Need for The Needle...

I’m a Vinyl Junkie!

It didn’t take long but I swear I am addicted to playing records. The whole process has hooked me; taking the record out, cleaning it with the Discwasher thing, reading the liner notes and admiring the great big jacket art. etc. Mostly though, it’s the sound. My ears crave this all-analog aural opiate. No digital jitters. Gimme my fix of smooth, soothing hi-fi audio.

I put the Shure M97Xe cartridge on last night and what a difference! The signal is quieter now, more highly detailed and yet silky smooth. I might as well have been using a rusty nail before.

I think it was Rupert Neve who said he observed that when you play and listen to a record, you relax and unwind and drift and dream. When you spin a CD, by contrast, you feel jumpy and hyper and fidgety. He thinks it has to do with the ultra high-frequency harmonic content of analog, vs. the band-limited nature of CD digital. He thinks the brain responds to the super-sonic frequencies, finding them pleasing, even though theoretically the ear can’t “hear” them. Apparently Neve thinks there’s some AIR UP THERE.

Fairydust.

Sonic Smoke.

Vapors.

Whatever the cause, my lips are smacking just waiting for the needle to drop once again...

More on Magnecord

So, I started cracking open these boxes with these old tape-machine elctroncs heads in them. It's like opening a time-capsule. I just opened a box dated Oct 1957. Do the math. That's exactly 50 years ago. This freakin' thing has been in the sealed factory box since 1957. Ike was president and Elvis was all the rage. I started doing some web-searching and (after I got the spelling right) I found some cool stuff about the company. Magnecord and it's "Magnecorder" began in Chicago right after WWII. These GIs came back, and if I read the archives correctly, their start-up funding came from Armour. Yeah, the meat-packing company. They started making wire recorders, but by '49 they had switched over to tape. Seems like they did really well, really fast, grabbing a big market share right off the bat. Like, $90,000/month. In 1949! That's a decent month for me NOW in 2007.

Here's a link to one of the many broadcst history sites which has the story of Magnecord.

Cool, eh?

Drewcifer runs away and joins The Circus!

WoooHooo!

Back in the saddle. Drewcifer is now on staff at Sonic Circus, and we have moved the homestead to Vermont. Here's Sonic's site. This place has everything! New used vintage. We got a 40,000 square-foot old furniture factory just jammed full of gear gear gear. Attention gear-slutz!! I will enable your audio addiction and satisfy that jones!

I have joined The Circus!