Wilbur! %&^*&$ Wilbur!

[OldMetallerParticipant @oldmetaller]

Leading Seaman Goldstein chattin'

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 20/01/2017 16:41:07:

SNIP

Wilbur is British Gas's mascot and when I not listening to R4 I'm endlessly hearing his miserable whimpering on Planet Rock and Absolute Radio. And Friday is Gardener's Question Time Day so I always try to avoid Radio 4 on Friday afternoons.

Neil

Wilbur? Wilbur??

Whatever happened to Hissing Sid?

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

It was Lord Reith who said that the duty of a broadcaster was to inform, educate, and entertain – but all those wailing pop music stations do none of these things for me. For me, in the car and in the workshop, it's either Radio 4 or Classic FM for me. This gets me labelled as a grumpy old so-and-so who has delusions that he's an intellectual. And guess what? Those making that allegation are quite right! If Duncan Webster ever finds a good trad jazz station I hope he lets me know, and I'll add it to my list.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by John Stevenson on 20/01/2017 23:33:14:

I have just started to move back in to heavy metal since the price of scrap went up.

I just got £195 for my old fork truck less batteries.

Poor JS, he's just discovered his Julio Iglesias and Johnny Mathis* records are worthless,even as scrap…

Neil

*"The production of that record is fantastic" – Gerald the Gorilla.

[maurice bennieParticipant @mauricebennie99556]

Hi all ,there is a simple answer to listening to music and multiple questions about nearly everything . I have been given the AMAZON ECHO devise .A 3 1/2" D x 1 1/2" H thing which plugs into mains , you just ask "echo play " what you want and the music plays. please dont ask how it just does . Love mine to bits. 20 ft from house in workshop ,comes through the internet somehow.

[Mark CParticipant @markc]

Radio, been superseded by Spotify for me – no longer have to listen to a load of inane chatter or adverts and I get to picking the music genre that suits my mood. If anything boring comes on, I just skip to the next track and I also have access to every record or album I ever want to hear!

In the workshop, an old set of PC speakers with a £5 Bluetooth dongle plugged in links to the phone/tablet and the same arrangement works on my two HI-Fi's (one is in my attic room with the drums). In the car, it is fully integrated with the phone as most modern cars are!

Mark

PS. before anyone mentions my neighbours, the only one I care for likes to play his guitar with me on the drums, everyone else can buy ear plugs!

Edited By Mark C on 21/01/2017 11:49:42

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by maurice bennie on 21/01/2017 11:37:31:

Hi all ,there is a simple answer to listening to music and multiple questions about nearly everything . I have been given the AMAZON ECHO devise .A 3 1/2" D x 1 1/2" H thing which plugs into mains , you just ask "echo play " what you want and the music plays. please dont ask how it just does . Love mine to bits. 20 ft from house in workshop ,comes through the internet somehow.

The problem is that if you get the settings wrong and say 'I wish I had a Ferrari Testarossa' one turns up unannounced the next day AND you have to pay Amazon delivery charges on top.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Mark C on 21/01/2017 11:45:14:

Radio, been superseded by Spotify for me – no longer have to listen to a load of inane chatter or adverts and I get to picking the music genre that suits my mood.

I like having a decent DJ (1) I get to listen to things I wouldn't otherwise have thought of (2) good DJs add to the listening experience and (3) you can email them and I still get a buzz from having my request played even though I could play it on the 'puter!

