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Updates: 1) I organized my phono albums about a month ago. Took about six hours. Now I can find things! My kids are even into it on occasion. We have the albums and the sound gear in our big, downstairs play and exercise room. 2) The H/K gets regular use down there for playing albums (and...

I'm unsure what difference "friend" status makes. You can send a PM to another AK member unless they have the PM feature disabled, and "friend" status doesn't affect that. You can also limit private messages to moderators and "contacts," so "contact" status has some significance. If you...

An excellent musician, among many talents and redeeming qualities. Otto

Yeah, I've generally bought new gear and then just kept it long enough for it to be old. A pair of SuperZeroes is about the only exception where I bought something used. Otto

Do you have specs on the inputs? I'd think the issues would be having high enough input impedance not to load the guitar output and enough gain if the inputs expect a line level signal. The phono input would have gain, but the eq would make for a very bass heavy tone and a guitar output could...

Yes, I have spent the last thirty years more focused on playing and recording than on listening to other people's music. I admit that I am a rather unconvincing audio hobbyist. I have excellent gear in the studio and in my office, to be sure, but it doesn't change much, nor do I think about it...

I found this article interesting. http://www.till.com/articles/PickupResponse/ Shows the effect of pickup position on response. Closer to the bridge means the first peak and valley are at a higher frequency, and the low end roll off starts higher, too. So the low end response is smoother...

I got the Carvin pickup a few days ago and have it installed in the Wishbass. It still sounds good and finally there is no appreciable hum. The bass is now much quieter than my Traynor amp. The YBA-1 is pretty much a Fender Bassman copy, so it's a non-master amp, meaning the output pretty...

I've considered it, but I think a fretless guitar would be rather frustrating for me. I think chords would be an utter nightmare, so I would envision it primarily as a melody instrument. Might actually be pretty cool, but I have plenty to keep me busy as it is and don't need another instrument...

Based on my good experiences with both versions of the open Sennheiser PX 100, I'd start by checking out the closed version, which is now the PX 200 II. Sorry, but they are significantly under budget, being less than $70 from Amazon. Otto

Thanks. When one of my daughters first saw it, she said:"that's not an instrument, that's a work of art!" BTW, I just ordered a Carvin hum-canceling pickup for it. I emailed Wishnevsky, the guy who made it, and he suggested the Carvin was a good pickup and it also cost considerably less than...

The decibel was purposely created by Bell Labs to be about equal to an existing unit of telephone signal attenuation that they regarded as the smallest loss detectable to the average listener. In some audio contexts, it seems small. In others, it seems big. Otto

Perhaps good for its time. Contrast that with new developments like the Realiser unit I mentioned above. It measures and stores the individual HRTF of each user, it measures and stores the properties of a particular room and system and it carefully tracks head motion in real time so that the...

In my opinion, we've just entered the era of interesting efforts to create the speaker-style illusion from headphones with the introduction of the Smyth Realiser A-8. At a minimum, those who are really into headphones as a primary listening means should probably keep this on the list of things...

Here is my fretless bass. It's a Wishbass, in the "Fantasy" body style with curly bubinga for the body and ipe' for the fingerboard. It has a thru-neck, string-through body and solid Corian bridge which make for an instrument that feels, plays and sounds great, even if the body does look a bit...

Speakers and headphones each have social, practical and audio quality advantages and disadvantages. We generally choose speakers when they make more sense than headphones, and vice versa. Personally, I find both speakers and earbuds essential for listening to other people's music, depending...

My Otaris seem to appreciate this. I've noticed that the 1/2" 8-track's tach roller works accurately if I unload the tension between sessions. At first I was leaving tension on the tach guide, and I began noticing that the time reading would stray by a couple of percent during fast wind. I...

I prefer to spool tape onto precision reel hubs when the tape is on the transport, and then store on the original hub or a plastic reel. I buy tape as a pancake and the supplied hubs are usually designed for standard, three-hole metal flanges, and I use those hubs only for storage. So, the...

I guess it matters if you want to make it work well and meet spec. I managed to find an Otari MX-series III 8-track for $100, and mostly it just needed a new pinch roller. I chose to buy a new Athan roller outright from JRF, which cost a bit more than the machine, but after adjusting capstan...

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have cited Jay's article here. He wasn't writing for a consumer audience. And when I say tape machines aren't among the most user-unfriendly devices, I'm thinking, like Jay, of pro machines and experienced operators who have all the needed tools on hand and...

I'm not sure I'd go that far. For those who want to know more, here is Jay McKnight's article on demagnetizing a tape recorder: http://home.comcast.net/~mrltapes/mcknight_demag.pdf Otto

You will probably not have much attenuation of LF sound by the wall to the other half and there isn't a lot you can do about that, after the fact with small outlay. You need mass and lots of it to attenuate LF. Bridging will occur with common support structures and all common walls. Best to...

Mostly I agree, though it's a little harder to say that when it comes to stuff I built myself. Playback systems aren't really a hobby of mine, and I'm not very sentimental about particular gear. Musical instruments are of greater interest and use to me, and I would definitely miss having...

I like the video. About 30 years ago, back before digital synths and samplers were within reach, I started using blown notes on a soda bottle as vocoder program input, rather than voice, with my Juno 6 square wave as the carrier. Pretty cool flute-like sound and I could play notes and chords...

Both are. The smaller one is the YBA-1, which is mostly copied from the Fender 5F6-A Bassman design. The larger one is a YSR-1, which has reverb and tremolo. Both have EL-34 duets for output tubes. Otto