Reminds my of my early twenties in the sixties. I managed a TV and electrical appliance store for a chain, in North London.
We sold quite a few reel to reel tape recorders. We'd record pop albums onto tapes and use them to demonstrate the machines.
The "deal breaker" was often that we'd give that tape with the purchase, as not many people had big record collections, so they did most of their recordings from the radio. I remember a tape of a Dionne Warwick album being very popular with these customers.
That was common here in the 70's, except the giveaway part.🙂 Supertramp's "School" was well demo'd track on tape.
jeff
jeff
Really?
Reel to reel recorders in the UK came with a tape. Thinking back, cassette players when they came in, didn't.
I vaguely remember that my first cassette recorder came with a 30 minute cassette with nothing recorded on it. That must have been in the 1980's.
It's not that you're outdated...it's just that (musical) sound has that characteristic....often to be repeated that sound is a slow propagation phenomenon . In sound reproduction what you hear is the processement, and an analog chain does not have the digital block
The recording engineer (and almost all recording engineers would agree) that CDs (digital) sound more like the original than vinyl dose. And there the few who can actually compare that. How you turned that around to your digital block nonsense, I have no idea. Vinyl is an effects box. It adds colour. If thats what you want, great but dong tell others its more accurate, its not.
Not quite sure what you mean there.
Reel to reel recorders only came with a blank tape and take-up spool.
We'd record stuff on an equivalent tape (from stock) and use it to demonstrate the recorder.
The customer could choose either to take the machine as it came in the box, with a blank tape, though many would ask if they could keep the tape used to demonstrate it.
I've a less clear memory of cassettes, as by then I'd moved on to managing departmental stores which also had electrical departments, so I wasn't involved in the sales in them.
It reminds me of the Teac 3 heads that I had : it really amused to play with bias, level and tape type. Now, is that an effect box?!
Vinyl is a fad. Expensive, time consuming, minimal selection, inconsistant, and not as accurate. Not to mention no stereo low freqs, limited 7khz, ticks and pops, rumble, microphoney, wow and flutter, off center holes, warping, dust, wear (of the record, stylus, stampers, cutting heads and even the belt) poor quality vinyl, the last track on a side is the worst (the needle is going 1/3ish the speed, turntables/arms/cartradges need to be set up and maintained, the dynamic range depends on the length of the side (every hear a 25minute side? you don't want to). Vinyl is a gimmick that will wear off and die, the sooner the better.
Yes sorry man, it's complicated and I cannot explain it well, but you get the idea if you read how digital is made, stored and played...
Heres the 2 sides.
https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2019/11/25/spin-me-round-why-vinyl-is-better-than-digital/
https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2021/04/07/an-audio-professionals-take-on-vinyl/
Who do you think knows more about the subject, a philosopher with nothing but opinion and a turntable, or a recording engineer/musician with years of hand on experience producing music in recording studios.
https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2019/11/25/spin-me-round-why-vinyl-is-better-than-digital/
https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2021/04/07/an-audio-professionals-take-on-vinyl/
Who do you think knows more about the subject, a philosopher with nothing but opinion and a turntable, or a recording engineer/musician with years of hand on experience producing music in recording studios.
And so were 45's!
Ask Lawrence Welk when he plays his polka music records in his lovely Chysler!
In 1958 at the age of seventeen, I bought a 1937 Austin 7 Ruby convertible.
Exactly like the one in this photo I recently found on t'internet. The only difference was that I got rid of the semaphore indicators and fitted flashing ones.
I have clear memory of being in it with my girlfriend at the time, with another friend and his girfriend in the back seats.
We were in a two lane queue of traffic waiting for nearly fifteen minutes to get into the carpark at Hampton Court. It was a hot mid-summer Sunday, so we had the top down. He had his new transistor record player on his lap and we were listening to Buddy Holly records at full volume. We got a lot of disparaging looks from parents in another car, but their young kids were bouncing up and down on the back seat to the music.
Happy days!
My first portable CD player was rubbish in a car as it would skip at the least bump in the road.
Thanks, there's a lot of interesting reading in those two links.
I particularly liked the recording engineer's final sentence in which he referred to vinyl:
I view vinyl turntable & arm-cart setups and also tube amplifiers as pets. You have to constantly minister to their frequent needs and **** nervous little puddles about their care and feeding. With vinyl, it's tracking geometry, stylus wear and phono preamp equalization. With tubes, it's matching, tube wear, replacement, biasing, and noise. If you faithfully tend to all of those, a nice little sound cuddles in your ears. My little Fi-fi! Nothing's too good for my little Fi-fi! Do you understand? N-N-Nothing! The little poodle then poops the carpet and is summarily booted out the door when an output tube shorts out and takes out the amplifier. A house plant analogy works too. Live plants need care & feeding while plastic or cloth ones can look amazingly just like the live ones but need no care outside of vacuuming once in a blue moon.