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As soon as I say something we get moved.:confused: Great topic and a lot of fun. Keep it up. We are talking vintage sound systems, boats, music to blast your neighbors with while relaxing in your above ground pool, bragging about kids a little I guess:) and how to fix that old receiver.
Looks to me like we have some resident sound pros and this might be a good place to pick their brains.
Dennis
I know SO little about boats...I'm not a motorhead when it comes to them--I've wanted to learn to sail since my wife and I cruised on the late, lamented WindSong, in 1994, out of Tahiti. I started learning how to use a sextant a gadget that goes back 300 years..and am still hooked. My first back yard reading put my house, on top of what passes for a mountain in NJ, 200 miles out to sea:rolleyes: .
I THINK you hook big engines to Zodiacs--they are inflatable.
We can start a sailboat thread....
Sure, why not? That's what the "off-topic" category is for. Besides, we mods don't do this as a job, we do it because it's FUN to be on this board.Quote:
I have never been in a thread and so far off topic with a mod. It's fun sometimes and I hope it's OK.:)
But let me start a sail-boat thread.....
We'll keep this one for outdoor, antique and nostalgic audio...
I used to be into car audio back in the 90's when I was a little younger and just dabbled a bit in home audio. I guess my first home system was a Yamaha tuner/amp with a pair of Polk audio speakers, I don't remeber the series though. They had a soft dome tweet, a 6 1/2" woofer and a 10" passive radiator. They sounded pretty good.
I remember hanging out at the A/V store I used to buy my stuff at and someone traded in a vintage pair of Klipsch speakers. They had it hooked up to a very powerful kenwood component system and those speakers would rattle the walls of that place, amazing sound too. I have never owned Klipsch speakers but I do have respect for them.
My current setup is a little more wife friendly ;) I have a Yamaha 100x7 surround sound tuner/amp with Infinity surround sound speakers and 100 watt infinity powered sub..very small speakers that the wife can live with but they do put out big sound!! I looked at the $1200 bose setup, but this system delivers alot better sound at half the price. Glad I read the bose reviews before buying!!
I also have a 42" viore plasma (wall mounted) HDTV with dish network HDTV service, that I have been well pleased with..
Bose?
"Got no highs?
Got no lows?
Costs too much?
Must be Bose!"
Bose is the Harley-Davidson of speakers--all sizzle and no steak at insanely high prices. All image.
Dennis,
That is amazing about your daughter. I have done some recording in Nashville before and I can tell you that it doesn't matter how good (or even bad, the engineer has lots of magic buttons to make you sound amazing) of a musician you are, if you don't have someone that knows his/her stuff on the mixing equipment you might as well give it up. They can make or break your sound. Kudos to your daughter, it is a hard business to make it in.
JD
I have more old stereos than most people can imagine. Curiously, most of them work, and work well.
Our front hall is big and octagonal. I have a rebuilt (by me) pair of New Advents with the walnut finish, running off a Dynaco ST-70 (Yes! THE standard of stereo tube power amps.), with a Pat-4 pre-amp, a Nakamichi RX-202 cassette deck (the one that flips the cassette) and a portable CD player hooked in.
Next to it is the little Dynaco SCA35 amp I rebuilt, hooked to a pair of Boston HD-9 speakers I bought new and are still perfect. Also another Nakamichi--this time the RX-303 cassette deck--much rarer than the 202 or 505. The RX-505 is hooked to the pool setup and the Dragon is part of the main Family Home Theater system.
Finally, there's another ST-70 hooked to a pair of AR-2A speakers I found at a yard sale with ruined exteriors, worn-out equalizer pots, stained and torn grills, and rotted surrounds on the woofers. All that has been fixed. I had a double PAM preamp duo with the unit front panel but they are downstairs now.
Needless to say, I think Nak made the best cassette decks ever.
All this OLLLLLDDDDDDD equipment--My wife tolerates it!
