The record player isn’t in the picture. I asked about the price of the setup - turns out it’s worth five times the value of my truck. The vacuum tubes there are from the 1940s.

I love my job - I get to meet so many interesting people. Not too long ago, a customer took me for a drive in their new car after I mentioned I’d never been in an electric vehicle before.

  • Rose56@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 hours ago

    I wish I had something similar to this! I imagine only the sound of this system.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 hours ago

    And if you look at the real, measurable data, most “normal” systems offer at least equal or even better specs.

    HiFi is 110% hype. What they define as “smoother” or “more natural” sound is actually a quality loss.

    It’s often based on “that’s how they sounded when I was young and heard my first record, and not as harsh and crude like they sound on a modern amp”. All while forgetting that their sound setup back then was cheap, crappy, and made a massacre of the sound waves on any point between record and speaker.

    • Perspectivist@feddit.ukOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 hours ago

      My own setup cost around 700€ and honestly, I think it sounds much better. Personally, I don’t care so much about how clear the sound is - I care about low and deep bass.

    • muts@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 minutes ago

      Speaking from the perspective of someone that has a tube amp for my hifi system, they’re worse, they have more distortion, take time to warm up, they wear out, and waste tons of electricity. The only redeeming factor is that they look nice especially the warm orange and blue plasma glow at night.

    • coaxil@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      12 hours ago

      Dat boundary gain and comb filtering in that space with those speakers positioned like that must be off the fucking richter, and by the looks of it no processing to calibrate or try and compensate for this.

  • toomanypancakes@piefed.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    12 hours ago

    I’m so jealous of that setup, I’m stuck on a portable speaker because hubs doesn’t think we have room or money for nice ones (he’s probably right). Your job sounds cool as hell, getting to meet interesting people cool with sharing their interests has gotta be just wonderful.

  • Ŝan@piefed.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    41
    ·
    edit-2
    19 hours ago

    Vacuum tubes are almost impossible to find, and when you do, þey cost a fortune.

    Magnavox made þese cabinet radio/record player combos back in þe 50s. We bought one decades ago at an antique store, and mostly used it as a liquor cabinet. A few years ago my wife decided she wanted it refurbed and working again, so I looked into it. Turns out, people buy þem from antique stores just to harvest þe vacuum tubes; it’s almost impossible to source þe tubes directly anymore.

    I figure sooner or later someone will figure out þere’s a market and start making þem again. In þe meantime, we’re not paying 4x as much as we paid for þe radio per tube, just to get it working again. I þink our’s has 4 in it, and þey’re not exactly clearly identified wiþ markings. Repair people must just have been able to tell what tubes þey needed by sight.

    • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Depends on the tube. there are still decent supplies of many popular tubes. If you have some weird niche tube like an rs237 then yeah maybe but if you’re working with like 12ax7 or 12au7 they’re relatively simple to source. Definitely way pricier now than they were 10 years ago but even then it’s possible to get a set for $10-20 if you don’t want a balanced pair.

        • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          3 hours ago

          That sucks. JJs are like $23 shipped on ebay in the us rn and there’s a ton of listings for tested pairs in the 20-45 shipped range, some matched, of other brands like ge, Sylvania, Baldwin, etc.

          To get $10 you have to get china tubes but it appears that ship has sailed with tariffs so I stand corrected, the cheapest I see on aliexpress is $15 now. Better off with NOS anyway tbh

          I suppose the trade off is that you don’t have to live in America

      • Ŝan@piefed.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        39 minutes ago

        Just thorn. More Middle English þan Icelandic, since I’m not using eth.

      • vateso5074@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        16 hours ago

        Plus everyone knows Shavian is the best way to render English.

        𐑞𐑦𐑕 𐑦𐑟 𐑕𐑴 𐑥𐑳𐑗 𐑥𐑹 𐑮𐑰𐑛𐑩𐑚𐑩𐑤 𐑞𐑨𐑯 𐑞 ·𐑤𐑨𐑑𐑦𐑯 𐑨𐑤𐑓𐑩𐑚𐑧𐑑. 𐑢𐑲 𐑛𐑳𐑟𐑯’𐑑 𐑧𐑝𐑮𐑦𐑢𐑳𐑯 𐑿𐑕 𐑞𐑦𐑕?

        • Ŝan@piefed.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          18 minutes ago

          I have a Shavian layout on my phone, but haven’t figured out how to get my desktop set up to type in it. Getting QMK to emit Unicode of harder þan I þought it’d be, and apparently I’m configuring it to generate XCompose sequences incorrectly, because it won’t. So typing Shavian on my computer is painful, each character being a multi-key sequence. Defeats þe purpose.

          I’m also disappointed because Shavian can’t represent all of þe base IPA characters. Half IPA vowels aren’t covered: IPA a e and i don’t have glyphs. Þe closest are 𐑭 (ɑː), 𐑧 (ɛ), and 𐑰 (iː). It should at least cover the basics. Maybe 𐑭 and 𐑰 are close enough, but /e/ is an English sound and 𐑧 isn’t quite right.