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Spotting audio gear in the movies, TV, etc.

Recently saw an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show "Love Thy Other Neighbor." They did not show any equipment, but talked about two neighbors being hifi enthusiasts and discussing their equipment. All phony brands, but somewhat realistic sounding brands for turntable, amp and speakers.

Some dialogue:

[a horn-like sound is heard]

Laura Petrie : What was that?

Rob Petrie : That's stereo feedback - the mating call of two hi-fi bugs who just found each other.

Laura Petrie : And you mated 'em.
 
I don't doubt that this has already been mentioned but the title actor on the show Bosch has some really nice gear. he's got some kind of vintage looking Mac amp and what appears to me to be Ohm speakers. he lives in a a really mood looking place, that's more glass than anything else (with a really fine mid-century modern interior as well) on a hill overlooking the rest of LA and that fancy audio gear looks perfect in it. More than that though, the guy has good taste... he likes jazz and there's all kinds of typical stuff that you hear on the soundtrack, like Miles and Chet Baker, but there was a scene in a record store where he was admiring (and talking about) an LP by pianist Horace Tapscott, who's a more obscure, but very interesting figure...
 
Clearaudio Master Reference from the first Tomb Raider movie....
014.JPG
 
RunOutGroove said:
That setup makes no sense... There's that rack of high end looking stuff, but then to the right of it a bookshelf with that cheap, Emerson looking compact stereo (complete with 8-track). If you have the good stuff, why would you have the junk gear set up right next to it?
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To play your 8 track tapes of course!
 
RunOutGroove said:
But if you were really into 8 tracks (I've personally never understood the appeal), then why not have a player connected to the much better main system?
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Who knows? Maybe it's something that they've had since they were younger and like to listen to it on occasion.
 
kwayde said:
Who knows? Maybe it's something that they've had since they were younger and like to listen to it on occasion.
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I guess that I'm just not built of the same stuff, because medicore audio gear has never held that kind of nonstalgic value for me. If I have a choice between listening to an album in great sound quality, vs poor to mediocre, I'm going to go for the good stuff every time. I figure that's why we invest in it...
 
RunOutGroove said:
I guess that I'm just not built of the same stuff, because medicore audio gear has never held that kind of nonstalgic value for me. If I have a choice between listening to an album in great sound quality, vs poor to mediocre, I'm going to go for the good stuff every time. I figure that's why we invest in it...
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I wish I had the 8 track unit my brother had when he got out of the military. He had music from Santana, Moody Blues, Zeppelin, etc. and I would play them just so I could relive waiting for the unit to switch tracks mid-song. I smile thinking about it.
 
kwayde said:
I wish I had the 8 track unit my brother had when he got out of the military. He had music from Santana, Moody Blues, Zeppelin, etc. and I would play them just so I could relive waiting for the unit to switch tracks mid-song. I smile thinking about it.
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That would drive me nutz! Then again, I never owned one of those so I can't really have the same nostalgia about it. I did own plenty of cassettes and a series of players for those things but I don't really miss that too much, other than the for occasional mix tapes that I used to make. I hated the fact that the tapes would jam up, that the players would always eventually fail (though I learned some basic fixes), cuing up particular tracks was a drag and that often even if there want anything obviously broken, the sound quality could be pretty bad due to misalignment, tape wear, etc...

I do have some nostalgia for vintage amps and turntables though... so go figure?
 
RunOutGroove said:
That setup makes no sense... There's that rack of high end looking stuff, but then to the right of it a bookshelf with that cheap, Emerson looking compact stereo (complete with 8-track). If you have the good stuff, why would you have the junk gear set up right next to it?
Click to expand...


Because...

Sometimes you feel like a nut
Sometimes you don't

Al Yankovic
 
RunOutGroove said:
But if you were really into 8 tracks (I've personally never understood the appeal), then why not have a player connected to the much better main system?
Click to expand...
I imagine that was their only way to play 8-tracks without having the separate 8-track unit. Not everyone was equipped to hook up everything together, let alone have massive separates as shown. We had 8-tracks for everything and we wanted to play them everywhere. 8-track tapes were also the first recorded media to be universally portable.
 
ThereNthe70s said:
I imagine that was their only way to play 8-tracks without having the separate 8-track unit. Not everyone was equipped to hook up everything together, let alone have massive separates as shown. We had 8-tracks for everything and we wanted to play them everywhere. 8-track tapes were also the first recorded media to be universally portable.
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But that makes no sense in this case... there's already a rack od sperates to the side of this thing so the "not equppied to hook things together" defense doesn't really make any sense at all. As far as portability goes, the compact stereo that we're talking about here isn't portable either...
 
Why's it gotta' make sense? It's Hollywood . . . the fake blower bolted to the hood of Dom's charger don't make sense to me, but viewers ate it up.
 
damacman said:
Why's it gotta' make sense? It's Hollywood . . . the fake blower bolted to the hood of Dom's charger don't make sense to me, but viewers ate it up.
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Well, I agree that realism isn't important for some kinds of things, Obviosly stuff like sci-fi, horrow, fantasy and even a certain kind of madcap/surreal humour type thing doesn't require strict realism. Anything that isn't realistic in those movies, at least the well thought out ones are done for a purpose though. What would the purpose be of the aforementioned totally illogical hi-fi setup? I would say that there's no real purpose to it and that it's kind of a distraction, potentially drawing at least some folk's attention away from the plot, to thinking "what's up with that?" This is why there are so many high priced folks in Hollywood working to create sets and choosing props in movies... so that errors like this don't happen.
 
RunOutGroove said:
Well, I agree that realism isn't important for some kinds of things, Obviosly stuff like sci-fi, horrow, fantasy and even a certain kind of madcap/surreal humour type thing doesn't require strict realism. Anything that isn't realistic in those movies, at least the well thought out ones are done for a purpose though. What would the purpose be of the aforementioned totally illogical hi-fi setup? I would say that there's no real purpose to it and that it's kind of a distraction, potentially drawing at least some folk's attention away from the plot, to thinking "what's up with that?" This is why there are so many high priced folks in Hollywood working to create sets and choosing props in movies... so that errors like this don't happen.
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The problem with that is different people with different depths of knowledge in various disciplines are going to find issue with something in any film. I think the tacit agreement is that the viewer will attempt to suspend their disbelief and the creator will try not make egregious logical errors.

Lots of film workers don't make huge amounts of money. They do alright, but depending on where you are -- a lot of it in Los Angeles -- it can be kind of meh. Property master for example is about $38-44 an hour.

 
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