edge to edge and obvious gouges.
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# ? Jun 21, 2014 23:19 |
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Allen Wren posted:Mail call! Should've went with discogs
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# ? Jun 22, 2014 02:57 |
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Cemetry Gator posted:You can get a double-y chord, which will take the stereo signal and sum it to mono for you. This is super helpful, thanks! (After researching further I have come to realize that my question was dumb and everyone was right to mock me for it; I read something over on the Steve Hoffman forum about how you ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MUST gently caress around with your rig if you want mono records to sound right and figured I should ask the thread how to proceed since y'all have never steered me wrong in the past, but in retrospect I should have probably just kept reading. Oh well.)
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# ? Jun 22, 2014 10:10 |
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Maybe someone smarter than me can answer this. In discogs, you go in and hit the what's my collection worth button, and you notice it's jumped $100 bucks or something. Is there an easy way to sort by transaction so you can see what caused the jump? I know it hardly means anything, but I'm always curious.
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# ? Jun 22, 2014 12:17 |
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BigFactory posted:Maybe someone smarter than me can answer this. In discogs, you go in and hit the what's my collection worth button, and you notice it's jumped $100 bucks or something. Is there an easy way to sort by transaction so you can see what caused the jump? I know it hardly means anything, but I'm always curious. I don't think there's a way to do it, but I'm dying for that too. I'd even like to get alerts when something in my collection sells over a certain price. They really need to gamify the whole thing.
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# ? Jun 22, 2014 13:24 |
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trdn89 posted:(After researching further I have come to realize that my question was dumb and everyone was right to mock me for it; I read something over on the Steve Hoffman forum about how you ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MUST gently caress around with your rig if you want mono records to sound right and figured I should ask the thread how to proceed since y'all have never steered me wrong in the past, but in retrospect I should have probably just kept reading. Oh well.) There's your first mistake - going to the Steve Hoffman forums for advice on how to listen to music. If SA seems spergy, then I don't know how to describe the Hoffman forums at times. Like, it's alright to find out about new records or interesting reissues or poo poo like that. And there's sometimes interesting conversations on the music and stuff that gets into the facts about stuff. But it quickly devolves from there. You got one guy who constantly posts about Amy Grant. Want to know if an Amy Grant CD is up to audiophile quality? That guy knows. If he can mention Amy Grant, he will. I never knew that Amy Grant could inspire such fandom in people. I mean, sure, she had some catchy pop-songs, and if you listen to her Christian music, I'm guessing she's better than most, but still. Any threads about the Beatles and mono will end up with people getting into arguments about how much they prefer stereo. Also, now, there are people obsessing about AAA mastering and making sure that their records aren't digitally sourced, because they can tell the difference! They're so obsessed with AAA that they'll hunt down analog mastered cassettes just because they might sound better. Every conversation about a release must include a "Dynamic Range Number," and god help you if they dub it to be too low. Of course, don't worry. These guys will help direct you to a West German or Japanese pressing from the 1980s of this album on CD that totally has such amazing mastering that it sounds like the person is in the room with you. They even found the 2009 stereo remasters of the Beatles to be too loud and too compressed, because they used a little bit of peak limiting. And don't worry, if you love Time Life collections, but wish you could have them in an audiophile mastering, they actually have you covered. Audiophiles can be such fun sometimes.
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# ? Jun 22, 2014 14:40 |
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izationalizer fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jun 22, 2014 |
# ? Jun 22, 2014 16:20 |
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A couple more $1 specials. I've ended up with a bunch of Afrika Bambaataa records over the years from thrift shop/street buys so figured I should pick this one up too. It's a pretty good early 80s electro track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO8c0ajw-do And this old nyc disco record just looks ridiculous. Might make a good gift. Snowy fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jun 22, 2014 |
# ? Jun 22, 2014 19:17 |
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izationalizer posted:
Does this album usually go that high? I got mine a few years back for ten bucks in a record store.I didn't think US pressing of any 70s Bowie album were in short supply.
