Leonard Smalls

Indeed! We were all rather mortified at our ineptitude...

Talking of learning songs, my band once did Stanley Clarke's School Days, which was to segue into Bootsy's I'd Rather Be With You (North Sea Jazz Version). It actually took us 2 goes to get note-for-note perfect, including both solos, using my ancient Kawai Sleekline and tape-wound strings. And funnily enough it was possible just by using the correct finger technique to reproduce all Bootsy's octave, distortion and qtron fx.

I'll have nowt said against Eydie! I finished every disco I did with this song for years:

Mine appears to be just a little bit dubwise...

Got this album on at work - I suspect not many garden centres will be playing this sort of thing!

And we're back to the Fender Turntable!

Indeed - most home folks would buy the bb5 se over the bb6 simply because it's got a nice bit of wood on the sides. But some no doubt go the whole hog; I know a bloke who has 2 sets of TAD 15" main monitors in his heavily sound-trapped "living" room!

There's 2 schools of thought - ultimate air'n'space and feeling of being there - almost unnaturally so - and reproducing the actual recording studio exprerience. The 1st lot will buy an Ongaku-on 8w SET amp with loads of colouration going into an enormous horn - Klipsch, Tannoy Westminster or bigger. The 2nd lot will but PMC BB5s and Bryston 14bsst (like me, 'cept I've got 14bsst and Leema Xaviers, which are a cheaper option but still made by an ex=BBC mate), or ATC SCM 150s. And they tend to hate each other, though secretly love each other's sound...

Indeed - Neve mic pre-amps are different to Focusrite! Klipschhorns are far more coloured than ATC speakers; Lumley valve amps less valve-y than Quad 2s, and Clearaudio TTs tend to be "more hifi sounding" than Linn LP12s... And you're right about high-end being capable of astonishing realism; Frinstance a set-up I once heard with 4 Martin Logan panels plus Genesis subs multi-amped with Mcintosh valves had far more of a sense of "being there" and slam than the Radio 1 main studio at Maida Vale - mainly because hearing everything was what the PMC Bryston set-up was designed to do, rather than creating an illusion of actually being at the gig!

Aye - my Recurve is a beautiful thing! However, as I'm a bit worried about taking the neck off (never done it before - have terrible thoughts it will be like the time I took the side off my Yammy TR1 engine and there was a wormgear and host of springs came bouncing out) and in the spirit of Shop Local I've contacted my Friendly Local Luthier - Manton Guitars...

Luminlay looks best... However, with my relatively meagre woodworking skillz I'd probably be wise not to take my powerdrill to the neck of any of my basses, specially not the Wal or ACG! Anyone got a vague idea how much a luthier would charge for side dots?

Following on from a gig where I completely messed up a bass intro due to not being able to see the dots on the side of the neck (used to playing my Wal where things are in a slightly different place), I'm thinking of getting some luminous dot things - Glowtec or similar. Anyone used 'em, or similar? How long do they glow for? Presumably they don't get in the way as they're on top of the neck? And how removeable are they? And don't suggest LEDs - I'm not tearing apart 5 bass necks!

A? We never used Dolby A after about 1991, wot with Dolby SR (not S!) being that bit better! I used to have a Revox PR99 and an SR unit - problem was that at 30ips even 10" tape reels didn't last very long...

Not bad at all! Few minor mistakes, but the good bits were actually good, as opposed to sloppy with too many notes! New guitarist and drummer have both funked and pumped us up...

I think they were one of those bands that sounded better on paper than in the actual listening! Meanwhile, early Liverpool/Wirral synth post punkers, featuring my headmaster's son! And can't remember if I've posted this already - but it's worth putting on again!

1st gig after 2 years (apart from internet ones). New drummer and guitarist too. Went reasonably well - everyone cocked up a little bit... Mine was due to not being able to see fret markers in poor lights. Must get some dayglo markers! But audience seemed very keen - 6th band out of 9 at Dollfest Abertillary....

Their website appears to be dead so not sure if they still exist... But my post above has a link to the MD Intelligent Box review by Henk and Marja at what is known as Six Loons. It's Quantum. So it's very clever!

