Hello from the land of Mesa Boogie and Lagunitas..

shedshrine

Active Member
Greetings to all from the land of Mesa Boogie and Lagunitas aka the northern San Francisco bay area.

Apparently I signed up here in 2009, asked a question or two and never really introduced myself. I am a recovering home recording junkie who is now going back to being a music fan. Hence more stereo toys have been accumulating. Sold all my records and my first Tascam 388 when I went to teach English in Japan in 1991, and am now getting them all back and then some since 2012. After posting the following in a vinyl oriented thread over on TapeOp, I was told that folks over on Audiokarma might get something more out of it. So..

It's a little long and I'm sure I've left out some vital equipment informative bits, but to quote Edie Brickell (and the New Bohemians)," I'm not aware of too many things, I know what I know if you know what I mean."

In recent years, for whatever reason, the fire in my belly for home recording has subsided...
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and so I have gotten more into being a fan of music, and the obtaining of the necessary tools to enjoy that music. Which brings us to..

The 3 Systems of the Mancave, the shed shrine (aka the guest room):

"Shedshrine" was what I called my sheetrock, insulation and packing tape room-within-a-room recording structure I built in my tiny apartment while living in Japan. Now it refers to my music room/guest room. All three systems use the same set of speakers, a pair of Klipsch Forte 1's. There are three sets of cables, I just unplug whatever setup I'm currently using and plug in the next. Speaker cables are nothing fancy, Magnolia audio store house cable. All are terminated with banana plug pairs. You may notice the speakers are upside down. I inverted them so the horns were more ear-level aligned. Got this pair off craigslist *full story at bottom of this post. Zebra wood finish, and fully outfitted with all the available Bob Crites mods. They sound great with these viintage receivers. Very live, open sound. Interconnects are all Blue Jean cables.
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SYSTEM 1


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A McIntosh MAC 1500 receiver and a Denon DP 62L direct drive turntable. Cartridge is a Ruby F9E.
The 1500 was McIntosh's first receiver, manufacture date sticker says 1966. Solid state preamp, tube tuner and power amp. It was missing some of the heavy milled aluminum knobs, but found some NOS ones online thankfully for a reasonable price. The headphones out also gets the tube treatment.

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The Denon is from 1982. The original owner stored it well and it has been without issue thus far, though I should get it recapped soon before I ruin it. There's an unubtanium chip in there that needs to be protected. It's got a similar micro controlled tonearm to the Sony below. The rosewood veneered base is in great shape, but it does have some deep scratches (melt marks?) that wont' buff out on the lid, looking for one of the nice aftermarket ones available online at some point.
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SYSTEM 2


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An HH Scott 222b integrated tube amplifier with a Thorens TD 125 belt driven table. The Scott only has 13 watts but sounds very good driving the Klipsch. The Thorens is running a Dynavector 10x4 high output MC cartridge. I got a good deal on the Thorens due to a cracked cover and decals/water damage on the wood base. It cleaned up nicely, got a new lid off ebay. Those after market lids are very nice! The arm is a Shure SME 3009, a very popular mod to these in the 1970's (and beyond).
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SYSTEM 3


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These receivers were what my friends dads' had in their living rooms when I was a kid, and I loved the nice walnut case some had.
This Marantz 2270 came home with me about 5 years ago after a visit to a vintage audio dealer in Sacramento. It came with a 90 day warranty. Within six months the main speaker outputs blew and the off/on button had stuck in the on position. At that point I started using a power strip to turn it off and on, and using the 2nd set of speaker outs until they too blew.

Kinda disgusted, I stored it under the bed for a few years, Finally got it fixed last month. Two weeks later the phono preamps for phono 1 went out, switched to phono 2, fuzzy left channel quickly ensued Ah, vintage audio.
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Turntable is a 1979 Sony PS-X75 with an Ortofon Blue cartridge. Great sound though some of the touch controls are janky. Usually the arm pulls up at the end of the side but doesn't return. If I hit the power button off and on at that point it completes its journey back to its post.
Sure it's got a lot of bells and whistles that can go wrong, and the back end of the micro controlled tonearm resembles a walker from StarWars, but this large, heavy and very well built turntable is a beautiful piece and fun to work with.

