Party like it's 1959

This is your audio-geek moment for Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Today, we'll party like it's 1959.

Above, the 12-inch, Electro-Voice full-range speaker of -- more or less -- that vintage. I got it via eBay, the best Internet friend of vintage-audio geeks like yours truly. The last part of the previous sentence, I suppose, also could be written sans hyphen and be just as accurate.

Anyway, this "Wolverine" driver from the venerable company is what folks bought when they embarked upon building themselves a "hi-fi" speaker. Basically, it's a woofer, mid-range and tweeter all in one.

Folks back then often got fancy and added a "crossover" and separate mid-ranges and tweeters just like what prevails today, but I'm lazy. Besides, a speaker enclosure with just a good  full-range "coaxial" or "triaxial" speaker was pretty common back then.

Combine something like that with a vacuum-tube amplifier, and that's what you call "vintage sound." I do love me some vintage sound -- probably because I'm a vintage audio geek. No hyphen.

BUT TO GET a vintage speaker for my vintage tuner and vintage amp, I needed an equally vintage cabinet. One, it must be noted, that wouldn't permanently disfigure our checking account. (You'd be surprised at how much a nice, half-century old hi-fi speaker can monetarily disfigure.)

Hello, eBay!

And hello to a Wharfedale W-60 speaker cabinet that's about the same age I am, sans guts. Or a woofer and tweeter, to be technical about it. Fifteen bucks . . . plus some rejuvenating oil, a black marker, a little wood stain and some elbow grease, which turned scuffs and worn-away veneer into gorgeous "character."

Of course, with old speaker enclosures like this, the only thing that's meant to come off is the back. That's bad when the screws that hold the speaker in are too short . . . and in the wrong places for the new-old Wolverine you bought to go in that box.

I had to do something that wasn't pretty . . . but it worked. And nobody will see it, so who cares?

Breakage of particle board and application of duct tape may have been involved.

Is what I am saying. Don't judge me.

AND VOILA! The finished product, voicer of "vintage sound" from my vintage hi-fi setup.

I think it's happy. See?

Spin the people the way they want

Part of what poliicians do -- in their spare time when they're not lining their pockets or conducting ideological thermonuclear warfare in America's fallowed halls -- is tell people what they'd prefer to believe.

This, of course, exists in stark contrast to what actually is. Or was. Or will be.

Enter President Obama, speaking to a group of aging Korean War veterans on this, the 60th anniversary of the armistice that silenced the guns but never formally ended the war:

When the war ended with a cease-fire rather than a surrender, Mr. Obama noted, some offered the cynical quip "die for a tie" to describe the result of the war that had claimed the lives of more than 36,000 Americans and over a million South Koreans.

But "that war was no tie," the president said as he stood before thousands of veterans and their families on the National Mall, within sight of the Korean War Memorial. "Korea was a victory."

As a result of the heroism of those who fought, he said, tens of millions of South Koreans are able to thrive in a free and prosperous country instead of living under the thumb of tyranny in North Korea.

"Let it be said that Korea was the first battle where freedom held its ground and free peoples refused to yield," he said. To the veterans and their families, he added, "You have the thanks of a grateful nation and your shining deeds will live now and forever."

THIS, of course is revisionist history. It is ascribing a ex post facto point to what many, if not most, Americans saw as pointless six decades ago.

And no one -- no one, save the communist Chinese  -- was declaring victory in the Korean conflict. As one network radio commentator said on this day in 1953, how do you declare victory when no one's keeping score, when you have no clear objectives?

Gosh, this sounds familiar.

The commentator went on to liken the Korean War to a football game where the field has no goalposts and the entire objective is to keep the other team from crossing the 50-yard line. In other words, contra Barack Obama's revisionism, "Die for a tie."

It is what you settle for when "making the world safe for democracy" doesn't exactly work out.

HERE, THEN, is what we were really saying about Korea when the all the firing was freshly ceased. It comes from an old, old reel-to-reel tape made by an Omaha doctor who thought the moment momentous enough to electronically scrapbook for future generations . . . and then salvaged by this future generation at an estate sale a decade ago.

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.

Not including sales tax; time machine extra

Yes, Tape Recording magazine! I do want to get the most practical use, fun and personal profit from my own tape recorder! Please show me how!

Here's my $2 for a year's subscription under your special money-back guarantee offer. I can't wait to get better recordings and greater use from my machine!

Sound on magnetic tape . . . a veritable electronical memory! What will science come up with next? Personal UNIVAC machines for the home? Television programs on a video record album?

My blood runs cold . . .

My memory has just been sold . . .

