[OldRoadToad]

The last Ghostbusters, which technically was a sequel, was great!


I‘ve been considering getting an MC cart for my Rega P25 for years but…
1. They aren’t cheap
2. I would need a whole new phono preamp ( Yes, I have Mani 2 but I want a tube in there somewhere)
3. SUTs are great but there goes another $$$$.

Ugh!

Thanks for your endorsement! I shall now give this a view!

ORT

 

[Cliffh93]

Oh gosh when I was into vinyl, just after the demise of the dinosaurs, I remember having to protect my children from flying pieces of vinyl while listening.
We used to call these turntables "snow plows" because of the vinyl wearing down the record starting at the first play. OMG...we made fun of this but there were no
real alternatives except for early FM stereo broadcasts! Ha!

Anti-static mats, DiscWashers, Polonium anti static brushes, Static ion guns!, Setting up that cartridge, anti-skate, wow, rumble, tics and pops, speed synchronization, dropping that tonearm on a record accidently and watching a speaker cone go flying across the room or startling one's wife into a heart attack!.

Buying a Phase Linear 1000 ( i think) to remove or mask the tics and pops, something called an Noise Reduction System ?
"Dynamic Range Recovery System"...Oh My! And I did buy one of these...yup I did!



Oh my do I miss all this.....oh I used to buy more than one copy of a record, just to have one that was pristine...

Those were the real good ole days!!

Big Smile here!
Enjoy the music

Alex

I was in high school in the early eighties, radio sucked even then (at least where I lived), so the challenge was to get decent tunes in the car. 8 track was still around but. Of course was terrible from an SQ perspective.
That meant cassette was the only viable option but the ones from the record labels were awful. So what to do?
I would buy the best BASF blank tapes and record on them from the LP. I would buy the album and listen to it once to see if any songs were so bad they had to be skipped. Then I wrote out the times of the keepers to figure out how many songs I could get one one side of the tape (most were 30 min per side, the 90 minute tapes of the day were prone to breakage). Then I would record the tape using slightly boosted levels to get all of the SPL I could.
Even if I waited a week the cracks and pops would appear and make it onto the tape.

 

[mjstealey]

I was in high school in the early eighties, radio sucked even then (at least where I lived), so the challenge was to get decent tunes in the car. 8 track was still around but. Of course was terrible from an SQ perspective.
That meant cassette was the only viable option but the ones from the record labels were awful. So what to do?
I would buy the best BASF blank tapes and record on them from the LP. I would buy the album and listen to it once to see if any songs were so bad they had to be skipped. Then I wrote out the times of the keepers to figure out how many songs I could get one one side of the tape (most were 30 min per side, the 90 minute tapes of the day were prone to breakage). Then I would record the tape using slightly boosted levels to get all of the SPL I could.
Even if I waited a week the cracks and pops would appear and make it onto the tape.

Ah, the good old BASF blanks ... as an 80's teen I can relate to this, and spending way too many hours working through the FM dial poised to hit record as the DJ queued up the song I was waiting for.
Cannot count how many "dedication requests" I made to local DJs trying to get the song I was looking for played so that I could record it to tape.

My kids just stare at me blankly when I tell them stories like this ...

 

[Godaisan]

There’s a $999 used Jil for sale on Audiogon if anyone is interested. Good luck to the seller.

 

[RCBinTN]

I once read there are only X number of movie plots. Dances with Wolves, Avatar, and Little Big Man all share the same theme. A person who ends up living in a different society and ends up seeing things through other eyes.

The movie "The Last Samurai" also shares that theme. We watched it last night - quite heavy - and that's what delayed the James Bond BluRay testing - which is now complete. Here are the results ...

Net - it does appear that a region coding issue caused this mess, likely due to poor controls on the pressing line(s) as @StimpyWan speculated earlier.
- Sean Connery series: Two of the six discs would play.
- Roger Moore series: Three of the seven discs would play.
- Pierce Brosnan series: Two of the four discs would play.
So all the BluRay sets are headed back to Amazon. FYI, friends

 

[roncruiser]

You gonna experiment w bi-amping at all?

I'll explore with the Denton's 85ths at some point. I've not Bi-Amped the speakers yet.

 

[FLTWS]

The movie "The Last Samurai" also shares that theme. We watched it last night - quite heavy - and that's what delayed the James Bond BluRay testing - which is now complete. Here are the results ...

