In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...

Have you never lived in the UK, Iain, and bought a TV licence?

Yes for many years.

If so, you'd know it was still as good value as ever.

Well, as it works out at 50p a day
I have to agree:-)

I'd happily pay that just for R4.

--
*7up is good for you, signed snow white*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Jim Lesurf said:
In article , Richard
Robinson wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) said:

Very surprising the numbers who claim to never watch TV. ;-)

Not me. Going on the last 20 years' average (ono), I expect to watch it
for about an hour a year, while visiting friends who are into it. I have
seen Big Brother, $Somewhere's Got Talent, Springwatch ... More than
"never", anyway.

Seems a pity to have never been able to watch The Proms, or items like the
performance of operas like The Barber of Seville, or ballets like Sleeping
Beauty. (The latter items, along with the Vienna New Year Concert, all
available in the last few weeks from the BBC.)

It's true that the sound quality doesn't always match the 320k aac from
Radio 3 via iPlayer. But the 50fps video you can get (if you do it in
time) of such things seems pretty enjoyable to me.

That doesn't bother me much. High quality is to be had when possible, but if
it's a cruddy recording of worthwhile music, I'll listen and enjoy.

All that said, yes, listening to sound-only can be very enjoyable. Depends
what kind of experience you fancy. Having the choice seems good to me.

Sound-only, yes. If I go to a live performance it's "I love work, I can
watch people doing it for hours", but it's not often I find the visuals
important (is this maybe age-related ? I started listening to music before
the pop video became a Thing).

Or maybe it's just me, I don't really Do videos or films much, either.

Personally, I think my 50p a day is well spent just to get such things.

Plus, in my case, the once-off cost of buying the equipment.

Yes, I'm aware I'm missing things I'd probably like. But the same is true of
many other possibilities. I just don't know how people find the time for it
....

--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

In article ,
Richard
Robinson wrote:
It's true that the sound quality doesn't always match the 320k aac
from Radio 3 via iPlayer. But the 50fps video you can get (if you do
it in time) of such things seems pretty enjoyable to me.

That doesn't bother me much. High quality is to be had when possible,
but if it's a cruddy recording of worthwhile music, I'll listen and
enjoy.

cf below.

All that said, yes, listening to sound-only can be very enjoyable.
Depends what kind of experience you fancy. Having the choice seems
good to me.

Sound-only, yes. If I go to a live performance it's "I love work, I can
watch people doing it for hours", but it's not often I find the visuals
important (is this maybe age-related ? I started listening to music
before the pop video became a Thing).

The visuals can be useful for an opera or ballet. I confess I generally had
little interest in either *until* I could watch them in decent quality as
well as having the sound in decent quality. To me, that made a significant
difference even though I prefer closing my eyes when listening to other
kinds of music which have no specified relationship to anything that it
accompanies.

I stopped buying DVDs of classical music when they all went to 'NTSC' which
looks much poorer than even 'PAL' ( both labels being misleading, but they
are the terms used on the DVDs.) Blue Rays or HD recordings (or see below)
can be rather better.


Or maybe it's just me, I don't really Do videos or films much, either.

I'm happy watching old films. Even if the sound quality is poor. Content is
what really matters.


Personally, I think my 50p a day is well spent just to get such things.

Plus, in my case, the once-off cost of buying the equipment.

get_iplayer is your friend. If you have a computer with a decent display
you can get a lot of what the BBC broadcast in quite decent vision and
sound. For some years now, that has been my main route for BBC TV and Radio
3.

We do use a TV set as a display in the living room to watch AV. But nothing
fancy. However the bulk of what we watch is now fetched using get_iplayer.

That said, the 'real' hi-fi is in another room with no large screen. Just a
small monitor out of the line of vision when listening to audio.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Huge said:
On 2017-01-22, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Content is what really matters.

Precisely. Unless the reproduction is so poor that it is distracting.

If it's an LP I've known for a long time, I can find a missing scratch
distracting :-)


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

Jim Lesurf said:
In article ,
Richard Robinson wrote:

Sound-only, yes. If I go to a live performance it's "I love work, I can
watch people doing it for hours", but it's not often I find the visuals
important (is this maybe age-related ? I started listening to music
before the pop video became a Thing).

The visuals can be useful for an opera or ballet. I confess I generally had
little interest in either *until* I could watch them in decent quality as
well as having the sound in decent quality. To me, that made a significant
difference even though I prefer closing my eyes when listening to other
kinds of music which have no specified relationship to anything that it
accompanies.

Content is what really matters.

Hear hear !


Personally, I think my 50p a day is well spent just to get such things.

Plus, in my case, the once-off cost of buying the equipment.

get_iplayer is your friend. If you have a computer with a decent display
you can get a lot of what the BBC broadcast in quite decent vision and
sound. For some years now, that has been my main route for BBC TV and Radio
3.

Well, yes; it's a lack of motivation rather than ability.


