We had this in my house growing up
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Even older, huzzah!
Yeah I found this which was more like what we had.
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The phone-aux concern is real. An old system like that is nice for decor if you like the look, but having a physical collection of music is so inconvenient when you're used to streaming and mp3s, I fucking feel that.
If you do want one for the aesthetic, though, I'd recommend checking brick and mortar thrift stores or garage/estate sales. My nearby charity shop always has a few components stacked up on a shelf, same corner as the pandemic breadmakers, haha.
That's a very good suggestion!! Next time I'm cruising past the goodwill or thrift store I'm gonna have to do a little exploring...
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
I bought a similar set up from a thrift store not long ago, came with the cabinet and everything. $60.
The speakers it came with with put my newer tv speakers to shame, and I started building a vinyl collection because of it -
I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Honestly, aging capacitors and cracked motor drive belts aside, a complete hi-fi is a thing of beauty. And it's supposed to be, hence the showy front and glass case to keep the dust off.
I'm no audiophile, but with refurbished power supplies, updated noise reduction* & EQ, and modern speaker technology, that setup would be an old media blasting beast.
* - for the uninitiated, or if you're old enough to smell OP's photo, the way tape-hiss intrudes on music is just hot garbage by today's standards. So, having a way to mitigate it would be strongly advised.
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Honestly, aging capacitors and cracked motor drive belts aside, a complete hi-fi is a thing of beauty. And it's supposed to be, hence the showy front and glass case to keep the dust off.
I'm no audiophile, but with refurbished power supplies, updated noise reduction* & EQ, and modern speaker technology, that setup would be an old media blasting beast.
* - for the uninitiated, or if you're old enough to smell OP's photo, the way tape-hiss intrudes on music is just hot garbage by today's standards. So, having a way to mitigate it would be strongly advised.
Honestly, has there been any progress of high end speakers? On the low end sure, high end not so sure.
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
The audio equivalent of having a homelab
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Honestly, aging capacitors and cracked motor drive belts aside, a complete hi-fi is a thing of beauty. And it's supposed to be, hence the showy front and glass case to keep the dust off.
I'm no audiophile, but with refurbished power supplies, updated noise reduction* & EQ, and modern speaker technology, that setup would be an old media blasting beast.
* - for the uninitiated, or if you're old enough to smell OP's photo, the way tape-hiss intrudes on music is just hot garbage by today's standards. So, having a way to mitigate it would be strongly advised.
So, having a way to mitigate it would be strongly advised.
oldReliable.jpg : Aux cord connected to digital music
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
No RTR? Noobs
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Honestly, has there been any progress of high end speakers? On the low end sure, high end not so sure.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I assume engineering and materials used on higher end speakers today are better, but most are still hand made like their older counterparts. The reason why low-end mass produced speakers are much better today is because the manufacturing process is more automated. Usually handmade for mass produced stuff isn’t going to be as high quality as mass produced stuff made by a machine. This is me just speculating because I don’t work in that industry.
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Yeah, I'm not sure why they'd tell you to plug a set top box into that.
It works as an input too, but if you run something like Netflix from the TV app, that's where the audio output from it goes.
Personally I run it all into the AVR, and from there to the TV, because I've got an older ARC set. ARC was limited to older DVD-era audio formats like stereo PCM, DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 (with the limited Atmos support). More modern sets have eARC which supports all the fancier Blu-ray-era formats, DTS-MA, Dolby TrueHD & Atmos, and 7.1 PCM. All the major streaming services use the older formats though, so most people won't notice any difference.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I plug everything up to my AVR besides my Xbox and PlayStation. I use eArc for them, since HDMI 2.1 sometimes can be finicky on my AVR even though it has it.
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I was 4 years old, listening to a record on headphones connected to this rig. Leaned too far back, and caught the 1/4 inch input jack on the headphones right in my fucking eyeball.
Yes, I am that old. Yes, I miss physical buttons to play and rewind, along with a decent wheel to adjust volume without fixed steps.
I also miss when placing the speakers separate of each other was the normal and expected behavior. The idea of Stereo.
But above all, I miss dynamic range. And that's not because of the gear, but of the recordings.
