Coffee please?

[Polarengineer]

Beans were cheap.

[RobertArthur]

Not as cheap as beans when I bought these valves, new old stock, special professional version for maritime short wave transmitters. In the seventies sturdier than output stages using power transistors. Could have made a small fortune now....Early nineties I sold four of them, to be used for a Marshall amplifier. Two days later I got a phone call: the amp with these valves sounds even better than a new amp in the late sixties. We would like to buy hundred or more.

[Hotrodder]

If I had hung on to several of my treasures over the years instead of flogging them I could afford to live a life of retirement today.
My 1964 Stratocaster would be worth thousands today and the Bandmaster amp is so rare I can't even find one advertised anywhere. Both in mint condition when I sold them having had only moderate stage use.

[RobertArthur]

@ Hotrodder, from valves to guitars. A friend of mine, a drummer, made several black/white pictures, 400 ASA film, in the Marquee club in 1964. Not only several pics of The Who on stage, but also of a bass guitar, a Dan-electro long horn. Might have been a guitar of John Entwistle, the Ox.

Interesting design I thought. Several weeks later I started building one for a bass guitar player. Three layers of special quality plywood glued together, band saw in action, a neck, two pickups and the rest. Finishing touch: three layers of car paint, a penetrating smell.

[Polarengineer]

Looks like B&O have reintroduced the dinner gong and lava lamp. Sad, they were quite normal once.
https://newatlas.com/home-entertainment ... ure-proof/

[Hotrodder]

@ Hotrodder, from valves to guitars. A friend of mine, a drummer, made several black/white pictures, 400 ASA film, in the Marquee club in 1964. Not only several pics of The Who on stage, but also of a bass guitar, a Dan-electro long horn. Might have been a guitar of John Entwistle, the Ox.

Interesting design I thought. Several weeks later I started building one for a bass guitar player. Three layers of special quality plywood glued together, band saw in action, a neck, two pickups and the rest. Finishing touch: three layers of car paint, a penetrating smell.

Looks fine to me. I have often noticed kits available online to build various designs with the neck fretted and ready to go but common sense eventually over ruled my temptation. To achieve tonal accuracy the neck alignment needs to be absolutely spot on.
A few years after I arrived in France I met a guy who's wife was a pro hairdresser. One of her high end clients was John Entwistle's partner at the time. He drove his wife to the Entwistle mansion and was intending to wait in the car while she worked. Entwistle came out and invited him in. Apparently the stories of the house being absolutely chock full of guitars and mad objects was true. Claimed to be one of the largest collections of guitars on the planet. John picked up a guitar and walked around from room to room playing as he showed my friend all the goodies. A wireless pickup kept him linked to an amp with speakers everywhere. Then he sat down on a stool and played like he was going nuts on stage.

[RobertArthur]

B&O was once a simple mainstream producer of radios, a time line. Whatever happened to Leak, Tannoy and all the others names in British Hi-Fi? Underinvestment, difficult to compete with efficient, low-cost mass production elsewhere. Remember BSA, Norton and the Japanese competition: Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki.

Buying a new iPhone every year as some consumers do leaves not too much money for an old school Hi-Fi set, changing tastes and priorities. Two tiny speaker boxes with built in little amps are all you need to listen to almost every piece of music on this planet, stream, stream. Mode of survival for B&O probably: designs for the happy few, very expensive equipment, to make a statement in your home. And perhaps listen to music....

[Hotrodder]

I copy/paste here my input to a related thread on an audiophile forum:
There is a distinct relationship between how the music is delivered and what the person actually wants from it. Someone who is prepared to select a disc/LP/cassette from the shelf, throw a switch or two and sit down in "the sweet spot" to listen to it clearly wants to be immersed in the music and nothing else. Someone who prods their phone and tucks a pair of ear buds in their ears to stream it more often than not wanders off to do something else. The music is just background noise to help fill the gaps in their attention to other things. Instant gratification rules the modern world. People want maximum choice and they want it now. Trusting that the price to "borrow" the music won't get too expensive at some point in the future. Those who look out vintage equipment and fettle it and upgrade it to get to a level they are happy with to get the sound they want from their vintage media are engaging in total immersion, not just a source of background noise.

Each to his own.

[RobertArthur]

Back in time.

[Hotrodder]

It was my love of a pair of Wharfedale E70s owned in the 80s & 90s that prompted me to try to duplicate them. I searched high and low to get as much build info as I could. I calculated the box volume from the external measurements published, and managed to find the schematic for the crossover circuitry. None of the drivers are currently available so that much was guesswork. I even managed to track down a member of the Wharfedale design team who was currently retired in Australia for advice. My project failed miserably more than likely due to the original crossover being mismatched to the drivers.
I decided to go with an established design that promised to produce the sonic results I was chasing. The Tarkus, by Paul Carmody. Here they are, and they do just what they say on the tin. I couldn't get far enough away to show both of them but this is an idea.

tarkus.JPG

Crank 'em up to 11 and thow away the knob.