There is a product specific for this in marine applications, works quite well near sea water. Heaven forbid some yacht owner couldn't flush his electrosan.
Valid thought.
Whereas he would need climbing boots and ropes to get over MIT / Cardas hose.
Q.E.D. (ad nauseatedum) : Filthy stereo owners are forced to buy the most ludicrous cable.
I suppose KY helps in some corners.
I suppose KY helps in some corners.
You should try Nova Scotia -- they didn't call it "New Scotland" for nothing. When it freezes they put salt on the roads. My father used to drive an Alfa Romeo in this climate, but it was a constant battle with chemistry.
I've spent my entire life in audio. I always thought that particular connector was fantastically reliable. I love the damn thing. If it were up to me there would be several sizes, and balanced ones as well. Probably were. (-:
Alfa Romeos of your Father's vintage could rust out in a dehumidified store..........it seems that in the early 70s it was a design feature. Lancias of that period were as bad. I had examples of each. Whilst being jacked up to change a wheel an Alfa descended around the jack!!! RUST. That car was less than 20 months old.
I can confirm that they still do this here in old Scotland too, it rots the hell out of cars. An old banger here is one more than 8 years old 😀
Do you remember the Moskvich Brian? My grand father bought one brand new back in the mid 1970's (to my dad's disgust) He put the jack through it when it was about 4 years old.
The jokes got worse after that.
Hello, can you give me a wiper blade for a Moskvich? ..........
Sounds like a fair exchange mate 🙄
The jokes got worse after that.
Hello, can you give me a wiper blade for a Moskvich? ..........
Sounds like a fair exchange mate 🙄
Hey Richard. Look closer at the photos. The tubes and I/O jacks are wired. And there are several tube circuits out there that run on 9v to 12v battery power, no transformer. I agree the price was clearly bogus but who knows, maybe it was a typo.
Pretty much true. I recall another "feature", which was that the distributor was located low at the font of the engine, near the grille. My dad always had to guess which direction the wind (and rain) would be coming from the next morning, when he parked the car at night. If parked facing into the wind, and it rained, the distributor cap would become saturated and the car wouldn't start in the morning until cap and rotor were dried out. He bought after-market "waterproof" boots that went over the distributor, but it was a constant struggle.
BUT: On a fine (almost Italian) summer day, when it was on-song, what a wonderful drive! That little DOHC 1750cc motor wasn't happy on the highway at less than 80mph, and at 100mph it started to purr. (My father was not habitually a speeder, but the car really did seem to "want" to go at that speed; he had to pay attention to keep it below 70mph in top gear.) I recall one summer day when just he and I were in the car on the highway, and at one point I noticed a different sound to the engine. I looked over but couldn't see the tach or speedo needles, which were usually just in view from the passenger seat. I asked him how fast we were going, he looked down and did a double-take, and said "94!" (this was pre-metric here). He slowed, but seemed quietly pleased. He loved that car. Sadly, one night a deer jumped in front of him; he still says that car saved his life, because although the windshield was covered in blood and battery acid, and the whole front-end was wrecked, it stopped in a straight line.
Back to snake oil!
Another annoying feature of those Alfas was the hand/parking brake design used a drum. IF you drove in reverse gear - easy to do when the cable was stretched, the whole brake locked up to the extent that it needed to be stripped down.
Another problem was the usually fitted 'X' tyres which had the same grip when wet as a bar of soap. But they were great fun to drive. The only thing needed was to readjust the timing chain tension very frequently and to keep the oil level topped up...they used a lot of oil.
(the Alfasud made itself immortal in an alternate way) How Jacco?
Another problem was the usually fitted 'X' tyres which had the same grip when wet as a bar of soap. But they were great fun to drive. The only thing needed was to readjust the timing chain tension very frequently and to keep the oil level topped up...they used a lot of oil.
(the Alfasud made itself immortal in an alternate way) How Jacco?
In these parts, it won the honorary title of the car that started to rust before it was sold.
Undefeated champion.
Undefeated champion.
Same as all Alfas at that time! Mine had to be scrapped at 3 years old as it was incapable of passing the Ministry of Transport test. I had given it to my sister - so she lost nothing. (The Lancias were every bit as bad). HAve had Audis ever since without problems, but strayed once and bought a 2.5 BMW...bad dealer servicing the day before leaving on holiday led to a brake 'metal on metal' in the Georg de Tain - last place for such an experience, but local dealer replaced all four discs and pads for 50% less than UK (London) cost estimate. AND repair was immediate....London takes 3 days minimum as they do not carry spares in stock. BMW advertising seemed to run on snake oil smoke!
