Showing posts with label Voice of Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voice of Music. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Sounds just right. Not perfect, right



OK, there are better record changers out there than this 1956-vintage Zenith.

To be overly truthful, it's really a rebranded Voice of Music 1200-series unit with a "Cobra" tone arm stuck on it. There are even better changers of this vintage out there, if you're willing to pay up.

But to me, this sounds absolutely right. Just enough rumble, a wee bit of hum . . . it sounds like youth. My youth. It sounds like a console stereo in the living room, with the grown-ups playing their music on it.

You can almost smell the hot vacuum tubes burning off a thin coating of dust . . . even when your amp in 2016 is quite solid state. If you're over 50, you KNOW that smell, and you know it well enough to smell it in your mind's nose.

No, sometimes with the right album, you don't want sound that's perfect. You want sound that's right.

Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Analog in a digital world


Rockin' it really old school in the Revolution 21-slash-3 Chords & the Truth studio tonight. Jazz in the night from a 1960 Voice of Music tuner hooked up to a 1962 Pioneer stereo multiplex converter, and it's all being recorded by a TEAC reel-to-reel deck, circa 1969.

The Crown monitor amp is new, but what you gonna do? They're damn fine amplifiers.


For what it's worth, I shot the video with a Microsoft Surface tablet, which has decent-sounding microphones that also are prone to being overdriven. Sorry about that.

Monday, July 02, 2012

The sound of the '60s


This is an average hi-fi tuner from 1960.

Behold the Voice of Music Model 1416, a nine-tube AM-FM-FM multiplex tuner in all its midcentury-modern glory. This one is hooked up to a V-M multiplex adapter to allow it to receive stereo broadcasts.

And here is what an average hi-fidelity tuner sounded like in 1960. Starting in the fall of 1961, this is what one sounded like when tuned into an FM-stereo broadcast.

Really? You haven't figured out that I'm a major-league gearhead by now? Consider yourself informed. Yes, it is an addiction.

But a fun one.

As I was saying. . . .

What you'll hear here is some of a Saturday-night jazz program on KIOS, one of Omaha's public-radio stations. Enjoy!