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I plug everything up to my AVR besides my Xbox and PlayStation. I use eArc for them, since HDMI 2.1 sometimes can be finicky on my AVR even though it has it.
Yeah, I remember them finding all sorts of issues around the launch of the new consoles, since they were the first proper test for the HDMI 2.1 AVRs.
My AVR is only a 2.0, but I found it could actually pass 120Hz at 1080p because that's what my 2017 TV supports.
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Yeah I found this which was more like what we had.
This is what we had, with no TV. You could store records in the center section.
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This is what we had, with no TV. You could store records in the center section.
Yep totally remember the record slot part. I would love to take one of these and modernize it. Not sure how but it would be cool anachronistic tech.
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My best friend had this (1980s) and he also had something I've never seen before or since: an 8-track recorder. We would make mix tapes on the thing and take them to parties - where we were extremely, extremely unpopular because our 8-track mix tapes had shit like Laurie Anderson and Ultravox and Jon and Vangelis songs on them. Also the tapes played back at 125% speed so everybody sounded a bit like the Chipmunks.
Personally, I find the current vinyl craze kind of amusing. I spent the first ten years of my listening life with LPs and the moment I got my first CD player that was the end of that shit forever. The clicks and pops and the physical PITA of taking records out of their sleeves and setting the stylus down somewhere to hear a particular song and then cleaning the record and putting it back was just so incredibly annoying. The only good thing about LPs was (is) the cover art; as a huge Yes fan growing up I should perhaps appreciate that more, but it wasn't enough to offset the negatives.
I'm with you on the vinyl. I was glad to get rid of it, and the pops and clicks, the need to clean every record before playing, etc
Years later, I came to realize that the whole ritual of removing the LP from its various sleeves, carefully handling it by the edges, checking for warps, blowing off the loose dust, carefully setting it on the platter, carefully cleaning it with a Discwasher or some other system, them finally carefully setting the needle down, only to do it all again in 20 minutes when you flip the record, and then reversing the entire process to put it away, became a ritual that gave the playing of a record a feeling of importance, as if it were an important cultural experience. By doing that often, it became exactly that, and a person's record collection became an important indicator of their personality. Music felt important, an integral part of a person's being, all because we treated it almost like a religious ritual.
Today, music seems so disposable.
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Yep totally remember the record slot part. I would love to take one of these and modernize it. Not sure how but it would be cool anachronistic tech.
I've thought of that, too, but they take up so much space. I can create a much better performing and sounding audio system in a much smaller space. This much floor real estate could house a shelf that could hold hundreds of LPs (or CDS).
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Honestly, has there been any progress of high end speakers? On the low end sure, high end not so sure.
Compared with the 1980's? IMO, absolutely, yes. At the very least we have stronger stationary magnets (neodymium) that make for more compact designs. They also need to hold up for higher and lower-end frequencies, due to how music has changed. I think the media used to make speaker cones uses more composites these days, instead of just stiff paper.
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Honestly, has there been any progress of high end speakers? On the low end sure, high end not so sure.
Progress has been steady as far as I can tell. We have a much better understanding of the physics now and much better material engineering.
The problem is that anything "high end" in the audio space is either for professional use, or for audiophiles, aka, expensive as all heck.
You'll probably need another mortgage to get a setup like this working in modern days with all the up to date bells and whistles.
Don't get me wrong, if you spend the cash, it will sound amazing. There's some question as to what actually helps with sound quality and what is audiophile snake oil, but even with the snake oil, it sounds great; it just costs more than it would without the snake oil, and separating the snake oil from the stuff that actually improves the sound is a nightmare.
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Honestly, aging capacitors and cracked motor drive belts aside, a complete hi-fi is a thing of beauty. And it's supposed to be, hence the showy front and glass case to keep the dust off.
I'm no audiophile, but with refurbished power supplies, updated noise reduction* & EQ, and modern speaker technology, that setup would be an old media blasting beast.
* - for the uninitiated, or if you're old enough to smell OP's photo, the way tape-hiss intrudes on music is just hot garbage by today's standards. So, having a way to mitigate it would be strongly advised.
Yes, but how does Huey Lewis sound on it?
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The audio equivalent of having a homelab
I feel called out