My hi-fi is the centerfold . . .

Hi-fi is the centerfold.

SOME MEN take pictures of topless women. Others gawk at the pictures the first men took.

One thing is certain, though. The gawkers will never have a shot at the angel with staples somewhere near her waist.

You can take that to the bank. Certain media moguls already have.

NOT ONLY THAT, the angels that some of the no-chance voyeurs already have are bound to be less than thrilled with their obsession with the angels they cannot -- they will not -- have.

Ever.

And consider this -- you never need to Photoshop high-fidelity gear from 1956 after the shoot is done. Reality is good enough.

I know this because I am a geek. An audio geek, which totally trumps "dirty old man" in most societal measures of respectability.

And as a geek, I take artsy-fartsy pictures of my old audio gear when I'm bored late on a Saturday night. Which I then post on my blog, which is a whole 'nother world of geekery right there.


YOU KNOW what else is great about taking cheesecake shots of old tube hi-fi gear?

For a few bucks at an estate sale or on eBay, the object of your lust can be yours. And your wife will be tolerant about that.

Within reason.


BESIDES, unless the human centerfold of your X-rated desires spent a lot of time at Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukushima, chances are she won't glow in the dark. Because that would just be wrong.

No, vacuum tubes are where it's at. Trust me on that.

Midcentury mesmerized

This little Realistic vacuum-tube FM tuner, circa 1956 and manufactured for Radio Shack by Harman-Kardon, kicks serious audio booty.

Fifty-six years old. Monophonic -- in '56, there was no FM multiplex stereo yet. And it sounds like a little bit of heaven. It's just stunning when you get a strong signal into it, particularly on classical music.

The less overprocessed the station's audio is, the better . . . but 56 years ago, that really wasn't a problem, was it? The FM "loudness wars" still were decades away.

I plugged this little gem -- the first to bear the "Realistic" brand -- into my Soundcraft mixer in the Revolution 21 studio, and I'm running it through a Crown D-75A amplifier for now. It really is amazing; the sound just jumps from my Electro-Voice studio monitor speakers.

I'M KIND OF afraid to hook this mono mini (it really is very small) up to the stereo multiplexer -- it might never leave the studio if I do, as opposed to what I have planned for it.

Think I'm exaggerating? Here's a 44-minute MP3 of the thing tuned into the local classical and classic-rock stations. Dear God.

I ALSO got the matching Realistic five-tube, 10-watt amplifier (manufactured by Grommes), which is a real beauty. See?

I've yet to hook that up -- eventually, the Realistic tuner will be paired with it to make a complete 1950s hi-fi system.

If anyone would like to donate a vintage 1956 hi-fi floor speaker. . . .

For now, I'm "making do" with an early-1970s University Sound floor speaker. (Note ironic quote marks. Nothing about a vintage University floor speaker constitutes "making do.")

You'll note the tuner and amp say "Radio Shack Boston." In 1956, there was one Radio Shack, and it was in Boston.

This concludes Your Daily Geek for Tuesday, July 10, 2012. Live long and prosper.

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!

The sound and the beauty

Photo: www.audioasylum.com

Leave it to me to be a hi-fi geek staring into the abyss of whole generations now come of age hearing the world as a low-bitrate MP3 through cheap earbuds connected to an iPod.

Yes, my generation had crappy transistor AM radios we listened to with cheap earphones. But we also had stereo systems with killer tuners, wall-shaking amplifiers and loudspeakers the size of a Smart car.

And before I yell at you to get off my lawn -- punk -- I'll just say that back then, FM sounded great, AM sounded really good, and most consumer audio allowed you to hear that. Not only that, some of our "stereos" or "hi-fis" were stunningly beautiful, even. Above is the REL "Precedent" FM tuner, circa 1954 . . . some seven years before my time, I hasten to add.

Some vintage-audio aficionados say the Precedent -- in all its monophonic glory -- was the best FM tuner ever made. I don't have the expertise (or experience of it ) to be able to say. But I do think it might have been the prettiest.

My trusty old Marantz 2226 receiver, though, surely has a place on the prettiest stereo gear list somewhere. I've had it since I was 16, and that's it at left . . . aglow in the dark.

Then again, I am an anachronism. I value the spectacle, and the experience, of hearing good music nearly as much as the music itself. IPods and MP3s have their place today, of course. But for me, they are a utilitarian concession -- not the crème de la crème of a generation rendered tin-eared by a utilitarian age.

For this relic of an age long past, alas, there is nothing left but to offer a futile protest against the times in which I must live -- non serviam. Now find a jazz station somewhere on FM and crank that tube amp up to 11 for me, will you?