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It has been recapped, but the soft touch controls would need to be replaced to get it fully up to snuff.

A cool feature for this Sony deck is that the controls are still accessible with the lid down.

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It has a knob to adjust cartridge weight right out front. (Now this feature actually functions on my deck..of course I have to verify its accuracy with a digital scale, but anyway..) Nevertheless, it is very cool to be able to adjust the tracking force weight in small increments while a record is playing and hear the difference in sound.

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Using a Lounge Audio LCRMKIII MM Phono Preamp with the Marantz now. I really like the Marantz phono sound I was getting, but the Lounge sounds great in its own right. I'd say cleaner and more precise version of good sound.

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* SYSTEM 4


I have a couple more components that will be put into service someday. A Pioneer SA 9500II integrated amp that needs a small repair and a Dual 1229 idler drive turntable that needs a rebuild.

With the Pioneer, I tried pushing oversized cabling and maybe even banana plugs into the push=down/insert-the-cable speaker inputs in back of the amplifier and bent them all up. Taking it apart to see if I could bend them straight again I broke the fine strand wire connections to the amp interior. Doh. Could just use it as is as a preamp for the time being. (I've got one last piece, a Parasound power amp stored under a bed at the moment. )

Sure, I suppose I could sell off all of this and put it towards a really dependable amazing modern high end system. But I know that if I just run one system I'll get bored of it over time, What I love about this vintage collection most is that it's great to be able to run music through a different system configuration from time to time. It keeps things fresh and allows for favorite
recordings to sound interesting in new ways. At this point I've accumulated a bunch of old pieces to swap around and it keeps it all fun. The puttering around with how things are configured is a big part of the allure of this sport for me

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DIGITAL


Atop that Pioneer integrated amp is a Border Patrol DAC. I just got it a few days ago after researching DAC's for awhile now, and these were getting rave reviews. It definitely sounds more present and full than the Nuforce I was using prior. I know some folks consider burn in a psuedo effect, but I know I have noted the sound opening up after a few hours with the Border Patrol. I like Steve Gutenberg (the audiophiliac) 's reviews and he gives this DAC his thumbs up so I thought it worth a listen. And it's got a tube. It's still here a few weeks in so I guess I'm keeping it.
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Klipsch story..
* So I was looking for a pair of old Klipsch speakers to go with my old Sansui receiver. I found a pair on Craiglist, and it had had some Bob Crites mods, which apparently is a popular thing. This particular pair was touted as having had all the mods. Crossovers, titanium diaphragms, re-coned woofers and passive radiators ..and the owner had also seen fit to re-veneer the things in zebrawood. The price was fair, I call and I'm in.

I google map the address, and wow. Big gates, long narrow tree covered cobblestone driveway that expands out in front of the house replete with six carefully covered sports cars. Soon I am to find it's the house of Ken Leonard who was a big deal in 1970's electronics among other things.

He was the founder AEA Electronics http://aeaaudio.com/legacy-page/ which has been restarted recently. His first board was used at Criteria Studios for Clapton's Derek & the Dominos Layla sessions and it took off from there..Fleetwood Mac Rumours etc..
He also happens to hold a patent for certifying the security of websites.

So anyway, his son makes the minute or so walk to the black gates to let my car in. Once parked I am invited inside and we make our way back past ornate furnishings, sculptures and statues to the "stereo room/pool table room/electronics projects room".

Next to a picture of Mr. Leonard adjusting a mixing desk (as Eric Clapton and member of the Allman Brothers look on) are the speakers. Currently the pool table is covered and full of electronics projects in progress, namely the refurbing of classic tube receivers and integrated amps which he and his father do for fun.
The speakers were demoed with a 7 watt Heathkit amp. They sounded good low, they sounded good cranked. sold.

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The house..
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I have a system in my living room, my bedroom and my office. It's one system and also happens to be the same room. So, there's that.
 
Hi shedshrine and welcome to AK! Beautiful and amazing systems you have!!:thumbsup: Enjoy your audio journey!
 
Current events...

