DSJR
Major Contributor
Subjectivism in the UK was founded on a slightly different path I reckon. perhaps Serge and Frank Dernie could confirm (I believe we're all of a 'certain age' to remember those times
The audio 'hobby' is so incredibly tribal and the 70's in the UK was as bad as any other period. Turntables bought on wow & flutter figures only (and ignore the fact the deck fed back massively - which is far more audible even before howl-round), amps designed to reduce THD but who cares about high order crossover artefacts or abilities into 4 ohms. Speakers in the UK went one of two ways - low colouration for good speech reproduction but a total inability to reproduce kick drums, bass guitars or percussion properly at anything other than very low levels (Can's 'Halleluwah!' into Spendor BC1's that sounded as if they were going to shake apart is a firm memory I retain from those times ), or a LOUD shrieker that all but squawked and screamed at you but oh that bass... I was rather young and naive back then, but keen to learn and unlike my academic studies, this Aspergically inclined soul lapped up anything to do with audio gear...
And then Linn came along with an appropriated turntable design based on the Thorens TD150 but more substantially built. It SOUNDED better than the badly sited direct drives of the day (made records sound nicer) and was definitely more 'solid' sounding in the bass than the Thorens and AR 77 XB designs which by then had wobbly bearing tolerances. On th eback of said turntable was a 'domesticated 1950's PA amp' made in Salisbury, initially sounding rather valve like but in 1980 after a circuit re-lay-out, sounding, well, like a domestic PA amp with tons of 'rhythm' for us young bucks, but hard and almost harsh to everyone else. Quad for instance were left out on the cold and elderly fuddy-duddy owners tut-tutted - wasn't until the 606 amp design that they came back with a vengeance but it was almost too late for them by that time.
Please don't think I have in in for Quad here as they had the last laugh really. Owners of Quad with Spendor/Rogers and their own electrostatics took to digital like ducks to water and I had many enjoyable hours at a friend's place listening to her all-Quad system with CD - the vinyl side needed some serious work to make it subjectively successful. I recently tried an early player which I didn't like back then and found it a damned sight better than I remembered with the vinyl-compromised stereo's of the day (as said so well above).
Apologies folks, I could go on and on and on and.......
The audio 'hobby' is so incredibly tribal and the 70's in the UK was as bad as any other period. Turntables bought on wow & flutter figures only (and ignore the fact the deck fed back massively - which is far more audible even before howl-round), amps designed to reduce THD but who cares about high order crossover artefacts or abilities into 4 ohms. Speakers in the UK went one of two ways - low colouration for good speech reproduction but a total inability to reproduce kick drums, bass guitars or percussion properly at anything other than very low levels (Can's 'Halleluwah!' into Spendor BC1's that sounded as if they were going to shake apart is a firm memory I retain from those times ), or a LOUD shrieker that all but squawked and screamed at you but oh that bass... I was rather young and naive back then, but keen to learn and unlike my academic studies, this Aspergically inclined soul lapped up anything to do with audio gear...
And then Linn came along with an appropriated turntable design based on the Thorens TD150 but more substantially built. It SOUNDED better than the badly sited direct drives of the day (made records sound nicer) and was definitely more 'solid' sounding in the bass than the Thorens and AR 77 XB designs which by then had wobbly bearing tolerances. On th eback of said turntable was a 'domesticated 1950's PA amp' made in Salisbury, initially sounding rather valve like but in 1980 after a circuit re-lay-out, sounding, well, like a domestic PA amp with tons of 'rhythm' for us young bucks, but hard and almost harsh to everyone else. Quad for instance were left out on the cold and elderly fuddy-duddy owners tut-tutted - wasn't until the 606 amp design that they came back with a vengeance but it was almost too late for them by that time.
Please don't think I have in in for Quad here as they had the last laugh really. Owners of Quad with Spendor/Rogers and their own electrostatics took to digital like ducks to water and I had many enjoyable hours at a friend's place listening to her all-Quad system with CD - the vinyl side needed some serious work to make it subjectively successful. I recently tried an early player which I didn't like back then and found it a damned sight better than I remembered with the vinyl-compromised stereo's of the day (as said so well above).
Apologies folks, I could go on and on and on and.......
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