Music in the night

The Voice of Music, circa 1960.

When in doubt, replace the weak 12AX7 tube in the add-on multiplex adapter, which is much less painful of a procedure than Saturday night's project -- changing all the dial lamps in a 35-year-old Marantz receiver. The music in stereo is a little sweeter now, just as the old Marantz shines like new for the first time in years.

This geek minute has been brought to you by black wingtips and white athletic socks. Additional funding for this program has been provided by pocket protectors . . . pocket protectors, because pens leak.

Happy are the ears that hear the Crown

There's a new monitor amp in town at 3 Chords & the Truth, and there's only one thing I really can say after getting it hooked up and going strong.

Long live the king!

My only regret is that you can't hear the Big Show as an uncompressed WAV file played on a Crown D-75A and a pair of vintage Electro-Voice Sentry 100A studio-monitor speakers. It sounds soooooo sweet.

There is no comparison to any consumer audio equipment that you're likely to find or be able to afford. I'd forgotten how spoiled you get having stuff like this in radio-station air studios and production rooms -- the old E-V studio speakers absolutely come alive when paired with the Crown amp. It's kind of breathtaking, actually.

Oh . . . I even built a little equipment rack for the Crown out of oak 1x4s, which I oiled up right nice to bring out the natural finish. Wait till I add the vintage '70s Pioneer tuner ($15 on eBay) that's on its way to Papa as I write.

Hello, PayPal?

Click on photo for higher resolution

Yay! It's mine! Mine! All mine!

Dude, I'll PayPal you the $95 grand in a sec . . . just as soon as I take another hit off of my crack pipe.

Thank God for that. The crystal meth is starting to wear off.


I'll bet the little bitty Mexicans hanging auto parts in my hackberry tree don't have one of these!

F***in' A, they don't!

Hi-fi fries self in line of duty, once played the hits

This just in to the newsroom:

OMAHA, Neb. (INS) -- Harmon/Kardon 330C, the vintage stereo receiver deep into a second career as a monitor amp in a home production studio in this Midwestern metropolis, died in a cloud of ozone Saturday, with its right channel humming and the room stinking of toasted electronic components.

Harmon/Kardon 330C was 36 years old.

"Well, you had to figure this would happen sooner or later, using an old, second-hand receiver hours on end every day," said 3 Chords & the Truth host Mighty Favog. "I can't get mad about it; I think I got more than my $35 worth out of it over the past few years."

The dead receiver will be interred later in the week somewhere in a basement closet and will be exhumed for spare parts at a later date.

In a related development Saturday, 3 Chords & the Truth management announced that Crown 75-A -- a broadcast-industry standard monitor amplifier -- has been purchased as Harmon/Kardon's successor. Favog said it was time to call on pro equipment to do a real studio amp's job.

"Crown is the Cadillac of monitor amps," the aging program host slurred. "Those things were (unintelligible) built to go 24/7 in radio air studios, so it ought to (unintelligible) work here with no . . . problem."

The new 75-A, which Crown is discontinuing after decades of pro-audio popularity, was obtained from Broadcast Supply Worldwide for $399 -- a $622 discount from the list price as the merchant closes out its stock. Favog, somewhat distracted by the absence of Early Times from his coffee, added that he wanted to pay tribute to Harmon/Kardon for kicking the bucket at such an opportune moment.

Crown 75-A is slated to begin its studio duties sometime during the next two weeks.

Come listen with me

This not only looks right, but it sounds right, too -- vintage Sinatra on a vintage hi-fi record changer.

I've probably entered the realm of irrational antique audiophile fandom, but there's something about these old LPs that just sounds a lot better on an old turntable. Technically, it probably has something to do with a slightly vintage cartridge that carries a bit more "pop" (as opposed to pop and crackle) than usual, as well as running with a bit more tracking pressure than a new, expensive cartridge could handle.

Or maybe it's just '50s magic.

But let me leave you with this: I really, really wish the microphone in the upper right-hand corner of the photo was Frank Sinatra's beloved "Telly," a Telefunken (Neumann) U-47.

Flaming Lips or Microsoft Paint? You decide.

If you couldn't see the title of the YouTube video, this would be harder than you'd think.

That says something right there.

Yep, what we have here is MSPaint.exe, as opened in an audio-editing program. The Flaming Lips could have saved so much time and effort . . . and come up with pretty much the same thing as their latest release.

A TEAC-able moment

I've been away from the blog -- mostly -- for a while doing this delicate dance between my inner MacGyver and my inner MacGruber.

In other words, I was out accomplishing s***. Despite myself.

