Of ancient hifi.

[gurthaew]

At present I'm helping Opera-Buff move into sheltered accommodation. This involves sorting through 33 years of accumulated strata in his old flat. There are going to be regions that have not seen light of day in decades but they are a joy to come.

He has decided to to keep all his CDs (ca. 1500 of them) but get rid of his cassettes and LPs. Most of the cassettes are his own recordings and not worth anything. The 1000+ LPs would need either Opera-Buff or an independent expert to value them. They, or rather, the ones we have found so far, are stacked up against two walls. Getting rid of most of his music meant he does not need his hifi any longer; these days he plays CDs on a walkman and uses headphones.



So, I brought his hifi back here and started to repair and clean it all. I had noriced a single loudspeaker sitting in a corner covered in dust and being used as a book dump. I asked him about it and he called it a Sound Sales Phase Inverter Speaker. The idea was to point the thing at a corner of the room and a stereo effect could be obtained courtesy of the baffles on the front. This dates to the early days of hifi.





I guess this thing must date to the 1950s though I'm wouldn't bet any money on that. It's 29" high, 18" depth and 14" wide, so it's quite substantial. Sound-wise the treble response is poor by today's (or my) standards but adjusting the graphic equaliser to boost treble to this and attenuate it to one of my Acoustic Research AR28s helped even things up a bit. Overall it has a good base and middle response.

Opera-Buff is unlikely to want it back again and I will certainly hang on to it until alitalf has had a chance to play with it.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I hope that the move goes well, that OperaBuff will be happy in his new home, and that a use can be found for the speaker!

[gurthaew.livejournal.com]

He's not very happy at the moment, quite depressed in fact. If you're coming to Oxonmoot (and he manages to get there for the Saturday) you'll see a very changed Opera-Buff.

As to the speaker, ebay?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I had a slightly earlier update from ExMemSec at Oxonmoot, who said that he (OperaBuff) wasn't very happy. We are coming to Oxonmoot, and shall seek him out and talk to him.

eBay possibly, although postage may cost a bomb (and limiting it to collection only would reduce the pool of potential buyers).

[gurthaew.livejournal.com]

When I was trawling the web for information on it, one post said that they are rare. Nothing comes up on eBay when I searched under its name.

The bigger worry is OB's record collection which he is thinking of abandoning. I wonder if I could eBay that as a job lot? OK - just searched eBay and there are plenty of record collections being sold and very few have bids on them. OK,asking £350 for a collection

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Huge-collection-of-clasical-LP-aprox-600-Decca-Emi-Philips-columbia-Hmv-etc-/300769844098?pt=UK_Records&hash=item4607479b82

is probably close to their actual worth but that would only be realised by selling them individually as a dealer would.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree.

In more detail, and possibly making more sense -

From my many years' experience of trawling eBay, it seems that selling collections of anything is difficult. You can either put them up as one lot, and get about £35 for them; or you can list them individually & properly, and get about £3.50 a piece for maybe half of them.

[gurthaew.livejournal.com]

The thought of indexing all that lot... maybe a 1000 records? Apedemak has offered to do it but it would require me to bring them all back here. OB was supposed to be contacting the record shop in Notting Hill Gate but he's very disillusioned about it all these days.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Maybe apademek should change her line of study, and make this the subject of her dissertation.

[gurthaew.livejournal.com]

Considering the amount of grumbling about computers, Epson scanners, the GIMP and low quality images you may not be too wrong.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Hmm ... well, if I do suggest it to her, I shall make sure that I am standing a long way away ...

potential buyer for the job lot

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

There is an advert in Private Eye about buying vinyl, shall I dig that out for you? Please remind me in a fortnight as not enough spoons to go around at the moment (or tuits).

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

adaese points out that I do, of course, mean that ExMemSec gave me an update at RotR, not Oxonmoot.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

True enough but alex_downunder has been surprised by the number of things that DO sell collection only - especially if you don't live in the middle of nowhere. Or can do it in reverse - delivery only for cost of petrol (max X miles).

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

If and when you work out what to do with the LPs/how or where to get them valued (other than the above or my proferred solution), I'd like to know due to smaller but similar issue to resolve.

Another idea is taking a representative selection to one of these Record Fairs in the town hall or wherever, and talking to someone face to face about it.

There's also a record player (fully working and fairly good looking, I believe) sitting in Highlander's hall as the first person who said they wanted it changed their mind). Any takers?