Anyone else for 1940s-50s Vacuum Tube electronics & vintage records?,and New To Forum

[blacknwhite]

Hi All,

New to the forum; looking forward to contributing.

Any other fans of vintage 1940s-50s tube gear & 78/45/33 rpm pressings?

Many people think of 78s as being "inherently scratchy", till they hear a clean, good quality pressing on a well-restored vintage machine designed to have the same response and rolloff. I've seen some pretty amazed faces when I open the drawer and there's a 78 rpm turntable inside producing the music off a 1940's disc!

Anyone else for 1940s-50s Vacuum Tube electronics & vintage records? This is my area of interest, along with vinyl record production in general (old and new), manufacturing in general, and classic vintage 1930s-1940s-50s movies, music, & culture.

- Bob

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As for "some of my stuff":

Here's my latest acquisition on the vintage electronics front: a top-of-the-line unit from RCA Victor's 1947 rollout, and one of the last 78-rpm-only home entertainment systems, the RCA Victor Crestwood:

Have a collection of over 5,000 records -- 33's, 45's, and 78's, but mainly 78's -- Love all Big Band Swing, but favorites are the "Big Four" - Goodman, Shaw, Dorsey, & Miller -- and Most Favorite, is of course, Duke Ellington - got one original 1941 78rpm pressing autographed by him on the wall:

Also, love the sound of restored vintage vacuum tube 1950s gear; bought many of the 180g Blue Note audiophile LP re-issue series from original analog master tapes put out by Capitol in the 1990s I think it was, and some of the rare 10-inch-LP Blue Note Japanese re-issues, and a more recent (late 2000's? early 2010s?) LP reissue of a Dexter Gordon LP whose title I can't recall (the one with "Tanya", I think) available through ElusiveDisc; great sounds... And, of course, a vintage 1952 huge-amp'ed vacuum tube push-pull 78rpm Rock-Ola juke box is a fave to listen to, also...

- Bob

 

[NorthStar]

-- Wow Bob, here's something you don't see everyday.

Welcome to WBF!

Cheers,
Bob

 

[Steve Williams]

Bob

I hate to admit but I remember those 78's well. I also remember buying a bag of disposable styluses for a few bucks. One gets dull, you replace with a new one.

 

[blacknwhite]

(oops - double post!)

 

[blacknwhite]

-- Wow Bob, here's something you don't see everyday.

Welcome to WBF!

Cheers,
Bob

Thanks!

Bob

I hate to admit but I remember those 78's well. I also remember buying a bag of disposable styluses for a few bucks. One gets dull, you replace with a new one.

Oh yeah, those cheaply-made hand-cranked Victrola's would wear down a steel needle in a single playing...

No steel needles on this top-of-the-line 1947 RCA Victor unit, though, it uses a spherical-tipped 0.3-mil sapphire stylus.

Well-made records and reproduction equipment from that era sounds astoundingly good. The post-WWII 1940's was when the response range on records really started to widen dramatically, even before the introduction of the LP in 1948.

Also, have an RCA Victor record-cutting head from 1949 (but of course, finding spare time in-between "real life" to rebuild the lathe and an amp & actually play around with cutting, seems an impossibitlity these days...)

- Bob

 

[mep]

Does that system really sound like anything other than a scratchy mess? And I say that as someone who loves LPs and loves tubes. It is hard to pull off modern LP playback correctly meaning low noise and very high sound quality without thinking about dipping that far back into yesteryear and trying to pull off great sound with 78 RPM records with cartridges that tracked at 10 lbs of tracking force.

 

[blacknwhite]

Does that system really sound like anything other than a scratchy mess?

YEs, good ones with proper rolloff (i.e. truncation of high-end beyond about 10 kHz) and lightweight late-1940s tracking, and mint condition 78s, sound basically the same as compact disc re-issues of the same material.

cartridges that tracked at 10 lbs of tracking force.

I think you're confusing high-end late-1940s reproduction systems with the hand-cranked machines from the 1900's, with the dog