The saga started Sunday, when Mrs. Favog and I bought an old TEAC reel-to-reel tape deck for $30 at an estate sale here in Omaha. Did it work? I didn't know, but I suspected I might be setting out on a journey to the Land of Fix-It -- a kind of road trip of the mind and soul that I'll detail in a bit.

But here's what's important right now about that trip: It feels good -- and I needed that.

It's easy to sit behind the keys here and write about stuff. Some of that output, I hope, is insightful and decently written. Most of it, I fear, falls in the category of "Well, DUH!"


OURS IS an age where I have just committed a branding and self-marketing faux pas. Humility is out, and so is introspection that might lead to honesty.

What I ought to have told you is how dead-on right I've been about stuff, that this is important writing, and that you can't live without reading my take on things. This would be because I am smart, hip, happenin' and. . . .

That's right -- cool.

That's how, apparently, one "markets" oneself. I suck at that, probably because I think it's bull. A lie. Immodest . . . particularly in a world where a little modesty might be refreshing.

Yeah, I could have been waxing eloquently about the bloody obvious fact that Shirley Sherrod got hosed, that the Obama Administration let itself get stampeded by the Big Lie, and that Andrew Breitbart is a far-right ideologue and twit whose actions over the last year or so just may prove him to be objectively evil.

Or at least indifferent to the truth.

All of that, of course, would be bloody obvious, except to certain brain-dead constituencies who -- unfortunately -- have taken advantage of universal suffrage.

But I didn't wax eloquently about that, or any other stuff that might be rattling around the echo chamber this week. Instead, I've been doing something useful -- fixing up that beautiful old TEAC reel-to-reel tape deck, one about 40 years old.

Why?

WELL, for one thing, getting that thing running again -- put back into good use once more -- was something tangible, a sign of contradiction in this increasingly intangible world. I figured I could look at something restored to its former audiophile glory and feel like I'd accomplished something.

That's objective fact. It was broken. Now it ain't. I accomplished something.

Being another schmuck opining on a blog? Feh. Maybe that's an accomplishment, but you just might find it to be a first-class detriment to . . . whatever.

Making a tape deck live again -- making it once again able to pluck lost bits of music . . . and history . . . indeed, ourselves out of magnetized oxide particles stuck to a Mylar backing -- now that's something tangible, and your validation neither adds nor subtracts from the act.

I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

Or hear, as the case may be.

LIKE I SAID, my journey with the old TEAC started in west Omaha last Sunday. The ticket cost 30 bucks.

I don't know why -- I mean, apart from my general geekiness -- I love old reel-to-reel tape decks.

But I do love me some reel-to-reel tape deck, and I have even before I did my first air shift in a radio station, where once upon a time, you could play with top-end (or not) reel-to-reel tape decks to no end.

For its time -- the late 1960s and early '70s -- the TEAC A-4010S was quality stuff. A top performer. Built like a tank.

Today, geeks like me call it a "classic" -- classic in performance, in design and in quality of construction.

When I bought this one -- as I said -- I didn't know whether it worked. Turns out it didn't.

THE ELECTRONICS in the amplifier were fine, as I more or less discovered when I got it home and powered it up, but the tape transport was in bad shape. The pinch roller mechanism, part of what makes the tape move along at the correct speed, was as stiff as a board -- it moved only through brute force.

This was not by design. The whole thing needed cleaning and oiling . . . and a screw in back needed loosening (a little).

And the capstan drive belt? It had turned into tar balls. Really.

Ever tried cleaning tar off of all manner of metal moving parts? Not fun.

Slowly but surely, I got the old TEAC -- it of long-past better days in an Omaha home where its owner used it to listen to Latter-Day Saints conference sessions and some sort of music programming -- cleaned up, lubed up and loosened up.

I scavenged a drive belt and a better pinch roller from another old TEAC tape deck I wasn't using anymore. When I found the belt was too loose to stay where the tape-recorder gods intended, I cut it to fit and super-glued it back together.

And when the torque on the drive motors was too much in one spot and too little in another -- trust me, this can get real ugly, real fast -- I ended up doing some MacGyvering of the taps on a couple of resistors.


IN BRIEF, thank God for old service manuals found on the Internet, an unused tape deck to scavenge from, WD-40, Super Glue and electrical tape. Not necessarily in that order.

And thank God for the tangible things in a self-promoting, subjective and intangible world. Thank God for old tape decks, craftsmanship that stands the test of time, working with your hands and the visible fruits of one's labor.

Thank God for these things, because sometimes they're what keep us sane. And sometimes, they point the way toward what's really important in life.