Got the Robyn Hitchcock/I want to go Backwards boxset online from his Yep Roc site. I have some of the stuff included therein, but I didn't have his first solo album (BLack Snake Diamod Role) and Eye and Trains have been remastered for this, and there's several albums of outtakes .and there's an autographed poster so..
Re: autogrxaphs. They're fun to have, but I've never gone out of my way for them. I have a signed cd from a small gig Linda Perry did touring for her In Flight album, and I found an Annie Ross signature on the back of a Lambert, Hendricks and Ross album that looked legit.

X: Los Angeles. A friend from work split the cost for the remastered reissue (he wants a vinyl burn of it). Great sound and the thick high gloss cover is really nice as well.

Beyond that...
What can I say, the used "new arrivals" bins have been awesome lately.

Killing Joke/self titled: Remastered 2xlp with the original album on black vinyl and a second lp with alternate takes and an unreleased session track on white vinyl.

Wire/Pink Flag: Took me a few listens and a good read of the lyrics to make out the rapid fire lyrics.
Ancestry.com says I'm over 80% UK in origin, so I should work on my mother tongue.

Slint/SPiderland: You really have to turn it up to hear clearly the ongoing monologues of dread. I suppose that's by design.

New York Dolls: Designed to shock messy blues rock in drag.

Throbbing Gristle: ............!?!

Norin: great electronic album!

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I have an old Telefunken Opus 7 tube radio that I wanted to put into service running my music library into, specifically the digital part of it. The aux input available on the radio is meant for old style reel to reel DIN plugs. For modern use, cut off one end of an RCA cable, tie the two hot wires together and put that in whatever slot makes a hum, and tie the grounds together and find the input slot and call it good.

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Even though I had had the Telefunken gone over and recapped, it has always had quite a wooly sound. (from the aux in, may have to revisit my DIY cable there.)
I finally patched in an old Rane dual graphic eq between it and an Icon D/A desktop amp's analog outputs (that little box to the right of the graphic eq).
The Icon's optical input receives signal from the optical output on the iMac.
The sound... geez, audio metaphors. Well, it sounds like warm crayons. I mean really warm crayons, like melty ones with the wax oils seeping into white bond paper in full-on summer sun.

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Speaking of melting, my Denon DP72 turntable lid had had some kind of melt marks on its lid since I got it off Craiglsist and it had always bothered me as otherwise the thing is in great shape. Finally sprung for one of those nice acrylic replacement lids off ebay. It is strikingly transparent (optical grade I believe is the terminology), and the table looks as good as it sounds now.
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Recent acquisitions and in-rotation lps of note..
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Solo Flight - The Genius Of Charlie Christian 2xlp compilation:
"Charlie Christian, with his hornlike, single-note style, which capitalized on innovations in amplification technology, revolutionized, redefined and elevated the guitar as a lead instrument on par with the saxophone and trumpet in jazz and popular music."

Julie London-Julie Is Her Name Who needs incredible vocal range when you can bring wood with whispery phrasing?

David Hollond Quartet-Conference of the Birds
1973. "It is jazz bassist Holland's second collaboration with composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton. The liner notes describe how birds would congregate each morning outside Holland's London apartment and join with one another in song.

Each piece on the album is "open form," with a theme stated at the beginning to set key, tempo, and mood. The players are then free to improvise in whatever direction they choose. Stuart Nicholson writes: "Conference of the Birds emerged as a definitive statement of swinging free expression. It was, in essence, a return to the rugged discipline of early 1960s free improvising by working off melodic foundations using the 'time, no changes' principle to achieve greater control over that elusive quarry, freedom."

Anthony Braxton-Montreaux/Berlin Concerts Double lp from the man who names songs with diagrams and equations.

Anthony Braxton-Forces in Motion (book) Insights into Sun Ra and Mr Braxton's world. I'm only a third of the way through it..

The Shining- Original Soundtrack. Great collection of avante garde "scary" music pieces. Bought it for $6 in 2012. Seems to be going for much more now..
On Wiki: "The soundtrack album on LP was withdrawn due to problems with licensing of the music. It remains only available on vinyl (there has never been a CD release) and is difficult to find."
 
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