The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

*bumping a very old thread sorry * but I’d like to see more recent takes about this subject.

Most of my “negative” comments come from family members who don’t understand collecting.


“What does that one do that the other ones don’t?”

I sent a video of my Diamond disc playing a record to one of my friends... and the reply was "why does it sound so scratchy? It sounds terrible!"

Then another time I had a friend over and was showing him how my Cortez worked. And after I put the needle down and the record started to play what did he say? "this sounds like something you would hear in a horror movie. Like right before someone is about to be killed"

sigh... I don't understand my generation at all

Years ago I was visited by an experienced fellow collector. He commented that my lovely dark oak Amberola A-1 with a gun metal mechanism would look much better refinished to golden oak. I was stunned at his stupid comment and was tempted to show him the door.

Jerry Blais

Jerry B. wrote:Years ago I was visited by an experienced fellow collector. He commented that my lovely dark oak Amberola A-1 with a gun metal mechanism would look much better refinished to golden oak. I was stunned at his stupid comment and was tempted to show him the door.

Jerry Blais

"Hmmm. You might be right! Let's see how it looks on you first!"

Jerry B. wrote:Years ago I was visited by an experienced fellow collector. He commented that my lovely dark oak Amberola A-1 with a gun metal mechanism would look much better refinished to golden oak. I was stunned at his stupid comment and was tempted to show him the door.

Jerry Blais

Why does one person’s taste and preference, as it differs from yours, make him stupid?

Raphael

When I posted my first machine, an Edison DD BC-34 on facebook someone asked how many MP3s it holds. I responded that a memory card can hold a few thousand and that you can store thousands and thousands of memory cards in the machine, so it can hold nearly unlimited MP3s. Never got a response...

Andreas

Is the original poster a teenager in high school? Sounds like what I would expect from many teenagers who may only relate to rap music today. I'm a retired teacher and I once played a 1930 jazz record by Fess Williams to an 8th grade classroom. I'll never try that again! They just don't relate to it at all. Except of course for a few non conformists who have independent taste.

I think marcapra nailed it. If you are a phonograph hobbyist, you are somewhat of a non conformist with independent tastes.

I used to live in a town where people tended to know each other. A friend of my wife's told her that our neighbor described me as "an eccentric -- he has all those players."

After collecting for over 50 years, I have pretty thick skin about my hobby. I do it for my own personal enjoyment, not as a means to impress other people. I rarely talk about it except to other collectors. Most "regular" folks just don't relate to it.

But I think it's that way about most avocations. I have no interest in talking about NASCAR, for example, but many people love it.

Crazy teenagers these days all want to listen to that Paul Whiteman "King of Jass" (I think that's what they call him) racket. It's not like the old days when we sang "Swanee River" down on the farm.

There are maybe some impolite comments referenced here, but I haven't read many "stupid" ones. You can't fault people for not understanding something completely foreign to them. They're not asking "stupid" questions, they're asking uninformed questions, just as we might do if the tables were turned. Given that, some of the snarky replies these uninformed folks have received are what I find upsetting. If we have even the slightest desire to help people appreciate what we do, then a careful and respectful explanation will do the most good. Even so, not everyone is cut out to like, understand or appreciate this stuff. So be it, that's just human nature. Better however to have tried our best to help them understand and to have them walk away appreciating our patience and respect, if not our hobby. No need to be frustrated because somebody doesn't like what we like.