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Ok Comboomer posted:I hope you guys made a DD table No but most of the big improvements involve the motor, belt and pulley system variable speed power switch, single groove pulley, new belt material, new motor mount, grooved platter so the belt doesnt ride up anymore, etc
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Aug 1, 2023 19:24
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A Bad King posted:Whoops. Should have included that! For $400, your best value will definitely be used. Oh, by preamp I didn't mean the phono preamp, I meant a stereo preamp to control the volume of the amplifier with a knob and/or remote and manage the sources. Do you already have one that you didn't mention? Because that Belles 150A looks to be just a power amplifier that needs a preamp to control it. Those stands are totally fine. If they can easily be filled with sand, that might give you some minor improvement, in tip-over stability if nothing else. As for speaker recs, what's your country/region? We can do a little perusing on usaudiomart.com/elsewhere and find some good options
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Aug 1, 2023 20:21
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Mederlock posted:For $400, your best value will definitely be used. I have a "passive" preamp with a potentiometer and a A/B switch the friend made from pine and a hobby board, and RCA ports. It's good, I think? The volume dial is one of those wafer potentiometers the Navy used in 1970s era electronics that clicks nicely, and the switch is a heavy toggle that slams up and down satisfyingly, and it sits with lead weights inside making it stay put. It's painted black, probably with acrylic. There's no remote for it, it's very homespun. I'm in the Midwest USA, Chicagoland. You're sure there are bookshelves that can be powered by this? It's kind of nuts. It gets very warm. To me it's like an ape strength power source. I'm not an audio equipment knower, I was using a stereo Class D amp for my bookshelves before.
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Aug 1, 2023 20:43
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Ok Comboomer posted:I hope you guys made a DD table I wonder if we will ever get a new linear tracking turntable.
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Aug 2, 2023 00:15
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SerCypher posted:I wonder if we will ever get a new linear tracking turntable. goon project 
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Aug 2, 2023 01:02
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Grovertable
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Aug 2, 2023 04:37
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Man some modern vinyl just has some real poo poo transfers. One disk I have just has terrible surface noise, so much so I thought there was something wrong with my turntable or my amp or headphones or something. Nope, just a really lovely disk, sort of unfortunate there is no way to know without playing it. C'est la vie.
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Aug 8, 2023 19:57
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SerCypher posted:Man some modern vinyl just has some real poo poo transfers. Yeah. The quality of pressings really vary from plant to plant too. The worst offender I have is the copy of Stone Temple Pilots - Purple. It sounds so bad out of the package and cleaned that I thought there was an issue with my stylus. Side 1 is bad and Side 2 is even worse to the point where I stopped it because I was worried it was going to damage my stylus. US stuff from RTI almost universally sounds good and MOV pressings from Europe likewise. For newer stuff you have to basically do homework before you buy anything anymore. Granted that doesn’t work when you are buying stuff that is being repressed for the first time maybe ever. Luckily I have been pretty lucky with that so far.
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Aug 8, 2023 22:00
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Yeah I check Discogs and other audio nerd forums for reports on pressing quality before I waste my money on new vinyl releases. E: This one's probably my favourite newish LP, it's a 45 RPM 12" by TWRP.  
Mederlock fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Aug 8, 2023 |
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Aug 8, 2023 22:39
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Mederlock posted:Yeah I check Discogs and other audio nerd forums for reports on pressing quality before I waste my money on new vinyl releases. the problem with this and boutique records is you either pre-order it or pay 300% markup on the secondary market.
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Aug 8, 2023 23:49
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HKR posted:the problem with this and boutique records is you either pre-order it or pay 300% markup on the secondary market. Yup. So much stuff sells out immediately on pre-order now too. I am lucky that I haven’t had too many issues with pressings at least but I have missed out on a lot of stuff I have wanted just because it sells out so quickly. You compare that to even 5 years ago where you could easily get something after release for retail. I have missed out on stuff I was waiting on just because I figured it was always going to be there and one day it dried up to never come again seemingly. I have been increasingly been going after cheap old vinyl lately and CDs. I will say it again right now is the time to get a good CD player or two and buy up all the CDs you’d want while you can get them dirt cheap. Neither are going to last.
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Aug 9, 2023 00:25
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Djarum posted:Yup. So much stuff sells out immediately on pre-order now too. I am lucky that I haven’t had too many issues with pressings at least but I have missed out on a lot of stuff I have wanted just because it sells out so quickly. You compare that to even 5 years ago where you could easily get something after release for retail. I have missed out on stuff I was waiting on just because I figured it was always going to be there and one day it dried up to never come again seemingly. How long do CDs actually last though. Will a CD from 1990 still play? I always hear stuff about disc rot but I don't have any old CDs to test.