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

On 22/01/2017 17:08, Richard Robinson wrote:
Huge said:
On 2017-01-22, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Content is what really matters.

Precisely. Unless the reproduction is so poor that it is distracting.

If it's an LP I've known for a long time, I can find a missing scratch
distracting :-)


Luxury. From the days of recording radio with the built in mic of a
portable cassette, various domestic 'overdubs' define the original
performance for me still.

--
Cheers, Rob

"Phil Allison" wrote in message
...
I once had a customer who owned a small recoding studio ( he was able to
cut disks on an old Ampex lathe too) and he had made a short musical tape
in stereo to be played on FM radio as a commercial.

Did Ampex make a cutting lathe? Perhaps you mean Westrex?

Ampex was set up to market the new technology (analogue tape)
which the German company AEG with their Magnetophon had
shown to be so superior to disc recording.

I have always understood that there were three American
manufacters were, Scully, Westrex and Presto.
There were also firms making portable disc cutters,
the size of gramophones - among them Vitaphone in the
US and Grampian in the UK

In Europe, Neumann and Lyrec were the two major
manufacturers of cutting lathes for professional use.


He rang me in a panic one day saying the FM station had rejected his tape,
claiming is was "out of phase". So I went to the studio, checked his set
up and listened to the tape on headphones. When switched to mono it
sounded fine, so was not out of phase.

I then rang the FM station and eventually go onto the guy who had
condemned the tape. He explained that his stereo modulation monitor showed
the tape was OOP.

When pressed for more detail he grudgingly went on to say that the L
channel meter regularly a read higher than the sum meter and this meant it
was OOP.

The problem was simple: my customer has panned the bass guitar hard left
in the mix, the piano hard right and drums in the centre.

That would have been OK if the modulation level was
not too high. BGtr and Bass Drum (also Floor Tom) would
have been safer in the centre or Bass Phased at the console

He re-mixed the tape with bass in the CENTRE and it got played on air.

The safest and most sensible solution of all:-)

But why supply an acetate when a quarter inch stereo tape
would have been much easier and cheaper?

Many folk groups, (example vox, guitar and string bass)
were recorded with the guitar left, vocal centre
and bass right.

Iain

RJH said:
On 22/01/2017 17:08, Richard Robinson wrote:
Huge said:
On 2017-01-22, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Content is what really matters.

Precisely. Unless the reproduction is so poor that it is distracting.

If it's an LP I've known for a long time, I can find a missing scratch
distracting :-)


Luxury. From the days of recording radio with the built in mic of a
portable cassette, various domestic 'overdubs' define the original
performance for me still.

Ah, cassette motor noise. I wouldn't miss that.


--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

Iain Churches wrote:

"Phil Allison"



Did Ampex make a cutting lathe? Perhaps you mean Westrex?


** The lathe was from the 1950s and incorporated a valve amplifier and PSU underneath. It was a *large* machine. My memory tells me it was Ampex, but that could be mistaken.

I was certainly not a major brand like Scully or Neumann.


I have always understood that there were three American
manufacters were, Scully, Westrex and Presto.


** AFAIK Westrex made cutting heads and amplifiers, not complete lathes.




He rang me in a panic one day saying the FM station had rejected his tape,
claiming is was "out of phase". So I went to the studio, checked his set
up and listened to the tape on headphones. When switched to mono it
sounded fine, so was not out of phase.

I then rang the FM station and eventually go onto the guy who had
condemned the tape. He explained that his stereo modulation monitor showed
the tape was OOP.

When pressed for more detail he grudgingly went on to say that the L
channel meter regularly a read higher than the sum meter and this meant it
was OOP.

The problem was simple: my customer has panned the bass guitar hard left
in the mix, the piano hard right and drums in the centre.


He re-mixed the tape with bass in the CENTRE and it got played on air.

The safest and most sensible solution of all:-)


But why supply an acetate when a quarter inch stereo tape
would have been much easier and cheaper?


** My post says he suppled a tape, 1/4 inch two track.

His business was called "DemoDisc" so had to be able to make them.



..... Phil

"Phil Allison" wrote in message
...
Iain Churches wrote:

"Phil Allison"



Did Ampex make a cutting lathe? Perhaps you mean Westrex?



** The lathe was from the 1950s and incorporated a valve amplifier and PSU
underneath. It was a *large* machine. My memory tells me it was Ampex,
but that could be mistaken.

I was certainly not a major brand like Scully or Neumann.


I have always understood that there were three American
manufacters were, Scully, Westrex and Presto.


** AFAIK Westrex made cutting heads and amplifiers, not complete lathes.

Westrex supplied cutter head and electronics that were
often fitted to Scully lathes. They also sold complete
systems. The studio where I worked in the UK had
eight lathes, one of them Westrex (used for RCA).

Ampex certainly did not built disc cutting equipment.
They were far too busy with better things:-)


His business was called "DemoDisc" so had to be able to make them.

Good name:-)

Iain