Carl,
You are right about the Bose!!:D
I went to one of their stores with the listening room and was blown away by the whole production of the thing, when I was leaving the room I looked in the little closet the operator sits in and noticed the rack of processing equipment sitting in there, then it hit me......What a load of malarkey!!:eek:
A friend of mine bought the acoustimass system and has never been pleased with it, we worked with it and worked with it, sounds good in the store, terrible in the living room!!
I always wanted a pair of Electro Voice 24 inch PA's. I think they were 109 db 1watt/1meter. I figured there would be nobody in the dorms that could compete. Heck that ST-120 would have easily reached 130 db in that tiny concrete room. Hmm, come to think of it, they're outdoor safe and would make great pool speakers. :D
On the otherhad, I think these guys have got us all beat...
http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm
For tunes outside on the patio and pool, I'm currently installing Zoneplayers by Sonos sonos.com. I should be finished by the end of the weekend.
Instead of dragging any stereo components outside, I just have to mount my outdoor speakers (two pair) and connect to a Zoneplayer inside the house.
A little spendy, but definitely convenient since one can access their whole music library via remote control from anywhere in (or outside) the house.
pj
I saw them somewhere...rings a bell.Quote:
Originally Posted by pj1016
ALL my pool stereo electronics are inside. I ran a pass-through for the speaker connections through the wall and sealed it. There's a clean plate inside where the banana plugs go from the amp. Outside, you can see the plastic conduit I used for the wiring, and the weather boxes over each speaker. Theoretically, I can leave the speakers out all winter, but come the fall, it takes less than 5 minutes to remove both speakers, and no tools.
Sailork,
I played in a rush/journey tribute band a few years ago and we were running 4 EV's 15's and horns with a Peavey 1.2 K amp, pushing 1000 watts a side in a 20x30 practice room...I always wore earplugs...it was loud, I play drum workshop (dw) drums with the power tom configuration which are very loud unmiked and we had them suckers miked up...I'm surprised I'm not completely deaf!!
The link you have on your post beats all I ever seen!!! I could probably put swimming pool in my whole front yard for the price of that system!!!
drumr - Was the band called "Rushed Journey?" Or "Don't stop beleiving in Tom Sawyer?"
Whatever it was I'm sure it would have sounded great on a pair of 9.5 meter long horns.
Sailork...
LOL!!! Those are great names!!:D I wished we would've thought of that when the band was together. We had a terrible time coming up with a name. We were actually called "Freewill", but I love "Rushed Journey" that fit us perfectly!!!
Do you all remember a series of E/V speakers called VOTs for Voice Of The Theater? I never heard anything like them for years and years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CarlD
The VOT's (yes, Voice of Theater) were the Altec speaker systems. Nice drivers :D
EV had the Patrician and such.
My current bass player has a pair of the Voices of Theater speakers. I think the drivers are all bad but those cabinets are HUGE. I have never heard them before, but they look like they would sound nice.
There used to be a musician saying...If it ain't heavy...Don't buy it!!!
Boy, I'm getting old--of course VOTs are Altec Lansing.
I was working as a stagehand at the NY Shakespeare In the Park after I left Singer back in '74 and they were using specially built VOTs there--WOW! They could fill that outdoor theater like a live performance! I think that was the summer Sam Watterston did a pretty bad Hamlet.:( And somebody accidently set the cuff of my jeans on fire with an acetylene torch--luckily the theater is built right on the edge of Lake Belvedere, so boot and all went with my foot into the lake. Amazingly, I wasn't burned, despite the flames licking my knee.:eek:
The things you never forget...
We just got a water proof, wireless speaker from Brookstone. You plug the transmitter into your stereo and carry the speaker where ever you want it to go. You can also hook your ipod up to the speaker..I LOVE it and I don't worry about splashing or get stuck in the rain.
Jay
Now if you can get to be solar powered (or at least recharging when it's off) you won't need to change batteries all the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by jabbajean
But we have backing up to us, and a few houses up, in one of the "elephants around the watering hole" McMansions, a hip-hop record producer. He seems to think when he's at his pool the whole neighborhood needs to "share" in his crummy taste in music.
