Category: Tech

Needle Exchange

I posted this in the Turntables group on Facebook. It’s a “private” group with almost 13,000 members. Is it any wonder that records continue their hold over obsessive hobbyists, against other music formats?

For a few years after college I earned a very modest living talking into a mic at an AM radio station. The format was Adult Contemporary, and the program manager let the DJ’s take whatever records we wanted the station couldn’t play. Recently I was asked if the DJ demo records of old were “hot stampers.” From the records I got from work long ago, and still have, I’d say yes.

For example, there is my copy of Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Live at Hollywood High. In my Pioneer PL-112D turntable I like using P-Mount cartridges with standard adapters. The VTA [vertical tracking angle] hits nicely with the fixed height of the tonearm. My Grado Green completely falls apart on the hot grooves of “Accidents Will Happen.” It buzzes like crazy on Elvis’ vocal! Swapping in my humble Audio-Technica AT-92ECD, installed in a spare head shell, it easily sails right through the same track.

For Once In My Life, Spare Me

Ah, NOS. That self-contradictory term, New Old Stock.

It’s a spindle/bearing assembly for my 1976 vintage Pioneer PL-112D turntable. The old assembly is in the picture. It had a bothersome spur on the top edge. I tried to smooth it out but, of course, that only made things worse.

Fortunately, an eBay seller has some Pioneer NOS spare parts at a reasonable price. An easy 10-minute job, even with replacing the original oil that still looked fresh after more than 40 years. The oil in the old spindle/bearing was black.

The book is Joel Whitburn’s authoritative compilation of 1960’s music charts from Billboard magazine. A gift from good, ol’ Denro. I got it out after Pandora played Frank Sinatra doing “For Once in My Life,” from his 1969 album My Way.

[“Frank Sinatra saved my life once. He said, ‘Okay, boys. That’s enough.'” – Shecky Greene]

Stevie Wonder had a #2 hit with the tune, released November 2, 1968. It stayed on the charts for 14 weeks.

But wait, was Stevie the first to release the song as a single? Jackie Wilson’s recording of “For Once in My Life” came out THE VERY SAME DAY, but it lasted only 3 weeks, reaching #70 on Billboard.

But wait again. Sinatra’s pal Tony Bennett beat Stevie and Jackie by more than a year, with his record coming out on September 9, 1967. Tony’s take on the song lasted for 19 weeks on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, and it reached #8.

You may have heard that Tony, who is 94, has Alzheimer’s Disease. If Bennett dies tonight Denro will blame me, and rightly so, given my track record of famous people dying soon after I mention them. It’s my deadly superpower.

Dare to Compare

Compare the sound of speakers, online, while listening to headphones?? HUH?? Audio retailer Crutchfield says yes! You’ll need a pair of headphones that’s in Crutchfield’s database, like the inexpensive Audio-Technica ATH-M20x’s I have.

This setup, created by a couple smart guys with doctorates, is causing quite an online buzz. I’m having a lot of fun playing with it, using WAV files of my own, made over the years. Some music has striking differences between speakers, while other samples sound surprisingly similar.

Love Me Do-lby

In 1982 I bought a British import 12-inch 45 reissue of the Beatles’ first Parlophone single, “Love Me Do.” Side 1 has the take with Andy White on drums. It was mastered from the original tape, and to me it sounds fab and gear.

Side 2 is the take with Ringo on drums, and it was mastered by necessity from a 1962 Parlophone 45. Compared to the first side it sounds like you’re playing it on speakers while wearing headphones that aren’t plugged in. It’s all explained here, in exhaustively delightful detail. Or is it delightfully exhaustive detail?

Print-Out

One of my responsibilities during the first half of my career in technology was deciding on peripheral devices the company’s customers — hospitals — could use with our software system. Peripherals included things like terminals, modems and printers.

The first widely successful laser printer was Hewlett-Packard’s LaserJet. I got my hands on one right away after it was introduced in 1984. 8 ppm at 300 dpi for $3500, or about $9000 today, and competitors entered the market.

Some years later our biggest customer was interested in laser printers made by a very big corporation. One printer ran at 12 ppm, the other at 16 ppm. The faster model cost significantly more money. They looked identical, and by accessing the hidden service menu I discovered they were exactly the same printer. The less expensive model was set to wait between each page. The setting could be turned off, and suddenly the 12 ppm printer was spitting out test pages at 16 ppm.

If this sneaky bit of profit padding secrecy got out I’d be forced to admit I knew about it, or claim ignorance and appear incompetent. Not a good place to be, but nothing came of it, and I suspected the technicians at the hospital chain who were pushing for support had figured it out anyway.

Back in those days technical support was provided remotely via dialup modems, and I was also in charge of that bit of technology. CompuServe and AOL, and the early ISP’s, had cabinets filled with modem cards that answered incoming calls. We mostly used ours to dial out to customers. I could dial into a hospital and target a particular printer to send commands and generate test printouts. Ideally, somebody would be on the phone with me to describe what they were seeing on paper.

Some printer problems were in our software, but others were caused by printer firmware changes that were released without my approval. Way back then, a printer could do only what the firmware allowed, but the firmware itself couldn’t be changed without physically opening up a unit and replacing a chip. Today, firmware can easily be changed remotely.

Manufacturers continue to be sneaky in chasing a dollar, and they take advantage of their ability to send instructions en masse to printers remotely. With that in mind, listen to this Planey Money podcast.

It’s a Platter of Fact

Before records became a popular music medium again, good used turntables were cheap. This durable Pioneer PL-112D, for example, was an impulse purchase I made a long time ago.

Zombies under Stones

Because it’s endlessly fun to futz with audio gear, I bought a new belt for the PL-112D and pulled it out of storage.

Grado Green with Grado Black stylus

This latest exercise in retirement time wasting was done to see if increasing the tracking force of a Grado cartridge from the fixed P-mount setting of 1.25 grams to ~1.70 improves tracking.

Well, whaddaya know? It works. The distinctly annoying sibilance in George’s vocal on “Within You, Without You” is gone from my 1970’s British Parlophone pressing of Sgt. Pepper.