Audio Catalogs & Morita's Memorabilia

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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby Octaver » Sat May 08, 2010 12:33 pm

I saw this store selling oldies things (Virginia City, North Nevada)

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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby jadis » Sat May 08, 2010 8:28 pm

Thanks for chipping in, Octaver. :)
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby jadis » Tue Jun 22, 2010 6:26 pm

Catalog of AUDIOSOURCE, USA. The 'source' for quality software in the 80s.

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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby Octaver » Wed Jun 23, 2010 8:45 am

I bought some of the posters and few CD's from this expensive place in Carmel Ca.

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The pics are more on Idea how to frame a good posters
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby jadis » Wed Jun 23, 2010 10:35 am

Nice ones, Octaver. And nice city too. Must visit place when in the Bay Area.
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby m_shoe_maker » Wed Jun 23, 2010 10:11 pm

[quote="Octaver"]I bought some of the posters and few CD's from this expensive place in Carmel Ca.

Bayan toh ni Dirty Harry diba? :?:
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby jadis » Thu Jun 24, 2010 7:06 am

m_shoe_maker wrote:
Octaver wrote:I bought some of the posters and few CD's from this expensive place in Carmel Ca.

Bayan toh ni Dirty Harry diba? :?:


yup. one term mayor for carmel by the sea in the late 80s. "go ahead...make my day.."then, BOOM!!!, patay ang bad guy sa 'magnum force'. :lol:
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby Octaver » Thu Jun 24, 2010 10:03 am

m_shoe_maker wrote:
Octaver wrote:I bought some of the posters and few CD's from this expensive place in Carmel Ca.

Bayan toh ni Dirty Harry diba? :?:

Yup, Dirty Harry's place before. NEar this place is the 17 mile Drive...paradise and Home of all R & F! The place where Late John Denver Live and Die!
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Re: Audiophile Jazz

Postby jadis » Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:47 am

Sometimes, I surprise even myself. :lol: I found some old newspaper clippings inserted in some old audio mags that rekindled memories of a unique event in my audio life which I even stored in tapes. (No, not master tapes that rival 'The Tape Project', just a couple of Sony & TDK cassette tapes actually). :lol:

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What's inside was an FM broadcast of an interview of yours truly by David Nye done way back in the early 90s as part of a series called 'Audiophile Jazz'. A few jazz music lovers had preceded me in this series that was broadcast over City Lights 88.3 FM station, and I recall I was a bit reluctant to participate since I was NOT a 'jazz collector' by any standards. :$ At any rate, push came to shove and I'm amazed that not only did I agree to participate in the interview, I even brought over some LPs (and CDs), jazz kuno, :lol: to play in a top-of-the-line Forsell Air Force 1 TT and air bearing tone arm while the music in the self-made studio inside an audio shop in Mega Mall was recorded by a crew from the producers of the program. Prior to the scheduled broadcast, a newspaper write-up was done to promote the program:

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And today, I'm not surprised that the music I chose to play there, cuts from The Ortofon Test Record 003, Radka Toneff's 'Fairy Tales', Chico Freeman's "Spirit Sensitive', 'Lincoln Mayorga's 'Love Letters', and Jim Brock's 'Tropic Affair' are the the very same ones I play till today. The music never dies, as they say. There was a misprint though as the cut from Tropic Affair was 'Anya', not 'Anyo' (tagalog na ata yan). :lol:

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And even more surprising to me, I realize now I was made to talk about line filters and how they affect an audio system. I never thought I was a 'techie' pala. :D At any rate, these things are nice things to keep for posterity. I played the tapes once in my car to my kids. They asked me, 'Dad, who's that talking?' I said: 'I don't know, some guy.' :D :D But later on I admitted it was me - they all had a good laugh. :D :D

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And btw, there is no truth to the rumor that the tapes are going to be remastered on half speed nor cut on 45rpm vinyl. :D :D :D
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby northwardnimbus » Wed Jul 21, 2010 4:59 pm




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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby jadis » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:37 pm

