Let's look at record changers!

Hey! Wondering if you have any old videos I'm not finding, or might consider making some videos explaining radio? I went down a YouTube rabbit hole with Two Hands and a Radio, but I don't really understand all the bands he's accessing with these radios. :)

evistre

I had to become a patron. I love all your videos, fantastic! Keep it up.

Sandy Lloyd

Number 1 is correct, I also wanted to mention that here :-)

MrHammond

who was listening to 45s in the 80s? just about everyone - they took over when personal players came about in the 60s.

Biking With Panda

OMG, that timing just made me.... smile! Thanks for another great video!

Paul Schuur

This video took me back in a couple of different ways. First to the 1960s and my mother's midcentury VM Tri-o-matic HiFi. Mahogany wood, vacuum tubes, and a very robust changer. You might want to check out all the various contraptions companies used to adapt 45s to the changer. (The VM had a big cylindrical thing that fit over the spindle - it never really did work all that well and most of our 45s had those little plastic inserts in them). Fast forward to my college years and my first stereo system had a B*I*C 20z changer turntable, which used a completely different changing system from the classic "long spindle with stabilizing arm" concept. The long spindle was bent at an odd angle and the records were gripped from the side. If I remember correctly, the records also sat on the spindle at an angle. Of course, this system didn't work for 45s but hey, it was the early 80s, and who was listening to 45s? Definite worth checking out for a follow up video. We easily forget that all this "automatic beyond belief technology of the mid 20th century accomplished these marvels (changing records and lowering toast) without a single transistor, IC, or microprocessor. Like you, I find that fascinating.

Craig Brickey

I personally would LOVE to see a video about the "laser turntables" you mentioned. As someone who grew up in the age of CDs, my bias is to think that lasers surely must deliver a superior signal versus their old scratchy counterparts, but maybe dust is a bigger issue when there's no physical stylus to push it out of the way. A video comparing traditional stylus phonographs to their space-age descendents and giving the pros and cons of each would be a wonderful addition to Technology Connections.

Matt Whitlock

Awesome video! I've always been fascinated by changers (and really anything with such a creative mechanism) and the body language and sarcasm made it all the more enjoyable. Now, without reading the other comments or doing any other research (of course!), a couple of things come to mind regarding criticisms by audiophiles: 1. You were good to mention that only the tops of the grooves rub against each other, but isn't it theoretically even less than that? I seem to recall reading that the edges of vinyl records (on the lead-in grooves) and centers (on the labels) were also slightly raised in comparison to the rest of the disc to minimize rubbing when stacked, which was an issue with the earlier shellac ones. 2. I know that the tonearms on some changers had a spring return to pull them downward. I know that because I have one here with a spring return! That may increase the tracking force proportionally as the stack of discs gets taller, and it's something you didn't measure. I don't know if any of the changers in your collection have spring loaded tonearms, so you may be unable to demonstrate, but it may be worth a mention.

toasterking

Great video - I remember these when I was a kid. Some had cylinder like adapters that would go over the pole so you could stack 45's without having to put the little plastic things inside the hole of every 45.

Professor Kroog

I got nothing new to say after the previous commenters. Awesome video, and I love the way you incorporate humor into it. You really got a knack for it :)

Asaf Sagi

Where did you get the Trinitron shirt? This is at least the second time I've seen you wearing it.

Tony Toon

"Audiophiles" were the Vegan Hipsters of their day. I agree with your statement about convenience versus quality. I will refer to this in the remainder of the comment as Rule #1. I had friends who claimed they could tell the difference between two systems (they couldn't on an A-B comparison) and ones that could. Of course, of the latter category, they had systems where the POWER SUPPLY of the turntable cost more than my entire stereo system. But they actually could tell the difference. I never wanted my ears to get that good, because I couldn't afford it! Having said that, I will also point out that doing an A-B using digital recordings of electronic music where the dynamic range was compressed so it sounded good on WLS AM. really doesn't prove anything. You'd have to use master recordings of analog recorded and mixed symphonic or chorale (it's the 'e' at then end that makes it special) music. But that would violate rule #1. Finally, you didn't mention one problem with stacking. When you're using much played records, and stack 3 or more, the latter record(s) tended to slip during playback. That introduced a LOT of wow and flutter that would even break Rule #1.Great video!

Mike Bird

I really loved this video! Both because the subject is fascinating, but because it really shows off how much being able to dedicate yourself to this full-time has done for you in terms of the craft of video-making. There were so many little bits in there that made me laugh and enjoy the video that much more.

Kevin Kostka

The mechanics of these things never fails to fascinate me.

Arthur Robillard

I can't believe you got that to drop right on the first time! I recently bought a Lloyd automatic turntable and I love it. I have a 2 record set of Jesus Christ Superstar and it is sequenced just like you showed. I didn't understand why at first, but then when I went to play it on the player it dawned on me why. Brilliant! Anyway I love the mechanical nature of it all. Great video as always. Enjoy your weekend.

Jay

Also, "Automatic Beyond Belief" reference! <3

Linh Pham

Love that the Betamax tape is just standing behind the Edison cylinders

Linh Pham

I absolutely LOVED this video - and not because of the subject but because of your style. The little bits of comic relief were excellent and you can tell you were having fun. And the “drop” at the end was perfect. I could tell it wasn’t fake, even before you told us, by the quickly-growing smirk as you finished the closing. Thanks for the knowledge and the laughs this Saturday morning!

Patrick Bianchi

You had me at They Might Be Giants!

I can assume that the stylus in the cartridge of the Glenburn TT was conical. That makes the problem of the angle of the tone arm mute. When more advance styli became popular, ones that were able to extract even the highest frequencies accurately and at the same time decrease record ware, that changed. Because of the narrow vertical line on the contact points on the inside and outside of the stylus, there was an issue of the contact points not being at the same angle as the cutting stylu. This is a major cause of distortion. This is quite audible to a person striving for as realistic a reproduction as possible. With the record changer, the best you can hope for is to have the tracking angle set up so it is correct for the middle record in the stack. All other records with be off angle. As I said, this is not a problem if you are using a conical stylus. But most any cartridges costing more than about $25 uses at least an elliptical stylus. Get into the higher priced cartridges and the styluses get more dramatic in shape, such as hyper elliptical, fine line and Shibata. The need to have the correct tracking angle becomes even more important. It can even increase or decrease surface noise.

Allen Boogaard

Surprised you didn't show or mention the teeth, especially on 7" singles.

Stephen Bell

Couldn't find my name in there, but there are a ton of names in that list, oh well...

Excellent video. One problem we had with 12" records is they would tend to skid as they played as there was no 'teeth' on the label near the run-out. This meant that sometimes they would slide against each other and the WOW would be really noticeable. 7" records had these teeth, in the UK anyway, so it wasn't an issue with those as they interlocked with each other. Keep up the great work!

Anders Enger Jensen is truly a godsend when it comes to videos demonstrating old audio tech.

Johnathan Seymour

Sometimes changing records manually is more fun :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpw5Oxpczo

Ben O'Hara

I've worked from home by myself since the year 2000, and the talking to yourself and making up people to yell out doesn't go away. It's when you start firing them and then missing them that you have to start to worry.

Chris Munch