EMGCR and Expert Senior playing the same performance.

[Valecnik]

Frankia, regarding your dissatisfaction with your listening room, it looks pretty good to me. From what I can tell in the videos it looks like the machines are placed more or less in corners of a smaller to medium sized room. I would think that's almost ideal.

It would also be nice to hear a comparison of those machines playing some nice 1928, 29, 30 dance or Jazz, Whiteman or Al Bowley if you happen to have any.

I just realised that I had recorded the following jazz 78 from both machines last September. The links are below.

While I agree with Alex that the Oversize horn was meant for larger spaces, I have heard one in a medium sized room sounding absolutely gorgeous. The owner has a youtube channel as well and I've emailed him to ask if I can post a link here.
Also this same EMGCR gramophone of mine sounded noticeably better in Graham Rankin's larger sitting room when I went to collect it. There are skillings on each side of this room of mine which makes the actual area a lot smaller than one would think, even though the floor area is the size of a decent sized room. It also creates eight surfaces for sound waves to bounce off. Whatever the cause, there can be a stridency in certain notes that I've never heard from any of these gramophones elsewhere, and the room is particularly unfair to the Oversize horn.
My own experience has convinced me that acoustic surroundings is a vastly underrated consideration in evaluating these instruments. This same room, as I think I've said elsewhere, was wonderful for HMV re-entrants until I tried to make it more amenable to the EMGCR and Expert. Now it is not as re-entrant friendly and more EMG/Expert friendly!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff9O2x9ZayM EMGCR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc_Ye1UGz_E Expert.

The expert wins by a nose imho.

[Frankia]

By the way, that thick platter on the Expert, what is it exactly. To me it looks like one of those lightweight bulky alloy turntables from the 70's and 80's.

I haven't found out for definite what it's made of but it's thought to be cast or machined aluminium. It's a "strobe" turntable as you can probably see and is definitely not original. However it is certainly not light. It's quite heavy in fact. Works great though. They were thought to be an improvement, from what I understand, in that the top broadcasting motors of the time used them.

[Frankia]

Here is another EMGCR in what I would consider to be a considerably more conducive acoustic environment for the Oversize horn than my room.
Enjoy this wonderful jazz!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O99wS9F6Hrg

[CptBob]

This has been a fascinating topic. It's made me sit down and concentrate on the recordings. There isn't much to choose between the machines. I'd be to have either. From what I've heard - my laptop plugged into a fairly ordinary sound system, Arcam Alpha 7 amplifier and AVI Neutron speakers the Expert sounds slightly better to my ears. I listened and listened to the start of the Mendelssohn, just before the strings come in and I'm just a little more convinced by the piano sound. There isn't much to choose though, and it's a sort of indefinable sense of greater coherence. I felt it in the Bach and the two versions of the jazz record.

Anyway it's been very interesting and notwithstanding my comments above I'd be a very happy boy if I owned either of those machines.

[Frankia]

This has been a fascinating topic. It's made me sit down and concentrate on the recordings. There isn't much to choose between the machines. I'd be to have either. From what I've heard - my laptop plugged into a fairly ordinary sound system, Arcam Alpha 7 amplifier and AVI Neutron speakers the Expert sounds slightly better to my ears. I listened and listened to the start of the Mendelssohn, just before the strings come in and I'm just a little more convinced by the piano sound. There isn't much to choose though, and it's a sort of indefinable sense of greater coherence. I felt it in the Bach and the two versions of the jazz record.

Anyway it's been very interesting and notwithstanding my comments above I'd be a very happy boy if I owned either of those machines.

And it has been so enjoyable for me to be able to share with people who know how to listen both to music and to gramophones. Great way to take ones mind off more mainstream issues and enrich oneself and maybe someone else in the doing! The learning on my side has been about the very considerable limitations of a common or garden camera combined with youtube at giving a reasonably true record of the reality on the ground.
I have now tried twice to produce the recording of the first movement of the Mendelssohn as you suggested. Some days ago I recorded all three sides in the one go. When I went to upload, I had exceeded some ten minute maximum that I didn't know existed. A short while ago I re-recorded it. This time I broke it into two videos with the first having one side and the second taking the remaining two. When I was about two thirds through the second record of the second video the **** phone began to ring!
I refuse to be beaten on this! However it will have to wait another while.

[Valecnik]

I agree about the topic, lot's of fun!

Re. recording limits, you can get them extended I know. Mine were automatically extended somehow sometime back. I don't think I any longer have a "per recording" or size limit. I'll try to figure out and get back to you.

[CptBob]

Taking this thread slightly off topic, what do those who know about these things think of this?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230767462032? ... 1438.l2649

It could be plugged straight into the lap top to capture audio with the video coming from the computer's built in camera.

[Orchorsol]

Taking this thread slightly off topic, what do those who know about these things think of this?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230767462032? ... 1438.l2649

It could be plugged straight into the lap top to capture audio with the video coming from the computer's built in camera.

I have a Behringer C-1 (probably the same item but the non-USB version needing phantom power) and at the price it's very good - pretty much the cheapest condenser mic available.

[chunnybh]

I highly recommend a dedicated condenser mic. With Youtubes HD settings you can get very good sound capture.
A tip for listening to Youtube is to make sure the output is set to the highest quality. By default, youtube sets the video quality to low.

I spent months trying to find something that would work for me. I settled for a Zoom Q3HD Portable Video and Audio Recorder.
It has two condenser mics so the sound is excellent but the video quality is not so good.

[Frankia]

The video has been blocked by Orchard Music EMI. They have a nerve.

Jim

Just in case you might still like a listen Jim, the videos are now unblocked.