What's an OCD to do now?

Suffering severe obsessive compulsive disorder, I need some help (and I don't need no Prozac).
I have the right electronics (Big Bopper M-125 with major upgrades), Sachs line pre-amp (SP-14 with major upgrades), Janis (PH-16) phono preamp, Tyler Decade speaks, and a fine complement of NOS 6SN7/6H8C tubes, and phono preamp 6922 tubes, and Gold Lion KT-88s, and a VPI turntable with Ortofon cartridge. All work perfectly together and the sound is perfection. And I've fixed all the metal-based MELZ tubes.
I've run out of stuff to obsess about.
This is very disconcerting. An OCD-type is likely to start robbing convenience stores at gunpoint or joining a political party or 12-step group without something to busy himself with closer to home.
There must be something I'm missing in the stereo department over which I can worry, chew on and "fix."
I seek your help. I don't think $8,000 cables are the answer; that would be too easy and way over budget. This is a plea for help, or an outreach if you will. Should I be getting into reel-to-reel?

deepee99 wrote:Suffering severe obsessive compulsive disorder, I need some help (and I don't need no Prozac).
I have the right electronics (Big Bopper M-125 with major upgrades), Sachs line pre-amp (SP-14 with major upgrades), Janis (PH-16) phono preamp, Tyler Decade speaks, and a fine complement of NOS 6SN7/6H8C tubes, and phono preamp 6922 tubes, and Gold Lion KT-88s, and a VPI turntable with Ortofon cartridge. All work perfectly together and the sound is perfection. And I've fixed all the metal-based MELZ tubes.
I've run out of stuff to obsess about.
This is very disconcerting. An OCD-type is likely to start robbing convenience stores at gunpoint or joining a political party or 12-step group without something to busy himself with closer to home.
There must be something I'm missing in the stereo department over which I can worry, chew on and "fix."
I seek your help. I don't think $8,000 cables are the answer; that would be too easy and way over budget. This is a plea for help, or an outreach if you will. Should I be getting into reel-to-reel?

Several Silly Suggestions:
Start an 8-track restoration service. You'll corner a niche (???) market.
Gramophones. Strictly the acoustic, spring-driven kind. Specialize in the early, one-sided discs.
Reel-to-reel, or, in your case, reel-to-unreal.
Or establish Audiophiles Anonymous, to help others caught in the relentless downward spiral with which you have become all-too-familiar.

You might delve deep into the muck of optimum speaker placement for best soundstage, imaging, frequency response blah blah blah. Surely this is an obsessive's dream come true!

Tube Nube wrote:You might delve deep into the muck of optimum speaker placement for best soundstage, imaging, frequency response blah blah blah. Surely this is an obsessive's dream come true!

Except every time I move the speakers I get hollered at for scratching the hardwood floors. Room treatments are out as well; she who will be obeyed will not have her precious paintings and photographs covered up. No, this needs to be way more esoteric . . .

deepee99 wrote:Suffering severe obsessive compulsive disorder, I need some help (and I don't need no Prozac).
I have the right electronics (Big Bopper M-125 with major upgrades), Sachs line pre-amp (SP-14 with major upgrades), Janis (PH-16) phono preamp, Tyler Decade speaks, and a fine complement of NOS 6SN7/6H8C tubes, and phono preamp 6922 tubes, and Gold Lion KT-88s, and a VPI turntable with Ortofon cartridge. All work perfectly together and the sound is perfection. And I've fixed all the metal-based MELZ tubes.
I've run out of stuff to obsess about.
This is very disconcerting. An OCD-type is likely to start robbing convenience stores at gunpoint or joining a political party or 12-step group without something to busy himself with closer to home.
There must be something I'm missing in the stereo department over which I can worry, chew on and "fix."
I seek your help. I don't think $8,000 cables are the answer; that would be too easy and way over budget. This is a plea for help, or an outreach if you will. Should I be getting into reel-to-reel?

You are missing a decent tape recorder with accompanying tools and standard tape.
I would recommend a revox G36 if you can afford, a A77 otherwise.
You also need a supply of tapes, a "DIN alignment tape", signal oscillator, oscilloscope
some way of measuring flutter and a lot of time. Don't forget the workshop manual that has
all instructions for adjusting input and output level, bias settings etc for your chosen tape.

peterh wrote:

deepee99 wrote:Suffering severe obsessive compulsive disorder, I need some help (and I don't need no Prozac).
I have the right electronics (Big Bopper M-125 with major upgrades), Sachs line pre-amp (SP-14 with major upgrades), Janis (PH-16) phono preamp, Tyler Decade speaks, and a fine complement of NOS 6SN7/6H8C tubes, and phono preamp 6922 tubes, and Gold Lion KT-88s, and a VPI turntable with Ortofon cartridge. All work perfectly together and the sound is perfection. And I've fixed all the metal-based MELZ tubes.
I've run out of stuff to obsess about.
This is very disconcerting. An OCD-type is likely to start robbing convenience stores at gunpoint or joining a political party or 12-step group without something to busy himself with closer to home.
There must be something I'm missing in the stereo department over which I can worry, chew on and "fix."
I seek your help. I don't think $8,000 cables are the answer; that would be too easy and way over budget. This is a plea for help, or an outreach if you will. Should I be getting into reel-to-reel?