Seems you were spared '70s British Leyland offerings.
They were rusting whilst still being built and by the time they hit the dealers you had to look for perforations!
Some engines were good though, SAAB was using the Triumph Dolomite Sprint motor until they went bust.
Daimlers little 2.5L V8 was so good that Jaguar, after buying Daimler, would only connect it to an auto box because on a manual it would outperform Jags own 3.8L straight 6.
Thankfully!
A guy who worked for me had a company car...he chose an Allegro LE. When it was about 6 months old he was changing gear when the gearstick fell out of the box!! He was very resentful when I suggested that the 'LE' meant 'Less Equipment'. The were, I believe, known in the trade as 'Aggros'
But back to Audio snake oil.
In the 80s I was converted - by the designer - to the use of certain (expensive) cables and to the use of solid carbon blocks placed as legs to all equipment. Pure snake oil stuff most would say.
A friend had a system comprising the then top Conrad Johnston amps, Wilson Watt and Puppies, all connected with top Cardas cabling and driven by a Theta CD affair. He even had a (good) stand built. In my opinion it sounded like a £600 system with added bass.
On a visit I brought my carbon blocks and cables, re-cabled his system and placed the carbon blocks under every piece of equipment. The perceived results were that the system sound was vastly improved. I then removed the carbon blocks from each piece of equipment in turn but we listened at each removal. You could hear the effect...which was not pleasant. But we swapped all the interconnects in one go and replaced the Cardas; the difference in sound was very very great and for the worst. Finally, we removed the speaker cables and reverted to the hose-like Cardas. That was the biggest change as the sound became positively muffled and very confused. It was clear that the basic system was not to blame as it was totally the same throughout.
The removal of 'sound quality' on reverting to the original system set-up was for me the proof of the test.
My question is how could cables and a change of physical interface between system components make such a difference as that experienced; we had a thread on this which soon took to the expected opposing camps form of debate. But to my knowledge no one put a finger on the reason for perceived changes in sound field, from two dimensional to three dimensional, confusion to clarity and space between instruments, sluggish transients to clear leading edge and decay on transients......I could go on, but you get the message. [My friend was rich and immediately bought a similar set of cables and carbon blocks.]
I later introduced him to other amps, speakers and CD sources......all of the above kit was sold within 6 months.🙂
A guy who worked for me had a company car...he chose an Allegro LE. When it was about 6 months old he was changing gear when the gearstick fell out of the box!! He was very resentful when I suggested that the 'LE' meant 'Less Equipment'. The were, I believe, known in the trade as 'Aggros'
But back to Audio snake oil.
In the 80s I was converted - by the designer - to the use of certain (expensive) cables and to the use of solid carbon blocks placed as legs to all equipment. Pure snake oil stuff most would say.
A friend had a system comprising the then top Conrad Johnston amps, Wilson Watt and Puppies, all connected with top Cardas cabling and driven by a Theta CD affair. He even had a (good) stand built. In my opinion it sounded like a £600 system with added bass.
On a visit I brought my carbon blocks and cables, re-cabled his system and placed the carbon blocks under every piece of equipment. The perceived results were that the system sound was vastly improved. I then removed the carbon blocks from each piece of equipment in turn but we listened at each removal. You could hear the effect...which was not pleasant. But we swapped all the interconnects in one go and replaced the Cardas; the difference in sound was very very great and for the worst. Finally, we removed the speaker cables and reverted to the hose-like Cardas. That was the biggest change as the sound became positively muffled and very confused. It was clear that the basic system was not to blame as it was totally the same throughout.
The removal of 'sound quality' on reverting to the original system set-up was for me the proof of the test.
My question is how could cables and a change of physical interface between system components make such a difference as that experienced; we had a thread on this which soon took to the expected opposing camps form of debate. But to my knowledge no one put a finger on the reason for perceived changes in sound field, from two dimensional to three dimensional, confusion to clarity and space between instruments, sluggish transients to clear leading edge and decay on transients......I could go on, but you get the message. [My friend was rich and immediately bought a similar set of cables and carbon blocks.]
I later introduced him to other amps, speakers and CD sources......all of the above kit was sold within 6 months.🙂
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