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# ? Jun 22, 2014 21:19 |
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CPL593H posted:Does this album usually go that high? I got mine a few years back for ten bucks in a record store.I didn't think US pressing of any 70s Bowie album were in short supply. I didn't think so, either, but I checked eBay's completed listings, and yeah, $20 is somewhat on the lower end. I saw a couple (out of many) that ended for a little under $20 (I think one when for ~$15), but if course, if you wanted it, you'd have to bid it up higher than that. *checking again now*: Yeah, no less than three BINs sold for $30, so I guess $19.50 is a fair price these days. I got my OG US copy for $4 in a record store ~10 years ago, and my OG UK copy on eBay for like $12 ~8 years ago. The demand continues to make ground on the supply, I suppose.
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# ? Jun 22, 2014 22:04 |
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Cemetry Gator posted:There's your first mistake - going to the Steve Hoffman forums for advice on how to listen to music. If SA seems spergy, then I don't know how to describe the Hoffman forums at times. Like, it's alright to find out about new records or interesting reissues or poo poo like that. And there's sometimes interesting conversations on the music and stuff that gets into the facts about stuff. But it quickly devolves from there. I can't argue with any of this, but SHTV does have its moments of utility. Some folks over there actually do know good music; threads over there directly led to Arnold's Hillside, Velvet Crush's Teenage Symphonies To God, Mary Margaret O'Hara's Miss America, and a bunch of other great albums living on my shelves now and forever. It's also a very useful resource if you want to sperg out and find the best possible pressing of a record; I would never have known to seek out the Horzu pressing of Magical Mystery Tour or Bob Ludwig's cut of The Stranger (haters can eat a dick, I love this album). Besides, all the Amy Grant frothing in the world could never make SHTV more risible than that Hot Stampers site.
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# ? Jun 22, 2014 23:56 |
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trdn89 posted:I can't argue with any of this, but SHTV does have its moments of utility. Some folks over there actually do know good music; threads over there directly led to Arnold's Hillside, Velvet Crush's Teenage Symphonies To God, Mary Margaret O'Hara's Miss America, and a bunch of other great albums living on my shelves now and forever. It's also a very useful resource if you want to sperg out and find the best possible pressing of a record; I would never have known to seek out the Horzu pressing of Magical Mystery Tour or Bob Ludwig's cut of The Stranger (haters can eat a dick, I love this album). I only listen to Amy Grant from a white hot stamper. That's the only way to hear her praise the Lord.
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# ? Jun 23, 2014 00:08 |
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izationalizer posted:I didn't think so, either, but I checked eBay's completed listings, and yeah, $20 is somewhat on the lower end. I saw a couple (out of many) that ended for a little under $20 (I think one when for ~$15), but if course, if you wanted it, you'd have to bid it up higher than that. *checking again now*: Yeah, no less than three BINs sold for $30, so I guess $19.50 is a fair price these days. I'm pretty sure I have the orange label one if that makes any difference.
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# ? Jun 23, 2014 01:29 |
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trdn89 posted:I can't argue with any of this, but SHTV does have its moments of utility. Some folks over there actually do know good music; threads over there directly led to Arnold's Hillside, Velvet Crush's Teenage Symphonies To God, Mary Margaret O'Hara's Miss America, and a bunch of other great albums living on my shelves now and forever. It's also a very useful resource if you want to sperg out and find the best possible pressing of a record; I would never have known to seek out the Horzu pressing of Magical Mystery Tour or Bob Ludwig's cut of The Stranger (haters can eat a dick, I love this album). Oh wow, thanks for this, Velvet Crush owns.
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# ? Jun 23, 2014 02:25 |
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So many new garbage records to post about. Like almost too many. The forums breaking gets you all off the hook.
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# ? Jun 26, 2014 02:17 |
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CPL593H posted:I'm pretty sure I have the orange label one if that makes any difference. And I'm pretty sure that that's the first pressing, so I'd say you scored for . And speaking of sperging out re: which pressing(s) sound the best, I actually prefer my US copy of "Low" to my UK copy. The US is probably a bit too bright, but the UK copy just sounds dull to me, and I've heard other people say the same thing... on the SHTV forums. I agree with trdn89 about SHTV's moments of utility, too. I've certainly bought records based on the consensuses over there, and I've been pleased with the results. I don't peruse the forums, though; I just run searches based on what I'm curious about.