You are missing a decent tape recorder with accompanying tools and standard tape.
I would recommend a revox G36 if you can afford, a A77 otherwise.
You also need a supply of tapes, a "DIN alignment tape", signal oscillator, oscilloscope
some way of measuring flutter and a lot of time. Don't forget the workshop manual that has
all instructions for adjusting input and output level, bias settings etc for your chosen tape.

Peter, strange you should mention tape. I have a bid or two in on Technics RS-1500s as we speak, which I would have Jeff at j-corder rehab should my low-ball bid prevail. But the signal oscillator and scope are brilliant concepts, and I have room for them next to the turntable. The allure of R2R is it will keep the cat busy for hours, just watching, and she is OCD, too. In fact, the more I think about it, how could an analogue stereo be complete without such accoutrements? A huge oversight on my part.

David, I have a 1970 Johnson outboard boat motor that don't run right! Want me to ship it?? Dale

Dale Stevens wrote:David, I have a 1970 Johnson outboard boat motor that don't run right! Want me to ship it??  Dale

Never met an OMC motor I couldn't whip. New plugs and Hilton's Hyper-lube in the 2-cycle mix usually do the trick though. You might check the cotter-pin on the propeller, or see if a propeller is attached. They are useful in outboards.

I would be concerned if the screws in your outlet covers are magnetic. You may want to replace them, if they are.

Captain Coconut wrote:I would be concerned if the screws in your outlet covers are magnetic. You may want to replace them, if they are.

Cap'n, can you loan me your outlet cover screw degausser?

Save some room for a dbx noise reduction for the R2R. It might also work with an 8-track player...

Learn a musical instrument.

deepee99 wrote:

Captain Coconut wrote:I would be concerned if the screws in your outlet covers are magnetic. You may want to replace them, if they are.

Cap'n, can you loan me your outlet cover screw degausser?

I will put you on the two year waiting list.

You've got quite a ways to go to sate ypur OCD. There's tape,as suggested. Then never ending new DAC releases. Start with the Maverick D1, then Oppo HA02. Download a bunch of DSD filesto try out the new format. Buiild a file server for all your favorite tunes. Play around with the Google Chromecast audio thingy that interfaces .

You'll be surprised how good these inexpensive DACs have become. (I've bought quite a few.)

Bon appetit!

Isoacoustic modular stands for your Tylers. Won't scratch the floors!

You could build a 2nd system.

I struggle too. Almost finished with Roy's SP13. Waiting for tubes. Nothing wrong with my old Bottlehead preamp. Just wanted to build something new.

Still want new speakers.

I'm still learning.

deepee99 and Captain Coconut,

I can fix the outlet cover magnetism problem. I'm going to start selling non magnetic outlet screw covers, in either brass or stainless. Brass will only be $20 ea and Stainless will be a $10 upcharge for $30 ea. Shipping and Handling only $20 per order. How many screws and what type would you like? I only ask so that when I got to hardware store on Saturday for other stuff, I can pick them up, swing back by the post office and put them in a small flat rate box to you. Should result in a nice profit for me. After a couple years of brass and stainless sales, I'll start selling nylon to the "budget" market and corner that too.........

I'll put the Captain out of his degausser rental business soon.

Who wants to be the first customer?

JW

I was actually thinking of re-wiring the house in gold Romex, which is not magnetic but a heckuva conductor. Ditto the wall-plate cover screws, since the Captain is being so parsimonious with his degausser and JW has revealed himself to be a capitalist.
With gold Romex, not only should there be an audible improvement in the hi-fi, the dishwasher and clothes dryer may run quieter, too. I may need to buy a mine.
Seriously, salvation may be at hand. Whilst probing the basement yesterday for a suitable instrument to pull a stop'n'rob, beneath the dust and cobwebs I beheld a Nakamichi RX-505. I blew the larger particles of crud off of it, hauled it upstairs and patched it into the system. Lo and behold, the playback worked; I've no tapes upon which to test the record function: The septuagenarian Bing Crosby Christmas cassette had the tabs removed. But it played, and it played, and it played.
Then, as if by a sign from Above, I stumbled across a Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-dead-media-comeback-ae-0131-20160128-story.html) article on the renaissance of the cassette tape medium. Turns out I was incorrect in an earlier post. There IS a company in the U.S., in Springfield MO, National Audio Co. Inc., (http://nationalaudiocompany.com/default.aspx) that manufactures new cassette tapes in Type I and II biases. They use newly-minted BASF mastering tape so I've ordered a box of 10 90-minute Type II for $47.80 plus UPS' infernal shipping fees. (They are also an ATR R2R tape dealer).
And now, onto the Nakamichi. The heds will no doubt need lapping, which I am sure can be accomplished with a dremel and 80-grit. And all those relays, belts, plastic gears, solenoids, that will need loving attention and I might as well upgrade all those little tiny capacitors. Sorta like taking a pocket-watch apart and putting it back together.
This should carry me through the start of baseball's Grapefruit League and perhaps into the World Series.
In the DAC department, I picked up an Emotiva (highly recommended.) Am running Tidal and the CD player through it with highly satisfactory results.
As to your many other salutary suggestions, my thanks! Perhaps some speaker stands are in order, just for canting purposes if nothing else. Suggestions? The Tylers came with spikes but that's a bit rough on the hard-wood.
Bummer to have missed out on the RS-1500 R2R deck, last-minute snipe but so it goes. The tape-flipper on the Nak will be an adequate cat distraction.

