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Part of the pleasure in spending your later years near where you grew up....is bumping into friends from 60 years and more ago.......\i constantly do this in Bulwell.....old school pals from the 50s a

Ben, another group called The Spinners with some fantastic shots of the UK. The song was all about the "Right to Roam". Written by Ewan MacColl I've walked and climbed in most of the places in th

I listen to "Always" and I'm thinking of fabulous Mrs WW, from happy courting days to the sweetest honeymoon, through all the years, all the sunsets, all the sunrises, all the hard times, near disaste

An evocative choice Col, I remember them all. My parents didn't have a TV in our house until about 1967. But we always had a good radio (Murphy 146 being the latest) which was always on whenever someone was awake in the house. In those days I learned by much listening how and why music 'works'. It seems to me there was such a wide variety of music broadcast in the 50s (which was mainly on BBC) the memory of which remains with me to this day. Wayward Wind and Little Things are amongst those instant recalled memories. 

Edit to add..dealer_collinge_highres_1448113292121-17

Murphy 146

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Loved listening to 'Little things mean a lot' and 'The day that the rains came down'.  Even Paul started singing to the latter but, like me, he didn't know all the words...

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Interestng radio Willow.  Can't quite work out how much is 'style' and how much is practical audio,  The single speaker viewed from the front looks like its on an open 'panel'. or 'baffle' which is about the simplest way to mount a speaker.  The idea is to prevent sound waves from the back of the speaker cone cancelling those from the front by separating them.  If not mounted somehow, a speaker drive unit without some sort of mountng or enclosure is very inefficient.  Theoretically the baffle should be infinite in size but the most common practical application of that is a sealed box.  I'd love to see round the back to see if the rear of the speaker cone is open to air, or closed in.

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Thank you for your comments Col. We acquired this radio new when I was about 5 or 6 (1949 ish) so didn't appreciate the finer points of audio reproduction then. But as you related the ideal is to isolate front from back. Still listening to music on it in 1959/60 it was a good quality general listening radio, 10" speaker. For instance I can remember 'Jailhouse Rock'  when it was first broadcast and the opening bars which included a raunchy bass walk-up (pitched about E2 I think) sounded impressively rounded, smooth and even; that's one feature I remember in my early audio learning curve but that's all that was required of a radio those days, no sub fundamentals, I can't remember those physical notes from a 16'/32' organ pipe music. Bearing in mind that it was Long Wave and am medium wave, it was top-end which was weak compared with later FM.

I understand Murphy experimented with  infinite baffles but didn't include them in this level (£28/19s/9d) of domestic  radio but made the baffle work. There were 8" deep side cheeks to the main top-to-bottom support structure at the rear, further baffling the speaker back,  which extended the audio path a bit, the space between them (where the electrics and speaker were) was finished with a perforated cover which may have damped things a bit. Granted it was stylish but I'm convinced there was a fair bit of science in the design.

Having said that, it was fine for us in the domestic setting for music for over 20 years.

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It's those 16/32 pipes that make organ music so satisfying to me.  Still takes some pretty good speakers to reproduce them to any degree, especially the 32s.  You just tend to feel those rather than hear them.  I don't think even the two pipe organs I've played had anything over 16s.  Electronic organs, as you know, I,m sure, tend to be scorned by purist pipe players, but they did have one at the church where I took lessons.  The subwoofers were as big as a wardrobe and they produced a pretty realistic rumble on the 32 foot stops.  Closest thing I've ever heard to pipes in an electronic.  If you closed your eyes you could be fooled into thinking it was a pipe organ.

Back to radios.  my folks had a PYE table radio.  Eight inch speaker somewhere among the valves.  Hardly hi-fi but I was only into Luxemburg in those days.

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I know what you mean LL, the first I experienced them was in an auditorium with a pipe organ.

Also I could just about make them out when in the 60s I built a couple of 30 litre bass reflex Wharefdale enclosures driven by an amplifier in which I'd tweaked the tone ccts. The most satisfying was through Sennheiser headphones; my room is not big enough to accommodate the full effect acoustically.

Keep playing LL, I'm playing my Korg right now, in between checking out NS.!

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I'm not too strong on acoustic theory, but I recall reading somewhere that 'yer average' living room isn't big enough to accommodate the wavelength produced by the biggest organ pipes, even if you could build a speaker to reproduce it.

 

And your radio Willow.  If you still have it, I'm sure that any one of numerous specialists could bring it back up to 'spec' for a price.  Resistors and capacitors gradually going 'off spec', seems to be the main culprit.  That, and often poor aerials, account for much of the nostalgic talk of 'warm' sounding valve stuff.  Agreed, the top end wasn't what you get with FM, but a good set in good condition still sounded pretty good. Valves can last for amazing lengths of time if not overdriven. Sadly, one of the well known radio restorers, Phillip Knighton of Wellington in Somerset, passed away a couple of years ago.