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# ? Jun 26, 2014 13:58 |
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The Disintegration Loops boxset arrived absolutely pristine. I can't even tell what damage there was supposed to be. Totally worth it. BRB, spending the next 6 hours listening to slowly decaying tape loops.
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# ? Jun 26, 2014 15:01 |
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izationalizer posted:And I'm pretty sure that that's the first pressing, so I'd say you scored for . I have Bowie albums from all over the place (US, UK, Japan, Aus), and they all sound loving great. RCA obviously knew their poo poo. I guess Bowie fans all took really good care of their records too because all the ones I've bought have been pristine
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# ? Jun 26, 2014 15:51 |
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kirkjames posted:The Disintegration Loops boxset arrived absolutely pristine. I can't even tell what damage there was supposed to be. Totally worth it. BRB, spending the next 6 hours listening to slowly decaying tape loops. Mine is pretty much pristine, too. That was truly an amazing deal. Also: I'm torn, you guys. Every record I own has been played multiple times, even my rarest/most expensive ones. Like most of you, I'm a firm believer that these things are meant to be spun. But this copy of Simply Saucer's "Reckless Agitation" 7" (Logan Hardware, 2013) is so drat cool that I'm hesitant to open it. It's packaged like a classic toy, and it comes with a frisbee! My wife thinks I should leave it sealed, and perhaps hang it on a wall somewhere. What do you think? EDIT: I think I'm just gonna order another copy. Problem solved! izationalizer fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Jun 26, 2014 |
# ? Jun 26, 2014 16:59 |
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kirkjames posted:The Disintegration Loops boxset arrived absolutely pristine. I can't even tell what damage there was supposed to be. Totally worth it. BRB, spending the next 6 hours listening to slowly decaying tape loops. Mine has like the smallest dent in the world. It really was an insane deal.
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# ? Jun 26, 2014 18:17 |
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Is that any good? I absolutely love the old Simply Saucer stuff, but Half Human/Half Live (or whatever it's called) just didn't have the magic.
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# ? Jun 26, 2014 20:15 |
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chime_on posted:Is that any good? I absolutely love the old Simply Saucer stuff, but Half Human/Half Live (or whatever it's called) just didn't have the magic. I like it a lot. It doesn't have any all-out psychedelic freakouts (i.e., nothing like "Illegal Bodies"), but it's still pretty cool. I also uploaded two of the songs to YouTube today, so you can listen for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFv7jyF7YYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_mfqPlpCjA
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# ? Jun 26, 2014 20:18 |
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izationalizer fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jun 26, 2014 |
# ? Jun 26, 2014 20:25 |
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izationalizer posted:
Yoinked.
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# ? Jun 26, 2014 21:01 |
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izationalizer posted:Mine is pretty much pristine, too. That was truly an amazing deal. These are pretty cool. I love silly gimmicks like that.
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# ? Jun 27, 2014 01:33 |
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So yeah, you should probably go to Urban Outfitters. $9.99 a piece: The Shins - Chutes too Narrow Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted Elliott Smith - XO Superchunk - I Hate Music De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising YMMV obviously, but the one by me is in a huge and well-trafficked mall; they had a ton left.
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# ? Jun 27, 2014 02:53 |
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Better head on down to urban and pickup the new major lazer vinyl before it sells out
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# ? Jun 27, 2014 14:18 |
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b0red posted:Better head on down to urban and pickup the new major lazer vinyl before it sells out Praise be unto our lord God, Lana Del Rey, for causing a bunch of indie rock records to be heavily discounted.
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# ? Jun 27, 2014 14:43 |
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Beyond the Black Rainbow was just announced by Death Waltz/Jagjaguar for a September release. It's already available for pre-order in the US via Jagjaguar.
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# ? Jun 27, 2014 16:57 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 17:18 |
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I think people in Austin are hip enough to buy good records but not too hip to shop at Urban Outfitters because all that was left at the downtown store that was decent were a bunch of Pavement albums, which, don't lynch me but I don't like Pavement too much.
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# ? Jun 27, 2014 19:23 |