Knuckledragger

Let's talk about Frankie, baby! In the early 1960s, Frank Sinatra commissioned a home hi fi that was an impressive mix of studio gear and high end consumer kit. The heart of it was a modified McIntosh C-22 preamp. It had one input that was three channel, made specifically for an Ampex correction: a Presto 800 open reel tape deck (visible behind Frank.) Studio recordings in those days were primarily three channel, with the center being for the lead vocals. Final mixes were almost always mono, of course. Sinatra liked to take home the day's recordings from the studio and see what he thought of them that evening. An artist taking home the actual multitrack masters might sound insane, but it was Old Blue Eyes in the 60s. Though visibly impressive, the three units below the Presto are just VU meters. The tuner below the C22 is a Fisher R200. Below the Fisher at the bottom are a trio of tape head preamps made specifically for the Presto. Of course the tape transport, VU meters and preamps are all studio gear, not generally used by (or available to) the public. There were three power amps for the speakers, housed in a different room. Presumably they were Mac tube monoblocks, but there is basically no info out there. Similarly, there is no reliable info on the make/model of the speakers themselves. I've seen Altec-Lansing and JBL floated as likely brands. There was also a huge "Rek-O-Kut" turntable system that could both play back records and cut acetate disks(!) It had its own dedicated space. What the unit lacked in sex appeal, it made up in physical stature. Even a stock C22 has complex mono/stereo routing. (I oughta know, I've owned two of them since 1999 ...for reasons I cannot entirely explain.) Frank's custom unit was modified, but I don't know to what extent. Based on my research there is conjecture that the television output was wired into the C22. Frank was an early pioneer in the world of home theater. In the bedroom, Frank had a high end Grundig all-in-one system. I can neither confirm nor deny if Nancy Reagan ever got to hear a tune or two on that Grundig. Thank you for coming to my TED talk, now help yourself to a pack of smokes on the way out.

It's like seeing a Bentley parked in a trailer's car port.

RIP Katsushi Murakami who designed a lot of really neat Japanese toys. I am the farthest thing from being a weeb (except for Japanese audio gear, Japanese cars, Studio Ghibli animation, Japanese camera equipment, Kurosawa films, giant Japanese robots ...you know what? Nevermind.) With that said, I always had an appreciation for the Japanese toys from the 70s and 80s.

Oof. RIP William Orbit. He had a long and colorful career, including producing and remixing a bunch of pop music. I'm quite partial to his early 90s work.

TL;DW: $2000 flagrant Chinesium clone is significantly inferior to the real deal $7500 Mac. Amusingly, the Chinese amp is 20 lbs heavier.

The good news: Today was the The Vineyard Series. The bad news: Just about everything else. I got there late. Many of the Land Rovers had already departed. The lighting conditions were absolutely abysmal. The medication I am currently on mandates that I stay "out of the sun" so I have to wear long pants and a button down shirt in the summer head. It was an unpleasant experience to put it mildly. I did get a few photos, and they will show up eventually.

The new alien invaders Wilson flagships have landed:

In the parlance of our times, this guy tho:

This is the best worst thing you'll see today. In 1989, the Stone Roses blew the fuck up and became a household name in their native England overnight. They appeared on national television: "Made of Stone" is one of their most emotional tracks. I've been a fan of it since I got their debut album in the very early 90s. Seeing them perform it live in their prime would be amazing. They're not lip syncing. Score! Oh wow, they're doing a rendition much slower than the album version. This is going to be great ....oh shit. (There's a reason the video is only 2 1/2 minutes long.) Also the 1080p upscaling is ass, but that's a small matter.

RIP Jennifer Finch, L7 Bassist and Los Angeles Punk Figure. She was also a notable photographer. I want to make a "Pretend We're Dead" joke, but I can't make it funny.

OC shitpost:

How about speaker model porn? A famous 1970s live rig from some jam band or other.

RIP actor Hal Williams, who passed at the tender age of 91.

You can't fool me, that isn't a woofer.

It just occurred to me. I uploaded my current avatar in 2008. I don't have a local copy.

A millennial friend of mine is touring .ca and got multiple free upgrades with his rental. I said "I got a Benz too and it's black like that." He gave me a blank look. SMH kids these days.

GabeCube is live. Starting price is $1050.

So, uh, I just created a patreon for a radio show that's been off the air for 3 1/2 years. Funny thing, the TestTone namespace was available(!) There is fuck-all on it right now, and that won't change for a while. Also, while I'm sure I've mentioned this many times in the ...29 year history of my show, but I lifted the name for it from a 1990 track by Richard H Kirk, under his Sweet Exorcist moniker. The RHK track is pronounced "test one" of course. In 1997, when I launched my radio show on WHAT (seriously) FM college radio, I used Richard's title as inspiration.

RIP Robert “Bobby” Caskin Prince lll, 1945-2026. In addition to being a Vietnam war vet and lawyer, Bobby is best known as the composer of the music for Wolfenstein 3D, Doom I, Doom II, Duke Nukem 3D, and a whole shit-ton of other games. 1

Twofer (or twoFUR) today. ZeosPantera is a guy who wears a GoPro, yaps at great length and ostensibly review headphones gear. It is my understanding that he is somewhat well known on that other site. I have watched his videos on and off for years. I don't think I've ever made a product purchase based on Zeos's reviews, but his content makes good "second monitor" entertainment when I'm doing something else. Zeos is know for a few things, he's got the gift of gab (45 minute video rambling on about a DAC/amp combo), his absolutely cringe taste in anime waifu art, and his various cats that make cameos in his videos. For years he had a small gray cat named Drake that is one of the mouthiest creatures I've ever heard. His persistent, insistent meowing is the stuff of legend. I happened to be checking Xitter (not something I normally do) and saw that Zeos had posted this: Very sad. His videos won't be the same without the Chorus of Drake. I'm not sure if YT deep links work on HC. The timestamp I used includes an earful of Drake.

This is a bit of an obscure one, but still significant. RIP Mickey Mann. Via the official Orbital FB page: I first head Pressure of Speech's "X-Beats" in a DJ mix, sometime in the mid 90s. At that point there was no Discogs, no P2P, and remarkably little info online. In 2002, I asked about it in the techno room on the then-new Soulseek. One of the UK denizens said "Oh, that's the sound engineer for Orbital." Some time later, I paid $25 on eBay for the 12" (a lunatic price for the time.) I was mortified to learn that the remix I liked so much was NOT on the 12". Eventually I got my hands on the Phase 1 CD an deduced that the track that moved me so much in 1995 or so was any version of X-Beats, but in fact "Elone," specifically the Pressure of Speech 12" Version. Elone got mislabeled as X-Beats on a number of compilations and bootlegs in the 90s. As much as I tend to romanticize that decade, especially compared to the oligarch-driven, AI-generated hellscape in which we now reside, I do grant that it was a right royal PITA to be into obscure electronic music in the dialup era. It is a moody, timeless classic to this very day. Times like these makes me wish my radio station was still going, so I could build a set around it. More on that later. Much later.

RIP Daveigh Chase, 'The Ring' and 'Lilo and Stitch' star, dead at 35(!)

Audio Technica makes a $108,000 headphone amp. The selector switches are unlabeled, so there's a handy wedge-shaped guide that sits below the amp. That is certainly a design decision.