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Aug 9, 2023 18:36
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I bought my first CD player in 1989, and the discs I picked up along with it still play just fine. I do have some old laser discs that are unplayable due to laser rot though.
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Aug 9, 2023 18:51
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SerCypher posted:How long do CDs actually last though. Honestly I have not had disc rot problems with pressed audio CDs. I have seen it more in data CDs and especially in burnt CDs. As long as stuff is stored decently you shouldn’t have much problems with it. Anything that would have issues with disc rot, which mostly comes from bad lamination formulation from what I understand, would have died already. For the most part anything that is good now should be good indefinitely. I’d still keep them away from heat and UV light for extended periods of time but it hasn’t been a major concern in anything I have.
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Aug 9, 2023 19:10
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Djarum posted:Honestly I have not had disc rot problems with pressed audio CDs. I have seen it more in data CDs and especially in burnt CDs. As long as stuff is stored decently you shouldn’t have much problems with it. Anything that would have issues with disc rot, which mostly comes from bad lamination formulation from what I understand, would have died already. For the most part anything that is good now should be good indefinitely. I’d still keep them away from heat and UV light for extended periods of time but it hasn’t been a major concern in anything I have. Cool, good to know. I doubt I'll get back into CDs, but I might dabble here or there. The thing I like about vinyl is you don't really have to do a lot of upkeep or worry about them. You can be pretty confident you'll get something out of them after pulling them out of the attic they've been in for 40 years. It won't sound as good but it will be listenable. Sounds like the concerns over disc rot are a bit overblown though. Still you probably wouldn't want to rely on a burned disk long term for anything important.
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Aug 9, 2023 19:16
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SerCypher posted:Cool, good to know. I doubt I'll get back into CDs, but I might dabble here or there. Well anything that would damage vinyl would also damage a CD or compact cassette for that matter. Heat is probably the number one thing that will kill media, followed by mold. UV light is probably the third. I have a decent amount of stuff here that was pressed in the 80s and early 90s that is as good as the day it was made. In my experience you are most likely to run into moldy stuff from things pressed in the 80s. I have seen a ton of vinyl, CDs and tapes that have been completely destroyed by mold. You saw this even a few years after they were made. The original CD pressings of the Beatles are notorious for this as a good example. But really if something makes it 10 years or so it should last another 70 with little issue.
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Aug 9, 2023 19:55
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Once I started buying decent CD players with Sony and Philips-based mechanisms, decades old discs that I thought were rotten and scratched beyond hope played perfectly fine. Most CD players are fairly simple mechanically and electronically too, and easy to service. It will still be a long time before there is any serious danger of the technology dying out.
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Aug 10, 2023 19:07
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By the way how can you tell if your stylus is worn out on a record player. I have a lot of old noisy second hand records, so I am not never really sure if it's stylus wear or just a banged up disk. Can you look at it? Or does it sound a certain way?
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Aug 10, 2023 19:34
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ferroque posted:No but most of the big improvements involve the motor, belt and pulley system variable speed power switch, single groove pulley, new belt material, new motor mount, grooved platter so the belt doesnt ride up anymore, etc https://uturnaudio.com/products/orbit-theory-turntable is this it? or is there another TT on the way? I appreciate the more premium materials, components, and design, and have always appreciated the fact that UTurn is here in Woburn and the manufacturing is all relatively local, etc. But at $1000 I'm still gonna get a Technics 1200, which I appreciate is a radically different kind of turntable for a different kind of customer. But like on the "belt and clear platter" side we've got Rega and a few others. What does this do better than Rega, which has been the industry standard here for like 30+ years? Does this offer better value for less money? Is that provable? You can get a Planar 3 from anywhere from $899 to $1699, which is a pretty big swing. the original Orbit had a very clear value proposition, which was its cost relative to its customization options, performance, and local manufacture. At $1000 I worry that the Orbit Theory struggles for real purpose, and just exists to tick the box of "what if we made a more expensive turntable?" Sorry if that comes off as lovely, but you've been teasing a "big thing" for a bit here now, and I'm a bit stymied if this is it. Like Schiit (briefly) made a premium turntable that was both cheaper and way weirder than this.
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Aug 10, 2023 19:51
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SerCypher posted:By the way how can you tell if your stylus is worn out on a record player. Best thing to do is grab a cheap USB microscope and take a look at it. There are plenty of pictures online that can show you what new and worn looks like. Really though as long as you clean it regularly you should get 2-3000 hours of play before you have issues.
