Art Dudley Listening

List of the Month, Dubious Stuff

Sidebar 1: List of the Month, Dubious Stuff

These eight materials, though not evil in and of themselves, have found their way into disproportionate numbers of audio products that proved to be wrong turns:

1) Sorbothane
2) carbon fiber
3) Kevlar
4) polystyrene
5) polycarbonate
6) chipboard
7) Lucite
8) ester-based poly foam

COMMENTS
JohnnyR's picture
Submitted by JohnnyR on December 13, 2012 - 7:15am

Ahhhhhh yes lets just post a list without any reference or explanations at all. I think your blog is dubious.

 Congrats on rebuilding  a stone age mechanism to play warped dics that pop and crackle.

ChrisS's picture
Submitted by ChrisS on December 13, 2012 - 9:59am

JRusskie,

It's only your last recording of Gorbachev singing "Glasnost, Glasnost, The New Tomorrow" that pops and crackles!

tmsorosk's picture
Submitted by tmsorosk on December 16, 2012 - 8:05am

The LP , imperfect sound forever. 

mauidj's picture
Submitted by mauidj on December 17, 2012 - 11:40pm

Rebuilding a Rondine certainly must be fun...for the builder. But to read about it in a magazine devoted to high end audio is not what I pay my hard earned for. This is extremely fringe stuff.

It was a bit of a slog reading through the Thorens and Garrard rebuilds, plinth contructions etc. but this is just way too much boring information.

Stereophile is losing the plot line as far as I'm concerned.

Very very disapointing.

rl1856's picture
Submitted by rl1856 on December 18, 2012 - 10:54am

Used and Vintage components are an integral part of this hobby.  But where do you place vintage and used in relation to brand new?  There are some components that were good in their day, but would evidence limitations if compared with the new components of today.  There are others that have not only stood the test of time, but also compare very favorably with the best of today.  It is in the later context that AD has chronicled his sojurn into vintage components.  Just as you would not use a 40 or 50yr old car without sutiable maintenance, audio components of similar vintage requires mechanical service to ensure safe and consistent performance.  AD is lucky in being able to perform most of the restoration work on his own.  For others, there are many techs who can do the work for a modest cost.  That said, what AD has abely demonstrated is that with careful consideration and sympathetic restoration, many components once consigned to the dust bin are capable of performance rivaling brand new components but at a much lower monetary cost.  Regarding the RoK, his final expenditure, including arm and cartridge, will likely be much less than if he were to have purchased similar performance off the shelf.  And he will have the satisfaction of knowing that he did it with his own hands.  To some that is part of the fun. 

RINGO-3000's picture
Submitted by RINGO-3000 on December 19, 2012 - 6:34am

50 % love and 50% pride of ownership. 

Murray Allen's picture
Submitted by Murray Allen on December 23, 2012 - 8:51pm

Sorry, but I got one of these in '68 on the $5 table at Bay Bloor radio. Cost me an extra $10 for the rek-o-kut headshell. Massive rumble, no matter what I did. Guess thats why they sold these for 5 bucks. Even the rumble filter of my Scott 130 (another $5 table special) didn't help. 0% love......

jennyole's picture
Submitted by jennyole on April 16, 2016 - 11:51am

Not sure anyone will see this 4 years later, but here goes. This is the type of article my dad would have loved. Too bad the internet wasn't invented by the time he died. Here is a link to a thread I started in the forum, trying to find someone interested in this vintage turntable:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/want-find-good-home-vintage-rek-o-kut-jr-l-34

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