So I have 200w/ch on tap if necessary to drown him out, and you can't do that with wireless.
Good lord this thread is amusing. I was just sitting out by my pool with the Old Man and he was blustering on about "Altec Lansing Voice of the Theatre" speakers. I figured he was mistaken about the sound quality since I've never heard them. We'd just gotten back from working on the boat. It couldn't have been much more apropos.
Carl, you won't need that 200 watts to drown out the Hip Hopster when we dig your new in ground 9.5 meter poolside horns. I'd suggest 6 of the biggest EV drivers you can afford. Drive it with a "Zen" Class A amplifier.
Boats, Hi Fi, Swimming Pools.... Is the next thread Bikes? Cars? Sun Ra?
Maybe we'll descend into a rapturous geekdom of computer controlled bleach infusers... Anybody got a PDP-12 that times his pump? Maybe an old Origin that calculates the rate that his bleach burns off based on diurnal time, a thermometer and a sun brightness sensor?
Of course, maybe I just need to get out more.
I used to run one of my hybrid horn/dynamic systems on 8 Watts...but have also run it on 1.5 Watt amps as well. Currently, I've got the speakers in a tri-amp set-up, but for reasons other than maximum spl. (I've also got a 20Hz hornsub, but I haven't got the room to set it up in the basement. When the time comes...I'm going to have to go with a line array of infinite baffle woofers.
Altec certainly made some nice stuff, back in the day. They did have a certain "Altec sound" to them...but they also had attributes that very few speakers today could equal. The few times I could get my hands on some old Altecs, Jbl's, EV's, TAD's, I feel honored. But of course...the person getting rid of them just want them large things out of the house!
Watts are certainly relative to the situation...especially when most modern drivers aren't able to produce clean undistorted sound at higher volume. (read with warning that care should always be used when at higher volumes) It's amazing how quiet high volumes can be when you have low distortion drivers that are capable of playing at high spl. *5db may be unbearable on one speaker system while another system may not be producing excessive distortion until over 100db.
Because I've got ALOT of landscaping yet to do...I haven't even begun to look into music options for outside. But I'm thinking a system based either on a wireless music server (like a squeezebox) or ipod may serve me the best. But who knows??? that will be some time away :rolleyes:
dan
That's what off-topic is for! We've had threads on bleach infusers on the old board.Quote:
Originally Posted by sailork
The VOTs were BIG--not for home use unless you were a maniac--they are for theaters. They were also extremely heavy and not enough "ooo" in Boo-coo bucks to buy them!
Dan,
You know more about speakers by a long shot than me! I'm not into designing and building them.
I've listened to the modern pipe-stem speakers--tall and thin and I really don't like them. I find them metallic and distorted--just listen to a classical piano sonata or orchestral piece on them and it's just awful. There's a real metallic edge of high frequencies that's terribly over-stated. I've heard very few where the piano sounds like some one is sitting there, playing a piano, which, of course, is the object of the exercise.
Equalization and phasing tricks and a good sub-woofer can do a lot, but you simply cannot get honest base and mid-range clarity to my ear that larger drivers give with 4" drivers.
Plus I REALLY hate the satellite/sub-woofer paradigm that Bose pioneered. It may be convenient, and it may work OK for Home Theater, but for music it just plain stinks. And for classical music, that's being kind--it's attrocious.
My favorite is good full range front speakers, big enough for the room, a good sub-woofer to compensate and fill in gaps, and well-engineer CDs--or really good LPs.
I don't think you should notice the sub-woofer, unless you turn it off. If you hear it (by which I mean are aware of it), I think it's set wrong. You should forget it's there and just hear clear, clean sound.
I mean, it's really all about good sound isn't it? Going deaf isn't the object.