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Aug 10, 2023 19:57
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SerCypher posted:By the way how can you tell if your stylus is worn out on a record player. Also, pick up an inexpensive stylus cleaner with an integral brush(it'll be like a nail polish bottle basically) and give it a clean first. And then clean all yer old records too, for good measure. At least the ones you listen to a lot. I got a spinclean because they were on a decent sale , and homebrew my own cleaning solution because their product is  prices. I try to do a batch of vinyl here and there, and it makes a reasonable difference in noises and surface sounds if they are old and crusty. You don't need an expensive machine either, there's more basic methods too.
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Aug 10, 2023 20:08
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Thank you for the answers. I don't have a stylus brush, but I do have one of those silicone record roller things and i poke the needle onto it every so often to clean it. Looks like they make custom silicone domes for the same purpose, but it appears to be the same material.
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Aug 10, 2023 21:09
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That doesn't really do much to clean it if you've been playing dirty old records. A stylus brush with cleaner will use solvents to dissolve gunk and the brush wipes it away. Pushing it into some rubber isn't going to do much. Those roller brushes are really only good for pulling off some amount of hair and loose dirt on already clean records. It doesn't remove oils, finger goo, smaller particles of dust and debris embedded in the goo in the tiny record grooves, etc, etc. You need soap and water and some sort of cloth/brush to clean it properly, and only needs to be done very, very infrequently. Old records are usually nasty AF so it's worth cleaning them as you buy them in batches. Your stylus will last longer and the records will sound better. I find the conductive carbon fiber record brushes do a better job of brushing off the hair and dust and whatnot and do help a little with static if you hold something grounded while you use it.
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Aug 10, 2023 21:33
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just cue the stylus into a piece of magic eraser a couple of times. iirc people with microscopes have confirmed that this does as good a job at cleaning as anything else you can buy You have to be very careful brushing the stylus, cantilevers are extremely easy to bend
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Aug 10, 2023 21:43
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large hands posted:just cue the stylus into a piece of magic eraser a couple of times. iirc people with microscopes have confirmed that this does as good a job at cleaning as anything else you can buy Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that trick
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Aug 10, 2023 23:00
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Ok Comboomer posted:https://uturnaudio.com/products/orbit-theory-turntable Nope, that's our fancy expensive impractical one The upgrades to regular Orbit are basically a lot of the things that we learned on Theory being applied to the base model orbit but without the crazy extravagant stuff - basically the improved motor and belt assembly, new tonearm and improved platter. So the price will still be pretty reasonable, I've been told. new model is launching late august ferroque fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 00:13
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ferroque posted:Nope, that's our fancy expensive impractical one That's really good to hear. I have a few possible spots for a $200-500 turntable that's also pretty to look at, and I've always had Uturn vaguely in mind as a possible contender, having lived with ProJects and AT in the past.
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Aug 12, 2023 00:20
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does anyone here have experience with graphic EQs? I've got this Technics SH 8044 and the display is a bit dodgy. when it displays properly it's fine but it is always falling back to what looks like really low levels. gently tapping on it often brings it back up to where it should be  is this likely to just be a dodgy solder or something?https://i.imgur.com/G25YZ4e.mp4
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Aug 15, 2023 09:44
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strap on revenge posted:does anyone here have experience with graphic EQs? I've got this Technics SH 8044 and the display is a bit dodgy. when it displays properly it's fine but it is always falling back to what looks like really low levels. gently tapping on it often brings it back up to where it should be Yeah the solder joints would be what I look at first. The display itself looks bright still so that itself should be fine. I'd do a quick reflow on the connections and it should clear that up.
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Aug 15, 2023 15:17
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I have a turntable that I've never really heard of but I think it's ok, I'd mostly like a gut check to make sure it's not eating my records alive. It's a Bic micro 350. I bought it because it's got a (lovely rubber) counterweight on the tone arm, it's got the light on the record plate so you can see if it's tracking correctly, and it's got anti skate so the needle ought to be resting in the middle of the groove. Also it was eleven dollars plus a new needle. Any of you guys know anything about these? Anything catastrophic I need to know about? The only other turntable I've ever really worked with was the Sansui that my dad has had since before I was born and all of the essential features of his are obviously a lot nicer, but my understanding is that as long as I have an okay counterweight I can at least listen to my records without thrashing em. If I'm off base there please just tell me which turntable I should buy to replace this mess. here are some pictures:  
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Aug 16, 2023 02:58
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Stalizard posted:I have a turntable that I've never really heard of but I think it's ok, I'd mostly like a gut check to make sure it's not eating my records alive. Have you ever calibrated the counterweight? The numbers its showing aren't necessarily accurate unless you've calibrated it at 0.
