The never ending chat thread, chat about anything That your up too

Add a species to the fly rod. Great driving by the boy!

Shark bait

Thank you for the repair lol.

Your welcome its what I do

They should give you a raise. :ROFLMAO:

Avenger Jr. has become fascinated with the world of vinyl records. So we visited Looney Tunes and he picked out a few specific albums that really lean into the format.

Now, since he's going back to campus tomorrow I had to scramble to cobble these components together so he could start to experience the magic of LPs before the enthusiasm collapsed.

What s mess. The turntable is missing a foot? 😕 The needle was bent, and the drive belt was in crumbs. The amp hadn't seen daylight in twenty years. Fortunately, since I never throw stuff out there was a stash of speaker wire. But what to do about that drive belt? I've never fiddled with turntable belts before.

But thanks to my inane mechanical abilities, and the US Postal Service, a belt was improvised, and Avenger Jr. got to experience the "warmth" of vinyl. And the crackling and popping as well.

I have to admit, it sounded pretty good. We've got a real belt on order, so hopefully it will sound even better than the rubber band drive when he's home for the fall break.

Now I've just got to figure out where to put this pile of electronics. It can't take up residence on the dining room table. :rolleyes:

Make sure you show him where the penny goes so the needle stays in the track

Ahhh, yes.... More of the magic and lore that is vinyl. :ROFLMAO:

Avenger Jr and I were discussing though, that this sounds quite good, especially for media that is sixty years old, and that vinyl wasn't replaced because the sound quality was poor. It's downfall was the convenience of newer media. The fact that new vinyl records are still being made speaks to that fact. A number of his bandmates are involved in vinyl collecting as well. I just cautioned him about not getting in too deep. Let's see how enthusiastic he is once the novelty wears off.

Along those lines, that's why I'm trying so hard to resurrect the vintage equipment instead of investing in new at this point.

This poor turntable hasn't had it easy, but the more we fiddle with it the better it gets. Skipping was a yuge problem until I shimmed up the missing foot with a paper towel to absorb some of the shocks. I'm sure the leveling helped too.

It still needs a nudge to start, but the tone arm controls are slowly starting to function smoothly again.

God knows what happened to that foot. The thing was sitting in the same spot at my mother's house for forty years my. How does a foot just :oops:disappear?

Dimes worked better in some cases. Its all in the positioning.

45’s, 33’s and the often forgotten 78’s

Just got ready for tomorrow's trip. Now Relaxing after a fire we had in town earlier.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://brentwoodfirephoto.smugmug.com/Fires/Islip-FD/90726-Islip-CSF-21-Athasca-Rd

Good to see the kids keeping analog going. I'm running my AT120 through my old Pioneer as a preamp, then into my Harman Kardon AV system. That bent stylus might not be doing his records any good - the old style p-mounts are still available but less companies are making them.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.lpgear.com/
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.turntableneedles.com/
[URL unfurl="true"]https://bigfudgevinyl.com/

Thank you for the links. I don't have a huge amount of experience with vinyl myself. My musical journey came to that a little late so I mostly bought music on cassettes and CDs. I straightened the stylus and it seems okay, but it would still be best to replace it. I just don't trust Google and Amazon to find me the right parts.

I also never had really decent audio gear. The Onkyo is Mrs. Avenger's and the turntable was mom and dad's. I was always shopping for a quality system, but couldn't put enough time and research into it to make a decision. And technology kept advancing so it was always a moving target.

We'll see if our musical prodigy keeps up the interest. If he does, I don't mind investing in a quality turntable. For now, I'll keep working on the Technics and see if we can get it up to speed.

....HA! Speed.... The rubber band definitely causes a speed oscillation. You can see it visually on the strobe synchronizer, but it's not terribly noticeable when listening unless there's a steady note being held. It's an interesting quirk but who wants quirky music?

In case you're all still hanging on the de vinyl comedy:

The new drive belt showed up today, and the turntable's performance has improved significantly. RPM is steady and actually gets over 45 now. Plus it starts without a push.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Avenger ordered (at Avenger Jr's very pragmatic request) a $35 record player for his dorm room. We unpacked it and gave it a quick trial run with my used-record-store $5 nostalgia purchase.

Dad helped put men on the moon.
I'm struggling to get a record to play properly. :rolleyes:

The toy functions and plays surprisingly well. And for the job it's going to do it's just the ticket. The image of him and his other musician friends getting together to "listen to records" kinda gives me a warm, nostalgic fuzzy.

While I had things apart on the Technics I investigated the mystery of the missing foot, and it turns out they're kind of like an airbag suspension system, just without pressurized air. More like a diaphragm. They're all starting to fail, and the missing one just failed first.

Next stop is @jpd 's recommendation for a new stylus and hopefully some replacement feet.

Updates as events warrant....

If you really get serious you can join this Reddit group - lots of info and snobs lol.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.reddit.com/r/turntables/

Thank you so much. I love to dive into things like this. But I often find the ADD will kick in and the enthusiasm gets hard to maintain.

If it gets past the novelty stage, I'll hand that off to him.

Meanwhile, I'd still like to resurrect what we have on hand. Even if it's an exercise. Avenger Jr. is an anachronism, but I appreciate that and I'm okay with supporting it. Apparently he's not the only one either.

That's good for the soul.

Finally home having a drink

Mrs. Avenger done good!

Avenger Jr. expressed an interest in Abbey Road and she found a brand new, Made in Germany, GREEN VINYL no less! copy of Abbey Road from Tarjé.

Delivered to the house in a giant box where she deliberately ordered a bunch of lightweight paper goods so it wouldn't get crushed like our other orders.

How cool is this? 8-)

I'm so excited I'm tempted to tear the plastic off and spin this thing myself. But I'm really looking forward to letting him savor the experience.

New stylus and replacement feet are still on the docket. Thanks @jpd .

Further updates as events warrant. :p

Amazon does a good job of packing single albums when ordered in heavy duty cardboard.
The problem is the picker often pulls the album right next to it alphabetically.
One of my best sounding pressings is Sgt Pepper's.

I was looking just now for a Neil Diamond Live album and ran across this, haven't listened to it yet.
L. Nolan Ryan and G. Thomas Seaver lol.

Just got home, having a cold one.
I still have two more days left in my work week and I’m already at 32 hours 😕