Carl,
I agree with you about satellite/sub setup, even though I do have the Yamaha/Infinity satellite setup on my home theater, I rarely listen to music exclusively, unless watching a concert on rave hd tv or on hdnet tv. My Yamaha reciever came with a microphone that you put in the middle of the room and it more or less sets itself up. When I did this it set the speakers like you describe with very little bass/subwoofer. I guess sound is subjective, and I am no audiophile by any means, and half deaf from 20 years in an aluminum extrusion factory (my line has a loud saw in it) I kinda run my subwoofer a little "hotter" than the yamaha had it set....OK,OK, I like BASS!!:D So I do let it thump.
I play drums at my church and we have 15" Mackie powered sub sitting about 2 feet away from me, and our sound guy is not afraid to use it, along with our bass guitar player on the other side of me with a 15" Peavey black widow so I guess I am just used to alot of bass.
Carl...I'm still surprised to see others here interested in audio! next you guys and gals will tell me your also cooking fanatics or addicted to fantasy football and nascar and fishing ;)
g'day all>>>
dan
None of the above!Quote:
Originally Posted by gonefishin
I can cook and can cook well, but I do not like doing it--it is a chore, and nothing more.
Fantasy football? No way! I believe in TRUE suffering--NJ Jets season tickets!
NASCAR? go round and round turning left.
Fishing? Rather watch paint dry...or even NASCAR.
What's wrong with talking about stuff other than pools in the Off Topic forum? What should we talk about? Boxer glue? Speedo trunks? Which brand of swim goggle is best?
gonefishin, I just spent 9 hours bobbing around Galveston and Trinity Bays getting burned to a crisp, mostly sitting and pulling on lines and not catching a single thing. Tell me again how yacht racing is different from fishing? I'm just this side of sunstroke. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
I must now go dump bleach in the pool and hope that my sun burned skin doesn't slough off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sailork
oh no! drink water...lots of water :p
get some rest :)
dan
My father had a book written in the 40's called "How to Tell Fish From Fishermen".
In it, the author discussed the problem of fish disposal. He suggested things like:
Checking it at the corner depot and throwing away the check.
Wrapping it up as a present and leaving it on the back seat of the car with the windows open in a bad neighborhood (so it will be stolen).
Chucking it out the car window on a back road late at night.
Then the author discussed WHY fish disposal is an issue. I think I still remember the exact words:
"Fish is brain food. People who eat fish have large, well-developed brains.
People who have large, well developed brains DON'T FISH!";) :D
The only thing fishing has to do with music is the scales...So all you fishermen and fisherwomen should start a fishing thread.
It' s funny, my brother is a professional bass fisherman and my dad loves to fish too. I can't stand it, I may go 1 time a year. When I go with my brother it's like a job to him, he rattles off statistics on where the fish are and this and that, it's neat to watch him because he can pull the fish out of them logs/holes/sticks like magic, but its all work for him, not very relaxing...Fish...70 mph to the next hole...fish..70 mph to the next hole..fish...eat sandwich while going 70 mph to next hole..and so on!!
I asked my bass player about the voices of theater speakers he had and he said he threw them away because the cabinets were in his way and they were so BIG. His were loaded with EV drivers. Did they use different drivers in their cabinets or were they all Altec when they were new? Someone may have put EV drivers in them before he acquired them.
Did someone mention speakers? :D
I just back-up my car to the side of the fence from where my pool is and enjoy this:
http://www.fp-group.com/Prosonic/HtmlImg2/Car.jpg
Ok, ok. I am / will be using my XM radio boom box, which is shown right here:
http://pictures.kyozou.com/pictures/_2/1179/1178802.jpg
Now my home theater. We are being little different
My Speakers:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...efttoright.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ewrearseat.jpg
Quote:
Originally Posted by drumr
Your suspicions are right, someone put some EV's into the Altec cabinets.
take care,
dan
Gonefishin:
Thank you for the confirmation..I was curious about that.
Pool Mike:
HOLY COW!! Very nice setup, Home theater looks great!! Is that your car too? Do you compete with it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by drumr
Thank you. As for our home theater, I done everything from a whitewall plain jane media room. All wires ran from ceiling into wall.
As for car, no competition. Only when I was about 13 years younger. Noting to show off anymore, so I was just kidding about my car audio. Thanks