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Discovering hidden audio treasures ! Without leaving the house !

Posted by Bambi B (A) on April 11, 2008 at 23:38:04

Mates,

This turned out to be one of the most satisfying Fridays in awhile. For on ething, I didn't have any job site or building department visits nor meetings, so I was in the home office all day. And instead of sitting in the horrendous Friday Los Angeles traffic, I had afternoon coffee in the gazebo which is set in trees and has a nice view North over the west San Fernando Valley. It was 87 F, the first really warm day of the year, 11% humidity with some wind and very high clouds- perfect. By Sunday it's supposed to be 95, which is over the line for me.

I'd been in a bad mood since Monday when I packed up and sent away my Cambridge Audio 640C CD player for it's second holiday to Canada. I had sent it off Feb 13th, received it back on March 28th, (5 weeks) and in less than two days it failed again- and in a worse than before.

Cambridge Audio service are being very friendly and helpful, on a player now six months out of warranty, but I've been without a working CD player since November, as my 2004 Toshiba 3960 DVD player I used as a back up CDP proved to have tray problems. Plus, the 2007 3960 had it's tray operation fail earlier. Really, I didn't expect much from $60 DVD/CD players, but I'm very gentle operating audio stuff and neither of these players had many hours. Worse, the $650 player was just as useless and was going off again fro repair. I just have had terrible luck with CD players lately.

I was also in a huff as I had not been able to find the Audioquest NRG-2 power cord I'd bought last year for the 640C. I moved in November and when I was about to get the 640C back from repair I thought I'd be using the NRG, but it was nowhere to be found. I had a special box with all my interconnects and latest speaker cables carefully packed, but it was not there, nor in any of the euqipment boxes, with the CD's, the Variac, with the recording or obsolete cables, or with the computer discs, nor anywhere. When ever I thought about it I looked in three more places and made a mess pulling stuff out. In my frustration, I even had silly power cord paranoia- did the electrician walk away with it when working here in January?

This was frustrating as that cord was an experiment- and a luxury one at that. New, those are $180 and though I got one off Ebay very reasonably, it still seemed a lot for an item whose effects I'd never heard. And the cord had turned out to really improve the 640C in my view, as it lost it's dryness and seemed fuller and more dynamic.

When the 640C returned, it was annoying to plug it in with a $6 IEC computer cord, but there we are. After having looked so long I could have earned the money for another 3 of the cords, I decided to cut my losses and had a Buy It Now up on Ebay for another one- about $100 with shipping, but which was really costing $180 - as I would have one cord but had spent the $180.

Having given up on finding the cord, I was ready to press the Buy It button, when I decided to have one last look. There was a box in the audio stuff closet that was the only box I hadn't opened. Though this box still didn't have the cord, it did have remarkable treasures, including my EICO HF12A (14W EL84 tube mono integrated amplifier), the cutest piece of gear I have, which I hadn't seen in four years, a Heathkit AC-11 (tube MPX decoder) for the Scott 330 tuner I forgot I had***, these late 80's Audio Research interconnects- they must be more than 3/8" diameter with huge knurled RCA ends, and best of all, my first CD player.

*** Once I heard the Scott 330C tube mono sound, I realised that stereo would ruin it.

With all the troubles with the 640C, and the two Toshibas kaputt, I was thinking of $320 on an Marantz 5001. I wasn't excited to spend the money for a "temporary" CD player- the idea was the 640C would be the office player (with Audio Research LS3 and D130) and something nice like a Rega Saturn would be the first CDP in the main system (Oracle III> Audio Research SP10 and D115. In my economics, the Marantz $320 would represent money better spent towards the main system player- and another power cord for it.

But, let the bells ring, the answer to all my audio problems at the monent the trusty Technics SL-P111. This was made in 1987 and given to me in 1994 by my accountant. I used it in the office until 2004- 10 years and it played every disc thrown at it, including CD-Rs and CD-RWs which hadn't been invented when the player was made. I've still never cleaned the lens. I'm not sure it had problems reading discs more than two or three times and those were proved to have defects.

So, here's a 21 year old lower mid-fi gift CD player with 17 years use and of course, it worked immediately and has played eight or ten discs without a glitch. Not only that, but the sound is really better than the Toshibas- it's cleaner and more transparent than the slightly dark 3960, and I never liked the 3960's that only diplayed the track number with CDs. The Technics has some aspects that rival the 640C in terms of good detail and timbre. Of course, just working is enough to make it better than the 640C! I was shocked though that an early generation digital device- CDs were available around 1980-81 and this player is only 6 or 7 years into CD's. And, with digital, every three of four years is supposed to have such progress, how could a 21 year old player be even marginally listenable?

But, I was not to look th egift horse in the mouth, and finding this seemed like discovering hidden treasure. Plus, I thought I'd given the Technics away two moves ago- I've moved 4 times in 6 years so things become confused- but I have my backup player until the 640C gets back. Not only a quick solution, but I saved the $320 for the Marantz.

But, the perfect Friday wasn't over.

While I was revelling in Janet Baker Mahler on the surprise Technics, I decided I should try the air conditioning for the house as it's to be 95 on Sunday. I moved here in November and had never turned it on. While I'm leaning over a box of vertical rolled up drawings to turn the controls, I look down and see a large, flat green and black box wedged behind the rolls. Yes- the missing power cord !

I walked back to the office and turned off the Ebay auction where two minutes later I would have spent $100 for a replacement cord.

A beautiful, serene day, I can have a CD festival over the weekend, and I saved $420. Sometimes life in California is tolerable!

Cheers,

Bambi B

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