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Aug 16, 2023 23:50
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Stalizard posted:
History-wise, no relation to the pens. BIC was originally short for British Industries Corporation, and was the American importer for Garrard. I believe when Garrard was sold to Gradiente from Plessey in the late 70s, they threw all their deals to the curb so they could direct market (Garrard was in its death throes by this point anyway so it didn’t matter). BIC responded by coming up with their own line of turntables of unknown sourcing, though I think I read once that Voice of Music had something to do with them since their cash cow of supplying turntables for consoles had also long dried up by that point.
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Aug 17, 2023 02:03
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Orbit 2 is out. Starts at $250. Enjoy (You can still get Orbit 1 for a few months before we retire it if you want(i think)) ferroque fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 14:05
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ferroque posted:Orbit 2 is out. Starts at $250. Enjoy this is really nice, I'm very impressed. You were right about bringing the features from the Orbit Theory down to a more affordable level. (are y'all hiring? I wanna work at a hifi company)
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Aug 23, 2023 14:21
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Too much talk about totally reasonable, performant and affordable turntables. Look at this stupid thing I got as part of a group lot at an estate auction. The Well Tempered Labs Classic, heavy as hell, motor fits into a hole in the plinth, 1" thick frosted acrylic platter that spins on a weird offset bearing system that uses 5W30 motor oil as lube, and then the weirdest tonearm...  ...the tonearm. The arm is suspended by fishing line from a little aluminum gantry and vibrations and swinging are damped by a portion of the arm sitting in a little tub of high viscosity silicone (used as differential lube in RC cars). VTA is adjusted by raising or lowering the whole assembly, VTF with a standard counter weight, but then by twisting the little black knob you raise or lower one side of the disc in the goop and your azimuth can be adjusted during playback. Anti-skate is taken care of by spinning the little silver wheel that adjusts the geometry of the fishing lines suspending the arm, this changes the twist in the filaments which in-turn changes the anti-skate. This is it after several hours of disassembly, a lot of 99% IPA, a whole roll of paper towel and some new goop and fishing line. It came to me with snapped filaments and a beetle graveyard cup off goop.   Waiting on a belt for the thing now though, at least know the tonearm wires are good and it all seems to work.
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Sep 1, 2023 16:23
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 $30 at goodwill Nalgene + Minimi for scale it sounds really excellent (the pack in speakers look like they were poo poo even back in the day, but it doesn’t matter as it’s got A+B sets of real speaker outs), although I can’t find anything about it beyond some listings and some NOS remotes, of which I’ve place an order. Also this: https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Audio/Archive-Stereo-Review-IDX/IDX/90s/Stereo-Review-1994-11-OCR-Page-0057.pdf With digging, it appears to possibly have also been sold as an AKAI MX-950/PA-950 in other parts of the world, which would peg it at 85 WPC into 6ohm and I suppose 65 into 8. https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/akai/mx-950.shtml that would line up with the D-500 being 45WPC, but IDK. There’s also an MX-750 (https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/akai/mx-750.shtml) listed at 70WPC into 6ohm (I can’t login to hifiengine and download the loving manuals) Maybe the AKAI and Denon are wholly different beasts that share a majority of components Regardless, this power amp unit is BIG and heavy and there’s a chonker transformer inside. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Sep 3, 2023 02:52
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xpostin' from GBS My home office is done, so my Sony stereo finally got its forever home:  The tape deck is connected to the minidisc player, which is connected digitally to the Powernode, which powers the actual speakers. The Sony amplifier is just for looks right now. It really is ridiculous just how versatile and good the Powernode is.
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Sep 25, 2023 16:04
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evobatman posted:xpostin' from GBS Hell yeah. I'm running a NAD C368 with a BluOS controller, and it seriously made listening to music fun again.
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Sep 25, 2023 17:48
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I finally found a used parasound preAmp and a tuner locally for a decent price that matches the Amp I have. Time to get the vertical Technics hooked back up to the LA Scalas. 
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Sep 27, 2023 04:49
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the Mods, they knew!
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TheGoonspiracist posted:I finally found a used parasound preAmp and a tuner locally for a decent price that matches the Amp I have. siiiiiick
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Sep 27, 2023 05:00
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