Nice posts, Northwardnimbus. I like the RCA tape commercial particularly, iba din if you need 2 hands to put on a tape. :lol: So the term 'trash those records', which may be the root of 'vinyl is dead', has its roots pala on RCA! :D :D :D Ironic, isn't it, from one of the pioneers of LP manufacturing at that. :lol: :lol:
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby northwardnimbus » Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:04 pm

jadis wrote:Nice posts, Northwardnimbus. I like the RCA tape commercial particularly, iba din if you need 2 hands to put on a tape. :lol: So the term 'trash those records', which may be the root of 'vinyl is dead', has its roots pala on RCA! :D :D :D Ironic, isn't it, from one of the pioneers of LP manufacturing at that. :lol: :lol:


:puke: digital. :puke:
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby jadis » Sat Oct 02, 2010 6:26 pm

The Mini Laserdisc 'Music Videos':

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Found these while cleaning up the software rack, and these so-called digital laserdisc mini's are now considered 'neolithic artifacts' by today's standards. (So I categorized them as audio memorabilia). :lol: But we gotta hand it to them for 'pioneering' the home entertainment industry by providing an 'improved' format over the standard 45 RPM vinyl singles. At least here, there are 4 cuts in total. :lol:

The center hole even looks like the 'old 45s': :lol:

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My Laserdisc player was working (15 years ago) and I don't feel like trying them out again. :lol:

Because, there isssssssssssssss.........YOUTUBE. :lol:

The music video is still very good by today's standards. :clap:



And the original video of 'Saving All My Love For You', also from Whitney's mini-disc. (It's hard to beat Whitney at her prime) :clap:

http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/savin ... YcNzJKhBSQ
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Your Room - The Final Link

Postby jadis » Thu Jan 27, 2011 6:44 pm

While cleaning house, I stumbled into a few copies of the defunct IAR Journal from the mid-80s, regarding the importance of the listening room. A lot of us has taken this to heart, and good to know why, as explained below with impetus on the yellow highlighter. :) And as I'm beginning to realize, there is some magic in having a tall ceiling, like 14 feet. Sad to say, di ko na mabutas ang kisame ko. :D


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Tale of 4 Carts Review

Postby jadis » Mon Feb 14, 2011 8:12 pm

From a 'review' I wrote on a local journal sometime in March 1991 on the 4 phono cartridges I had used, entitled "A Tale of 4 Cartridges". (Done when the CD was being heralded as the 'slayer' of the good ol' vinyl)


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The following paragraph has been edited to preserve the privacy of some names mentioned in the journal, so here is the more 'private' form. :lol: (Continued from the above clip)

"My own experience with the analog source started way back with the Grado 8MR cartridge. As a friend said when I recommended a Grado to him, 'All Grados sound the same.' Well, I agree in a way, as Grados usually have a sonic signature that has the midrange sounding very prominent. It has a full-bodied mid, a bit fat to some, but just the same, quite a pleasant midrange. It lacks high frequency extension and the bass is a bit tubby. Worst of all, it can sound grainy, veiled, and muddy compared to the better moving coils. So, as another friend would say, UPGRADE! And upgrade I did, to the Monster Cable Alpha 2 High Output moving coil cartridge."

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Pardon the 'stone-age' style of audio reviewing but rest assured, I believe I tried my best to imitate those reviewers from the underground rags that drove me into sleepless nights then as they reviewed the audio gears that I could not afford in those times. :lol: I'm glad that after re-reading it after 20 years, I still agree with myself basically on my findings on the cartridges that had played music in my analog rig. :lol: And I'm even more glad that I had noted the importance of 'TRACKING', or 'TRACKABILITY', of carts. Maybe the best cartridges of today will not have that problem, and in fact, the state-of-the-art carts SHOULD NOT have that problem at all. But in those days, mistracking were common, which spews distortion like volcanic ashes all over the sound field. :lol: Nobody would love that, I can imagine. I found out as well that an old pivoted tonearm of mine would create distortion on a hard-to-track cut of M&K's 'Fatha' LP but upon changing it to an ET2, the distortion caused by the mistracking virtually disappeared. This parameter I can sense in my gut when listening to familiar tracks with high modulation that put greater demands on carts and arms, and is quite important in our search for analog perfection. Great tracking results in clean , crisp, and crystal clear sound that let us hear more of what is in the recording. Some test LPs precisely have this test to ensure that our arm/cart tandem is doing its job properly.