Neil

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Just put your current personal playlist on a usb stick and forget the radio for music. I ripped all my CDs to the best quality MP3 and stored on my NAS drive and stream to my SONOS whatever takes my fancy. SONOS will also connect to any internet radio station and if you can't find one to suit your taste you must be picky. Spotify will keep you up to date if you can find anything you like, I still find odd things to my taste but gone are the days when I could buy 5 albums a week. I have a theory that the popularity of the vinyl revival is because MP3 is never ever going to be hifi and we now have a generation who have never heard CD or vinyl on a reasonable sound system so vinyl will soun good to them.In the mid eighties CD was welcomed by all the people who had to suffer crap vinyl, I had a collection of LPs that were very seldom flat sometimes the hole was not in the middle and despite a regime of aftermarket inner sleeves and various dust control devices I still had more than just music coming out of my speakers. I concede that CD does have a sound and is limited by the parameters chosen for digital music. We are kidding ourselves if we think that everything created by a musical instrument is on an LP though. It has limitations as to what can be recorded so the quest for hifi can only be about reproducing what is on the record and not what was produced by the instruments. I was surprised that my hearing is down to about 12khz now but maybe Ted Nugent, Motörhead and motorcycles have had an effect and a long spell of pub rock 4 nights a week.

Mike

[Mark CParticipant @markc]

Neil, cant do much about 2 & 3 but 1 is certainly possible – listen to any of the stuff that it throws up as "because you listened to" or amy of the "discover weekly" stuff. I listen to lots of stuff that way!

Mark

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Mike Poole on 21/01/2017 14:29:35:

we now have a generation who have never heard CD or vinyl on a reasonable sound system so vinyl will soun good to them.

. I was surprised that my hearing is down to about 12khz now but maybe Ted Nugent, Motörhead and motorcycles have had an effect and a long spell of pub rock 4 nights a week.

There's a theory that that's the reason why vinyl sounds good to us

What gets my goat is that virtually all DAB is MONO and no-one seems to care? How did they sell a generation or returning to 1950s-quality audio?

Neil

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Leading Seaman Goldstein chattin'

Leading Seaman Goldstein CHANTING.

Ok, who remembers Radio Luxembourg on MW 208 metres? With the Top Twenty from (I think) 11.00pm to 12.00pm on Sunday evenings. Trouble is, dear mummy & daddy wouldn't let me listen. But when they were away …, or I was off with the Scouts …

we now have a generation who have never heard CD or vinyl on a reasonable sound system so vinyl will sound good to them.

And who have probably never heard a good valve amp.

And why is it that today's "hi-fi" systems have supposed power outputs in the many 10's of Watts when 50/60 years ago 10 Watts into a 15 Ohm L/S was deemed sufficient. Could it be that modern "bookcase" loudspeakers are nowhere as efficient as those home-built cabinets of yesteryear?

Re DAB radio. I haven't got one. And I don't want one if the fiasco of digital TV with it's multitude of channels broadcasting American rubbish and repeats of repeats of … is anything to go by.

Peter G. Shaw

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 21/01/2017 15:41:16:

And why is it that today's "hi-fi" systems have supposed power outputs in the many 10's of Watts when 50/60 years ago 10 Watts into a 15 Ohm L/S was deemed sufficient. Could it be that modern "bookcase" loudspeakers are nowhere as efficient as those home-built cabinets of yesteryear?

Prosaically, 100 watts is only twice as loud as 10 watts and only four times as loud as 1 watt. the big difference is that the 100 watt amplifier has more headroom and therefore handles transients better.

But of course valve amps behave very differently when faced by a sustained peak, so a 10 watt valve amp will usually sound better when running at 9.5 watts than a 10 watt transistor amp – they both start to fail, but the valve fails with more grace.

The actual design is important too. Apparently in a blind test a Vox AC30 was louder than a 100W Marshall stack (both valve).

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I just heard some of Clive Anderson's Loose Ends on R4. Every week he features up and coming bands with a couple of 'unplugged' style songs.

This week a bunch of folkies. The song they sang sounded like it could have come off Full House and I thought 'there's a band which owes it's entire existence to Fairport Convention'.

I wasn't far off … it was Fairport Convention.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 21/01/2017 15:41:16:

…

Ok, who remembers Radio Luxembourg on MW 208 metres?

…

Peter G. Shaw

And as a result know that Keynsham absolutely must be spelt K, E, Y, N, S, H, A, M.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

My son just complained that my music was too loud, I just told him if it's too loud you're too old. Surely it shouldn't be this way round? He is 24.