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Also Willow, I didn't intend to be critical of the design of your radio, was just genuinely a bit 'baffled' if you'll excuse the pun.  We never had a radio at home until after I'd branched out on my own. Early on just a box with a speaker in it, fed from the Rediffusion cable between all the houses.  Later as I recall daytime radio was relayed through the tv.. or at least I think so.  Hard to recall.

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The first radio I can remember was a Bush like this one. Often fell asleep to the hiss and crackle of Radio Luxembourg or the shipping forecast. I think it had long wave and medium wave and the tuning display showed exotic places like Hilversum, Prague and Reykjavik

 

DAC10; Bush Radio; London (ID = 1879789) Radio

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Wow! it let me on this morning.  Hope it doesn't dump me before I finish this post.  You made a good point Willow about room size and low frequencies.  I guess the average room size is far too small to do much for a 32 foot stop.  I think that frequency is around 16 Hz.  The harmonics may be even lower.  I know the electronic organ at the church I mentioned produced a thundering 32 foot sound, but that was a big reverberant stone sanctuary.

If we discuss this more may I suggest a different thread.  This one is not friendly to my Ipad and thats mostly what I use online.

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Come home LL, there's a church in Ilkeston for sale. The organ is still there and working.

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Heard of a guy over here who did just that.  Bought a church with a really nice pipe organ.  Converted some of the space to a living area and now has a really fine instrument in the front room.

It would be a good deal for a real enthusiast.  Probably cost a bit to heat though.

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On 3/6/2019 at 4:18 PM, loppylugs said:

It's those 16/32 pipes that make organ music so satisfying to me.  Still takes some pretty good speakers to reproduce them to any degree, especially the 32s.  You just tend to feel those rather than hear them. 

True LL, it works on a real pipe organ with no colouration or distortion I agree but I think for me chasing it down with huge contraptions in my home will be frustrating, apart from Mrs WW's veto.

Sometime in the 80s I went to a concert in the Albert Hall Nottm. This was before they inserted that floor which cut the main auditorium in 2. I got a seat in the middle, the huge space went from ground level below the pulpit to that large curved ceiling.

The highlight of the concert was this..(this clip is of a different organ but the Albert Hall Binns did a fabulous job)

This was the real McCoy surround sound, through the seat anorl.

I realised at the time, I'll never reproduce this through speakers so I made do with what I had.:)

ps it's not bad on decent headphones.

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  • 3 months later...

This should keep music buffs busy for a while .

 

The Boston (USA) Public Library have put online some 48000 recordings , many of them 78s .

 

I selected "Ellington" and these came up but earlier had a listen to some old Sonny Boy Williamson tracks .

 

https://archive.org/details/78rpm_bostonpubliclibrary?and[]=ellington&sin=

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Moved into our new home today,,now sat quietly apart from a little jig when the music of Dr Hook gets too much to sit still,

The site seems to have got back to its friendly ways,,so I'm back,,

Apart from moving home the last few weeks have been a bit turbulent health wise for me and the wife,,need to get sorted,, hope trogg is ok,anyone heard owt?  Excuse me Dr Hook is singing sexy thing,,gotta go,,  lol 

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You really have been through it Miducks. Sorry to read about you and Donnas health troubles Benj, I send you both our best wishes, and I hope you settle down well in your new home. I keep checking but I haven't seen any news yet on Trogg. Take care Benj and I look forward to some singing again as soon as the choir assembles again.:biggrin:

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Hey, Ayup Ben, pleased to see you back and sorry you’ve had health issues but hope you settle into your new home quickly.  Did you get out before the rent man called?  

Just hope that a few of the old stalwart Nottstalgians poke their heads around the door and see that all is calm again. 

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Glad you're feeling a bit better, and thinking positive Ben. Keep it up, and welcome back to the Happy House !

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 If we get loppy back, and as Lizzie says, get a few old stalwarts returning, we might get some REAL banter back.

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Pleased to see you here again Ben and hope things start to settle down a bit. Seems a few of us have been in the wars of late, hopefully there will be no more for awhile and we get on...

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4 hours ago, DAVIDW said:

This should keep music buffs busy for a while .

 

The Boston (USA) Public Library have put online some 48000 recordings , many of them 78s .

 

I selected "Ellington" and these came up but earlier had a listen to some old Sonny Boy Williamson tracks .

 

https://archive.org/details/78rpm_bostonpubliclibrary?and[]=ellington&sin=

 

Terrific stuff! If you listen to Creole Love Call, you hear the vocal which was done by the late Adelaide Hall, who came to England in the 1930s and remained here.  I was priveleged to meet her in of all places Southport, were she was on the same bill as my late Father in Law in an 'Olde Tyme Music Hall' show.

Also some great early tracks such as Immigration Blues, The Creeper', etc., which I still have on a Decca compilation AH23 'The Duke in Harlem' from around 1962.

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Terrific to see Ben back.  Hope you get sorted my friend.  Be good.

 

 

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