This 'review' now sits in my 'memorabilia' logs, aka 'sometimes-I'm-surprised-at-myself' files. :D Thanks for reading.
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby JAA » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:22 pm

Nice topic Philip!

I agree with you Philip about the importance of cartridge trackability. Manufacturers nowadays are putting more emphasis on this very important criteria because it involves the first link between record groove and the cartridge itself. Stylus tip designs has evolved much to dig down every details engraved in the groove. But still, the cantilever that holds the diamond tip is one of the very important factor in cartridge' trackability. It may also add sonic coloration to the signal if improperly designed, and worse, if the rubber suspension that holds it, unable to damp the resonance significantly. I observed that modern design platforms on many high-end level carts follow a common reduction scheme. Reducing the cantilever mass by shortening its length and revising the materials used thus to improve tracking performance and raise its resonance way beyond the audio spectrum. Reducing its output impedance and inductance to avoid degrading/distorting too much the already faint signal. Reducing the cartridge body weight with current lightweight but powerful magnets e.g. neodymium........ :)
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby jadis » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:57 pm

JAA wrote:Nice topic Philip!

I agree with you Philip about the importance of cartridge trackability. Manufacturers nowadays are putting more emphasis on this very important criteria because it involves the first link between record groove and the cartridge itself. Stylus tip designs has evolved much to dig down every details engraved in the groove. But still, the cantilever that holds the diamond tip is one of the very important factor in cartridge' trackability. It may also add sonic coloration to the signal if improperly designed, and worse, if the rubber suspension that holds it, unable to damp the resonance significantly. I observed that modern design platforms on many high-end level carts follow a common reduction scheme. Reducing the cantilever mass by shortening its length and revising the materials used thus to improve tracking performance and raise its resonance way beyond the audio spectrum. Reducing its output impedance and inductance to avoid degrading/distorting too much the already faint signal. Reducing the cartridge body weight with current lightweight but powerful magnets e.g. neodymium........ :)


Thanks so much, John, on your technical insights. I'm not a very 'technical man' per se in terms of measurements, specially with regards to mass, compliance, impedance, etc. but what I do care about is that in high modulated signals, the carts involved still need to do its job well with regards to tracking, all things being constant, ie, using the same tonearm. And that was my observation when I changed carts before and felt one cart tracked more cleanly than the other. In the past, I know I get a lot of flak when I talk of test records among friends, some tell me there's no music in there so why buy it. Well, deep inside me, my gut always tells me many LP and cart producers like Shure, Nautilus, Telarc, make at least one test record in their lifetimes to aid users in checking for proper trackability, which they call the Trackability Test. With that, proper adjustments can be made and if nothing more can be made, then it means to me that there is an inherent design weakness in the cart that accounts for this mistracking. So I was able to determine for myself if one cart tracked better than another. Another way is to use a familiar hard to track record as I had mentioned before and see how various carts handle it. I only use simple parameters, and glad you shared more insights on the above topic and hope others can share with us too their experiences. :)
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby JAA » Sun Feb 20, 2011 6:42 pm

Hi Philip,

Test records are primarily tools made from vinyl format. It's cheaper, less tedious, and more practical than going into electronic measuring gadgets. No matter how accurate the display from these devise are, our ears would still have the final say. :)
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby jadis » Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:18 pm

JAA wrote:Hi Philip,

Test records are primarily tools made from vinyl format. It's cheaper, less tedious, and more practical than going into electronic measuring gadgets. No matter how accurate the display from these devise are, our ears would still have the final say. :)


I'm glad to hear that you feel that way too, John. And just to add, also, no matter how perfectly, or synergistically our component chain is matched, if the weak link is a less than optimum tracking cartridge, the distortion is going to travel all the way down to the loudspeakers and worse, into our ears.
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Re: Audio Catalogs & Memorabilia

Postby audiostar » Sun Feb 20, 2011 11:27 pm

I can sum up your discourse into a single word: transfiguration :-)
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