Build some nice speakers... Wayne Parham 4PI speakers with some solid JBL 2226H 15" drivers and then some nice horns like the B&C DE250 compression driver.

The 4PI speakers were the 3rd build of speakers for me and the last... Unreal good with some good subwoofers
http://www.pispeakers.com/contents.html

Have you thought about making music yourself instead? I was in a similar situation like you two years ago. So on my 50th birthday I went off to the local guitar shop and bought a fine Martin D-28 and started to learn to play. I never played an instrument in my life, but Youtube is full of free lessons. I am hooked since then and bought two more guitars in the meantime:-) Best thing: the wife approves :-) And it gives an excuse to build a tube guitar amp as well :-)

Have fun

Michael

Zimmer64 wrote:Have you thought about making music yourself instead? I was in a similar situation like you two years ago. So on my 50th birthday I went off to the local guitar shop and bought a fine Martin D-28 and started to learn to play. I never played an instrument in my life, but  Youtube is full of free lessons. I am hooked since then and bought two more guitars in the meantime:-) Best thing: the wife approves :-) And it gives an excuse to build a tube guitar amp as well :-)

Have fun

Michael

Michael,
An excellent idea. Actually, I'm fairly conversant with the piano, and have a lovely old player piano my parents bought for me at age 6 with the caveat that I would take 10 years' classical lessons with the Royal Conservatory of Toronto and pass the test every year. It ended up in my ex-wife's possession for 20 years and I just got it back last year, took two ounces of gold to get it fully restored. She had let pack-rats move into it and they pretty well trashed the guts and bellows but the sound board remained true. The player mechanism is a superb study in DAC. You work the foot-pumps, which works bellows to create a vaccuum throughout the system, a tiny hose connecting each key to a corresponding hole the sound-bar, each hole permitting air to enter as an open space in the piano roll passes by, all regulated by a four-cylinder modulator so the from bottom A to the top C keys are all confronted with identical pressures.
Or you just bang on the keys yourself, trying to be as good as you were when you were 12 years old.
My test of any electronic hi-fi system is how faithfully it reproduces the sound a real piano makes. An excellent test for this is "Gershwin plays Gershwin" when he went into Steinway's studio and played Rhapsody in Blue and other greats on a Steinway piano-roll cutter. It's available on CD (Telarc?).

I agree with Michael.

I have a Bass guitar that I thump around on from time to time and as a result of rebuilding Dynaco MKIIIs I have found myself now collecting parts to build a Sunn 200s Bass Amp. I have the Dynaco MKIII iron so a Sunn 200s was a natural choice for me as it is the same circuit as a Dynaco MKIII with some pre-amp circuitry. Hey could even use a VTA board in it perhaps with a 12ax7 to drive the tone stack.

Dave,

How about sitting on your ass and listen to da music?
Or you could pick up some ancient CJ equipment and perform magic......................

Mike

You never mentioned any actual collection of music....

Sounds like have a boatload of equipment to listen to music with but no music to listen to...how about that?

I can picture an OCD audiophile with the best equipment money can buy but only a collection of 3 or 4 LP's.

...and who plays the same demo tracks over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

Dogstar wrote:You never mentioned any actual collection of music....

Sounds like have a boatload of equipment to listen to music with but no music to listen to...how about that?

I can picture an OCD audiophile with the best equipment money can buy but only a collection of 3 or 4 LP's.

I have about 600 LPs and maybe 200 CDs. In my rock-n-roll critic days the new release LPs, all first pressing, would come rolling into the newspaper by the container-load every week around Christmas time. I gave away 10 for everyone I kept.
Guess I should pull out an LP or a CD and see what it sounds like. I just enjoy the glow of the tubes; didn't realize they served any purpose.