Mike

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 21/01/2017 18:43:50:

And as a result know that Keynsham absolutely must be spelt K, E, Y, N, S, H, A, M.

.

And thereby to Bonzo Dog

[DodParticipant @dod]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 21/01/2017 19:16:55:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 21/01/2017 18:43:50:

And as a result know that Keynsham absolutely must be spelt K, E, Y, N, S, H, A, M.

.

And thereby to Bonzo Dog

Jazz, delicious hot disgusting cold – The Best Jazz Ever

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Q: "… you got a light, Mac?"

A: "No, but I've got a dark brown overcoat"

[Johnny Cool; The Big Shot]

[Cyril BonnettParticipant @cyrilbonnett24790]

How about just peace and quiet, with the birds singing outside, no wife or kids, no neighbours, no tv or radio on, the mind rests and wanders.

Was that a penguin whistling! do penguin's whistle?

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Viv Stanshells ship the Thekla is still moored at Bristol and currently is a nightclub type venue. Sad that he is no longer with us.

Mike

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Mike Poole on 21/01/2017 23:42:11:

Viv Stanshall … Sad that he is no longer with us.

.

A man of true genius, and exquisite diction

… remember him introducing the various sections of Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'

MichaelG.

.

P.S.  Bonzo Dog played a farewell concert at Loughboro' Uni. in 1970

… I may still have the photos that I took.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/01/2017 00:26:18

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 21/01/2017 15:41:16:

And why is it that today's "hi-fi" systems have supposed power outputs in the many 10's of Watts when 50/60 years ago 10 Watts into a 15 Ohm L/S was deemed sufficient. Could it be that modern "bookcase" loudspeakers are nowhere as efficient as those home-built cabinets of yesteryear?

Peter G. Shaw

To be fair you only need to check the efficiency figures to spot modern speakers are not very sensitive, (trouble is you have to buy them to read the little leaflet) But then back in the day watts was quoted as RMS, nowadays it's PMPO so 20 old watts equals 50 new watts. Put the two together and these days you need massive amp to get the same volume.

Now that's progress I just don't get.

My poor little Leak 3200 @50W will run modern Eltax speakers, but upstairs sounds a bit quiet, whereas my 20W Rockola 443 will shake the house through 70's speakers if wound up.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 22/01/2017 00:19:44:

Posted by Mike Poole on 21/01/2017 23:42:11:

Viv Stanshall … Sad that he is no longer with us.

.

A man of true genius, and exquisite diction

… remember him introducing the various sections of Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'

I can't listen to Tubular Bells without mentally substituting 'Adolf Hitler on vibes'

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Dave Halford on 22/01/2017 17:27:55:

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 21/01/2017 15:41:16:

And why is it that today's "hi-fi" systems have supposed power outputs in the many 10's of Watts when 50/60 years ago 10 Watts into a 15 Ohm L/S was deemed sufficient. Could it be that modern "bookcase" loudspeakers are nowhere as efficient as those home-built cabinets of yesteryear?

Peter G. Shaw

To be fair you only need to check the efficiency figures to spot modern speakers are not very sensitive, (trouble is you have to buy them to read the little leaflet) But then back in the day watts was quoted as RMS, nowadays it's PMPO so 20 old watts equals 50 new watts. Put the two together and these days you need massive amp to get the same volume.

Now that's progress I just don't get.

My poor little Leak 3200 @50W will run modern Eltax speakers, but upstairs sounds a bit quiet, whereas my 20W Rockola 443 will shake the house through 70's speakers if wound up.

I have an x-mini speaker hear which fits a 32mm speaker, amplifier and power supply into a unit that is the size of a tangerine (until you open it up round the middle and it gets 10mm higher). When driven sufficiently hard the bass is genuinely loud enough to vibrate things off the shelf it sits on. The ability of modern speaker designers to get crisp, loud bass out of tiny speakers that we were told we needed 15" speakers for in the 80s is amazing.

[Author]

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