Machina Dynamica make his tweaks look relatively sane!

To Jamaaladeen Tacuma's free download of a celebration of Coltrane: https://jamaaladeenmusic.com/album/44158/coltrane-configurations-progressions

And most important for digital playback, have the edges of the cd been highlighted green? CD also sounds appallingly unnatural unless you've put Shakti Stones on the CD player - you need to absorb that stray EMI! But the single best thing you can do to extract the most from cd playback is to buy an INTELLIGENT BOX 😎

1st actual live as opposed to streaming gig for 2 years! We're on at 7.10pm (6th on with 9 bands in total) at the Dollfest, Doll's House Abertillary. 1st time out for our new drummer and rhythm guitarist too...

Funnily enough my first taste of proper hifi was from cassette! I'd just blown my 1st term's grant in Superfi in Leeds on a Technics SU V5 amp and Kef Carina 2 loudspeakers. Got chatting to the salesman, we discovered we like similar music and both liked a little smoke (this was long ago, btw!). So I went to his house, we listened to Yello's "Claro Que Si" on cassette, and it sounded better than anything I'd ever heard before (the tootle probably helped!). However, this wasn't just a Waltham portable, twas a Nakamichi Dragon into Radford pre/power, into Tannoy 12" concentrics (Chatsworth, iirc).

An old Garard TT, going through an Ongaku phono and 10W SET amp into Tannoy Westminsters is a very pleasurable experience; for those who listen to breathy female vocal music this is audio nirvana. But at the opposite end of the spectrum, my Clearaudio Revolution with SME arm and Audionote cart de-phono-ed by an EAR 834 deluxe and amplified by a Bow Technology pre and Bryston 14bsst power into either my Leema Xaviers or Ditton 66/2s is capable of surprisingly accurate fidelity as well as extraordinary scale and power. I'd defy any listener to actually be able to spot any actual lack compared to my Advantage cd player (which is also a pretty serious piece of kit - a bit of a Wadia-beater!). Both do an excellent job - and comparing to the original tape master is a) absolutely irrelevant wot with it not being available b) absolutely irrelevant wot with it having been produced in a completely different acoustic environment from my listening room. What I really don't understand is folks who continually diss vinyl; after all it's great at producing music, as is digital! Ultimately listening to music is subjective - those who enjoy death metal will swear blind their choice is better than, say Scarlatti, and vice versa. Similarly, some will say that music sounds appalling unless its source is sitting on at least 14 layers of Mana tables. Others will violently uphold that this sucks out the life and you need a pneumatic platform. And among these sub-sects folks will fight about whether to stick a Linn LP12 on top of their Mana skyscraper, or an SME 10. But really, all those groups are just justifying purchases when they should just listen to their choice of music on whatever playback device they want to and not tell everyone else all their choices are sh!t!

It's a ridiculous argument... Both have merits, and both have problems. If you're looking for ultimate faithful-ness to the original recording, a 192KHz 24 bit digital medium is probably better than decent vinyl. But most folks are looking for what sounds nicest; that's why companies like Bosendorfer make speakers with sounding boards like their pianos in order to give a sound with pleasing resonances. And a good vinyl pressing played on a well-executed and set-up deck sounds at least as subjectively good and musical as any digital set-up. Some people may prefer one over the other, but to say vinyl doesn't sound good usually means that the person has never actually heard good vinyl, or is just reliving old memories of dirty crackly records humming with feedback and a filthy worn out cartridge. When I worked in BBC sound transfer one of our managers declared that "vinyl was not a broadcast medium". The entire department rounded on him, especially the two staff members who are now Trilogy Audio and Leema, made him listen to proper vinyl and as a result we actually got our knackered old Garard decks serviced ( or replaced with Technics), put into more isolating plinths, arms were set-up and Stanton DJ carts replaced. He didn't whinge about vinyl quality again, just made sure that decks were on the maintenance schedule...

Almost! It appears to be a MoFi Ultra Deck which they've replaced the plinth of with a bit of Fender Wood, then added $1200 to the price... And if I were spending $2200 on a US deck I'd buy a VPI Scout!