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Religious Experience From The Past...

S

savatage1973

Addicted Member
OK--so a friend came over and was looking at the pile of gear I have sitting here (currently not in use), so we decided to "build" our system of our "youth".

Yamaha CR-2020, Technics SL-1200 with some old A/T DJ cart that I haven't used in at least 20 years, and a pair of JBL L100's--and my original copy of Boston~S/T.

It is everything I dreamed of years ago--all of the "warts" included. And he surprised me with an early Christmas gift of a sealed first pressing of the Boston LP--which is still not opened.

Sometimes a bit of nostalgia can take you back to a "better place".

Peace and Good Will for all of you over the holiday season!!!
 
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Check in the dead wax and see who mastered that first release.

How does the vintage system sound?
 
theophile said:
Check in the dead wax and see who mastered that first release.

How does the vintage system sound?
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I don't know if I am going to open the one he gave me yet--I'll have to check the one that I bought new when it came out (the one we were playing)--it is still in pretty good shape after 40 years of abuse.

The vintage system sounds just like it did back in the day--maybe even better, now that I know what I am listening for. This music was engineered to be played on this kind of gear, and it really "shines"--is it brutally "resolving" or "tech spec'd" out the ass?--by no means, but it is what it is, and what it was intended to be. Not only is there "synergy" with the gear, but with the gear and the recording itself--it was recorded and engineered for this gear, because that's what was out there at the time.
 
Man, I remember my first ear-exposure to "More than a Feeling" on a great system... I agree, Religious!
 
I've been wanting to do exactly the same thing! I'm fascinated with the chicken-&-egg business of recording tech vs.playback tech.
That's a good friend you've got there.
 
Farmhand said:
I've been wanting to do exactly the same thing! I'm fascinated with the chicken-&-egg business of recording tech vs.playback tech.
That's a good friend you've got there.
Click to expand...

Yes--he is certainly a good friend!--and he knows I've been "hooked" on that album since its release 40 years ago.

I am a big addict of 60's, 70's and 80's rock/prog/alt, and I built up a main system that was soooo "resolving" that it made much of my favorite collection virtually "unlistenable"--if that makes any sense. Good recordings sounded "amazing", but the bulk of this material was not particularly well-recorded or well-engineered, so all I could hear were the "flaws"--not the music. Even on my main system, I have "dialed it back" a notch or two, just to listen to the music and not get distracted by the "flaws".

I am digressing here, but this is the issue that I have with "upscaling" and "hi-rez"--if it wasn't there to start with, what are you gaining? If the master was laid down on a 1968 "state of the art" R2R deck in a smoke-filled studio, that is all that is there, and "upscaling" it to "hi-rez" does NOTHING--you can't get what isn't there to start with. You can mess with the original mix, but what isn't there--isn't there. Watch an old B&W episode of "I Love Lucy" on a 4K resolution TV/AVR system, and it still looks and sounds like the original on a B&W CRT TV.

I refer to my vintage rigs as "period pieces"--this is what is was recorded on/engineered to be played on, and this is how it was intended to sound.
 
Fall 1976. Christmas in the residence halls. Would come back to the room after supper and sun had just gone down. Put the Christmas lights in the window on, turned on the color organ (remember those) and pound out Boston on a system similar to the one cited, in a room light only by the color organ flashing.

That brings back memories.

Boston's first album (I do still have an original pressing) is still my go to for listening/comparing equipment. Not because it is the very best recording, but it is the one I am most familiar with.
 
I have to admit that from the title of the thread I hadn't expected an audio-related topic, interesting though it is. What the title brought to mind was my recently finding that the children's bible from Golden Press that my parents bought for my brothers and I for Christmas 1966 is still available as The Golden Children's Bible (only the cover art has changed; page layout, numbering, and illustrations are the same). I bought several to share this year, and that has been my Religious Experience from the Past.
 
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One day in 1969 I went with some friends over to a girl's house to hear her Dad's stereo. We were all music lovers and for some reason there weren't many of us at our high school. Her Dad was an architect and they lived in a beautiful home set back in the woods. The living room had cathedral ceilings and one wall was all glass. I don't remember the components, but knowing him they were high end for that time period.

We were sitting around talking and the girl told us she had just picked up the first album by a group called Led Zeppelin. We all laughed at the name and boy, did our looks change when the needle hit the record. It was one of those moments where time stops and you are totally engulfed in the moment. The music surrounded me and I was transfixed. The strange thing was, everybody else in the room responded the same way. When the album was over, we all sat there not knowing what to say. I bought the album that week.

I really feel that the afternoon I spent in that living room was the beginning of a lifelong journey for me.
 
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