Net - it does appear that a region coding issue caused this mess, likely due to poor controls on the pressing line(s) as @StimpyWan speculated earlier.
- Sean Connery series: Two of the six discs would play.
- Roger Moore series: Three of the seven discs would play.
- Pierce Brosnan series: Two of the four discs would play.
So all the BluRay sets are headed back to Amazon. FYI, friends

Glad you got it sorted. Nothing more frustrating to me than having to send back something purchased new.
I read a few reviews of films coded for Europe (Region B or 2 I guess) that said they would actually play in Region 1 or A players.
I have 3 or 4 of them and they do play just fine.
So much for quality control.

 

[Ripper2860]

I found this interesting...

4K UHD Bluray discs are not region coded and will play on any region Bluray player. HD Blurays ARE region coded and require the region on the media and player to match unless the player is region unlocked, of course.

 

[Paladin79]

The movie "The Last Samurai" also shares that theme. We watched it last night - quite heavy - and that's what delayed the James Bond BluRay testing - which is now complete. Here are the results ...

Net - it does appear that a region coding issue caused this mess, likely due to poor controls on the pressing line(s) as @StimpyWan speculated earlier.
- Sean Connery series: Two of the six discs would play.
- Roger Moore series: Three of the seven discs would play.
- Pierce Brosnan series: Two of the four discs would play.
So all the BluRay sets are headed back to Amazon. FYI, friends

Very true about the Last Samurai. Then of course you have Seven Samurai becoming the Magnificant Seven.

 

[OldRoadToad]

I once read there are only X number of movie plots. Dances with Wolves, Avatar, and Little Big Man all share the same theme. A person who ends up living in a different society and ends up seeing things through other eyes.

Disney's "The Mandalorian: borrows from "Lone Wolf and Cub". Most space stuff is just cowboys in space but I have no problem with that.

ORT

 

[Ripper2860]

Very true about the Last Samurai. Then of course you have Seven Samurai becoming the Magnificant Seven.

The Magnificent 7 -- yet another great western.

 

[RCBinTN]

Glad you got it sorted. Nothing more frustrating to me than having to send back something purchased new.
I read a few reviews of films coded for Europe (Region B or 2 I guess) that said they would actually play in Region 1 or A players.
I have 3 or 4 of them and they do play just fine.
So much for quality control.

Agree 100%. Perhaps the Stimpy One can comment, but I suspect those pressing machines are flying along. They probably make product changes all the time - and no way to eject the first disc after a change to verify it's correct ... so only QA will prevent these mistakes, not QC. The systems have to be robust enough to handle the speed of the process. We were always pushed to raise the speed of our lines - a dangerous proposition if not done right.

 

[FLTWS]

Very true about the Last Samurai. Then of course you have Seven Samurai becoming the Magnificant Seven.

Yes, and many of Kurosawa's films / ideas were lifted by Lucas for his Star Wars stories. R2D2 and 3 CPO are two characters lifted from the Hidden Fortress.
Sanjuro (or Yojimbo, can't remember which, maybe both) were made into spaghetti westerns like a "For a few dollars more"and "Fist full of dollars".
Just saw a film recently that reads like Rashomon. "Ran" is a take on King Lear. "Throne of Blood" is Macbeth.
And on and on.

 

[adydula]

I was in high school in the early eighties, radio sucked even then (at least where I lived), so the challenge was to get decent tunes in the car. 8 track was still around but. Of course was terrible from an SQ perspective.
That meant cassette was the only viable option but the ones from the record labels were awful. So what to do?
I would buy the best BASF blank tapes and record on them from the LP. I would buy the album and listen to it once to see if any songs were so bad they had to be skipped. Then I wrote out the times of the keepers to figure out how many songs I could get one one side of the tape (most were 30 min per side, the 90 minute tapes of the day were prone to breakage). Then I would record the tape using slightly boosted levels to get all of the SPL I could.
Even if I waited a week the cracks and pops would appear and make it onto the tape.

I can still see at each stop sign, several 8 track tape carcass's thrown out because the got wrapped around a capstan!! 8 track and cassettes!!
Oh my...at least you could see what people were buying for music just by stopping and examining the discarded stuff! LOL!

Fun times at Ridgemont High!! (pun intended)..

 

[OldRoadToad]

The Magnificent 7 -- yet another great western.

The Japanese Samurai and (the) original American Cowboy versions are both great. The fairly recent remake will be forever eschewed by me.

I have the Criterion Zatoichi collecton as well as the Zatoichi TV series. In 2003 a film called "The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi" was released and I bought it on DVD. It is just "okay" and I recently found my copy after years of being *AHem* "lost" and watched it for a second time. It was still just "okay".

ORT