Joined
·
733 Posts
As several people know I have problems with my hearing. This does not stop me enjoying music however. A little over TWO YEARS AGO packed my music machine into its crates and muttered a heart felt plea that it would survive storage. During the weekend (now that the living room has "officially" stopped being decorated I unpacked my treasures from their crates and began the slow (often tearful) process of re-assembly.
Some of the items I knew I would have to replace -the belt on my "Made in Scotland" Turntable was a forgone conclusion as were the belts on my Tape Deck. A nervous look through the jewellers loupe showed that my collection of "Decca's" had survived as had my "Goldring's". I arranged my cables and plugged the speakers in to charge for the very long 2 hours before I could safely play music through them. I greased the stems of my valves and plugged them into the sockets.
I sipped a very slow cup of tea and then took a deep breath and flipped the test button on the main power amp and set the bias on all the EL-34's. I then flipped the toggle to "stand by" and then to "power".
The was the brilliant red glow as the fast starter brought the heaters up to temperature -but also a blue flash on one of the valves... I switched off and went through the test routine again. This time no blue flash!!! I turned the "mute" switch on the pre-amp and selected phono on each half of the pre-amp (it is a dual mono). I then wound up the LP12 to its speed and walked (really quite slowly I think!) to my stack of Lps.
Blind luck had placed "Brain Salad Surgery" as the first Lp that I touched...
"WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS!!!
(step inside, step inside, step inside).
I have the tuner to re-build (the battery has "boiled" -but QUAD still sell replacements) and I think time and possibly tide(!) have taken their toll of my CD player -it is a Meridian modified Marantz CD-63...
While I was smiling a pink person put her arms around me and said "It still looks like a "Heap of Junk" Hen -but I have missed it too!"
I like 70's "Progressive" and Bach my wife likes 90's Techno and "Classic FM", our son likes "Country and Western"...
regards
ralph
Some of the items I knew I would have to replace -the belt on my "Made in Scotland" Turntable was a forgone conclusion as were the belts on my Tape Deck. A nervous look through the jewellers loupe showed that my collection of "Decca's" had survived as had my "Goldring's". I arranged my cables and plugged the speakers in to charge for the very long 2 hours before I could safely play music through them. I greased the stems of my valves and plugged them into the sockets.
I sipped a very slow cup of tea and then took a deep breath and flipped the test button on the main power amp and set the bias on all the EL-34's. I then flipped the toggle to "stand by" and then to "power".
The was the brilliant red glow as the fast starter brought the heaters up to temperature -but also a blue flash on one of the valves... I switched off and went through the test routine again. This time no blue flash!!! I turned the "mute" switch on the pre-amp and selected phono on each half of the pre-amp (it is a dual mono). I then wound up the LP12 to its speed and walked (really quite slowly I think!) to my stack of Lps.
Blind luck had placed "Brain Salad Surgery" as the first Lp that I touched...
"WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS!!!
(step inside, step inside, step inside).
I have the tuner to re-build (the battery has "boiled" -but QUAD still sell replacements) and I think time and possibly tide(!) have taken their toll of my CD player -it is a Meridian modified Marantz CD-63...
While I was smiling a pink person put her arms around me and said "It still looks like a "Heap of Junk" Hen -but I have missed it too!"
I like 70's "Progressive" and Bach my wife likes 90's Techno and "Classic FM", our son likes "Country and Western"...
regards
ralph