Cool features

Kgveteran

Kgveteran

Active Member
I was talkin with an audio buddy of mine, and we were exchanging some pretty cool features on equipment we’ve seen over the years

Not sure if it made it sound better, but Krell had a CD player that when ya pressed play, the seemingly plexiglass top over the CD spinning would turn opaque, now thats cool.

The ContraBass by ServoDrive, electric motors and belts, oh yeah, that was my number 2

Lastly the Plasma Tweeter
 
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Never seen or heard a plasma tweeter, have always wanted to though. Maybe someday I'll build a pair of them.
 
I love the buttons on the Philips 312 & 212 Turntables, one of the best looking vintage "basic" turntables. The big question is are the switches mechanical or capacitance?
 
Bone Yard said:
I love the buttons on the Philips 312 & 212 Turntables, one of the best looking vintage "basic" turntables. The big question is are the switches mechanical or capacitance?
Click to expand...
Not mechanical. Must be capacitance. I have one stashed away, runs way too fast. Probably will be parted out some time-if that time ever comes.:dunno:
 
Bone Yard said:
I love the buttons on the Philips 312 & 212 Turntables, one of the best looking vintage "basic" turntables. The big question is are the switches mechanical or capacitance?
Click to expand...

They don't move, so it must work off capacitance, like the tuning knob of the excellent Realistic TM-1001 tuner.
 
The First Nakamichi Dragon with the self aligning play head and the model 1000 with the aligning record head. Seeing the First Technics Sl1200 MK II with an SME arm was a treat, too. But getting to use an AMPEX ATR 104 not using a capstan roller and with constant tape tension was a joy to behold. Using Maxell UD tape for the first time was really surprising. Installing my MR 78 tuner was big improvement over previous tuners. My first Revox 16 bit over sampling CD player was a big surprise for me. Seeing AR's little early belt driven turntable was another surprise. The most distasteful surprise I ever experienced was auditioning the JBL Paragon. Two little Klipsch Hersey's were much better. We used A Marantz 7C with an 8B power amp. Model 9's did not help a bit. Thats when I learned to detest ring radiator tweeters and small short LF horns. The bass from early AR-3's was impressive though the highs were not real at all.
Hearing the Magneplanars Tympani IV was a real revelation. Bose 901's were as big turn off as JBL's Paragon. EV 800 Patrician with the 30 inch woofer was interesting. Seeing 8 of the 30 inch woofers used in the Crystal Cathedral as sub woofers was a surprise with gold plaques saying they were donated by the CIA a long with the back row of pews. None of us could find out what CIA stood for at the time. The obvious answer was the Central Intelligency Agency. But I would think separation of Church and State would prevent such a donation.
 
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I was working in a second hand audio store in the late 70’s esrly 80’s and a guy came in with what i remember was a cambridge audio preamp ? Integrated ? Not sure, but there were 2 volume knobs (L&R) and two dots on both knobs so you could get the balance perfect because the dots formed a parallelogram….. pretty cool. The chassis was red acrylic i believe

the volume knobs were above and below each other
 
I heard speakers with a plasma tweeter at RMAF 2016. The high frequencies were absolutely wonderful, alright, but there were disqualifying issues lower down. I don't remember which maker, but they did not look like the pics of Plasmatronics on google images.

The Teac TN-400 Magnefloat turntable in my avatar pic has capacitive-discharge switches for 33|stop|45 on the lower right. They light up, of course! Not to mention the built-in bubble level. Its claim to fame was the magnetic suspension, but they didn't have permission from Phillips, the patent-holder, so they were dumped on the grey market. I got one for $100, in 1980 or so, for a TT designed to compete with the best Denons and SP Technics. Least noisy of my tables, although the Marantz comes close.
 
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Someone mentioned the Nak Dragon... In the early 80's, and honestly, I have NO IDEA how I learned this or if I figured it out myself, while dragging around my Sears boombox, I would also carry around a small eyeglass screwdriver and adjust the azimuth by ear for whatever cassette I was playing. Then the Dragon came out and it had the azimuth adjustment knob. I never owned one as that was well beyond my Burger King money, but I thought it was a brilliant move.
 
Bone Yard said:
I love the buttons on the Philips 312 & 212 Turntables, one of the best looking vintage "basic" turntables. The big question is are the switches mechanical or capacitance?
Click to expand...
At one point I had 3 of those Phillips turntables in the house. Non would work right...one had a bad power switch, the other had the cuing problem where the tone arm wouldn't stay down, the 3rd worked mechanically but had no output. Great tables but they didn't seem to age well.
 
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