quote: Will Kutler

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An antique dealer was selling a player (one man band) piano. The piano was "saloon tuned", ran off of Braile paper, and included a "one man band" including: bass drum, cymbols, tambourine and a small accordion. This was an exquisite piece made by the Stafford Nickelodian Company. This was truly a work of art and sounded magnificant! I have yet do do an internet search, but the dealer says that this company is still in business in PA. Cost for this piece: $12,000.

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That's broadly an orchestrion. Orchestrions were automated instruments in cabinets, & often in piano or piano-based cabinets. It was recording medium is a "player roll" of which there were several different formats for proprietary instruments such as organs, band rgans, orchestrions, player pianos, player banjos, violins, etc. Most were just piano rolls. They're not braille (which is raised bumps on paper), but perforations. They work by vacuum: the roll passes over a "tracker bar" pulling a vacuum through holes matching a matrix of positions for each note across the roll. If there's a hole there, suck goes the vacuum & it plays the note. No hole, no note.

"Saloon Tuned" sounds like they stuck tacks in the piano hammers to give it a coarse rinky tinky sound.

There's a list of links to mechanical music sites at
http://mmd.foxtail.com/cgi-bin/links.pl

Many of them made (make) exquisitely beautiful music. I've heard player violins that could just transport you. Jasper Sanfilippo has a nice collection of mechanical music devices in his charming little home in the suburbs of Chicago.

http://www.wurlitzer2003.com/victorian_palace.htm
http://www.atos.org/Pages/Residences/Sanfilippo/Sanfilippo.html

There are piano rolls recorded on machines from performance by very famous pianists. Oddly enough, though, most music rolls were cut by technicians who just worked by graph & measurement from sheet music, & who couldn't read a note themselves. There are HUGE fan bases for some of these non-musician roll cutters who made rolls of excellent "performance" including every bit of interpretation that implies. Some of them are old duffers now who get hauled enthusiasts to conventions, & themselves cannot understand the fuss about them personally based on the artistic value of the music on their rolls, as they only viewed their rolls as good craftsmanship. It's a little strange.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-21-2004, 08:53 AM:
 
"The McINTOSH display! The display included a pair of MC1201 Monoblocks, the MC2200 Tube Pre-Amp, McIntosh speakers and other Mcintosh equipment.

Now,I love high end audio...especially tube gear. But nothing annoys me more than snobbish "audiophiles" who get all cought up with the mathmatics of accoustic design and performance. Putting all the techno-babble aside, I just love to sit back, relax and enjoy a masterfully designed system that is a real work of art!

All I can say about this system was....AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The detail and clarity of listening to a big-band jazz recording WAS an experience!

Although they did not have it hooked up, they did have on hand the reissue of the MC275, using either KT88s or 6550s. THe monoblocks were somewhat reasonably priced at $3500.00 per amp...two required for stereo. I also understand that there have been some design and component improvments over the origonal amps. "
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Mcintosh is just about the lamest excuse for audio equipment that I can think of, right up there with Carver and the like. There is stuff available today that is SOOOOO much better than anything Mac has ever built. In fact there are more tube type amplifiers/preamplifiers that one could buy today than there was back in the 40's and 50's and 60's!

I was once told by a retired Mac engineer that had gone to work for a real high "tube manufacturer" that the Mac engineering philosophy was to "sacrifice sound quality for reliability" and they did so mainly by using class B output stages.

Mcintosh Speakers..... my god, the worst of the worst that there is.


Mark
 

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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 06-22-2004, 12:47 AM:
 
Hi Mark

I have loved tube audio equipment my entire life. Unfortunately, there are no "hi-end" stores in Tucson to really speak of, so my being able to sample and enjoy the vast array of equipment now available has been...well...

All of the valve gear I have been exposed to has been McIntosh, Harmon-Kardon, some VTL and a vast array of antique radios.

The difference in sound quality between the systems I have been exposed to, as opposed to solid-state, has been nothing short of amazing...the difference being noticable even while hooked up to a pair of Salvation-Army book-shelf speakers!

I guess one of these days...after I start making the $$ after I graduate...then I can start sampling some more of the toys!

I am interested in your opinion regarding current quality brands of valve gear.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-22-2004, 08:10 AM:
 
Will,
I've owned and used so many tube power amps over the years that I doub't I could remember them all. As for old tube amps the old H-K Citation Two tube amp was excellent, much better sounding than a Mac 275. But what you ultimately end up with is purely personal taste.... Many like single ended tubez and they can be amazing under the right conditions but for more recent tubez its hard to beat the BAT VK-60 or the newer VK-75 amps. Very expensive though, well over 5K! They use the Russian 6C33CB for output tubez which are still used as voltage regulators in MIG fighters. The BAT also uses torodial output transfromers which are light years ahead of anything MAC ever did in the tube realm. I owned a VK-60 for a couple of years and loved it but in my experience tubez are no longer a necessity nor would you want them after you listen to some of the latest Pass Labs single ended solid state stuff. The Pass stuff is actually in an entirely different realm and has a sound characteristic of its own that is simply amazing. No other tube or solid state amp that I've owned even comes close... One thing you can do is to buld your own Pass Labs power amp and preamp if you don't wanna spend the bucks to buy factory made, or if you want to build them better than the factory made equipment. I'm presently using a pair of Pass Labs Aleph 2 Monoblocks and driving Dynaudio speakers.

Check out www.passdiy.com
www.passlabs.com
www.diyaudio.com
www.balanced.com
Enjoy!

Mark
 

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