u/rulnacco

Hey, just curious. Anyone got the rundown on what happened to the Marilyn Rose Art Center? I hadn’t been in ages, but I always enjoyed my visits. Only recently found it had closed down, really disappointing.

Anyone can tell me what happened with it, potential spicy tea included?

Hi, all! As the title suggests, I'm really quite naive in the use of oscilloscopes for practical purposes. I'm not *totally* clueless--I teach science (mostly biology, but have been pressed into service to teach middle school physics in the past) and while working in London, we had some ancient but working scopes that we used to demonstrate, with a signal generator, sound frequency, pitch, and amplitude. But that's about the extent of my experience, so I hope you'll be a bit gentle with me. And yeah, I know I've probably done at least a couple of foolish things.

I've gotten into vintage audio, and have pretty successfully recapped/restored a couple of 70s Pioneer receivers, as much as I could--replacing caps, diodes, transistors, pots, etc., by using kits and the excellent directions that came with them. Before tackling that, through loads of reading (thank you, Audiokarma), video watching, and practice on scrap boards, I've gotten pretty good at soldering and desoldering and other minor procedures. And I've accumulated a pretty decent bit of kit: Hakko soldering and desoldering gear, a Peak analyzer, decent digital multimeter with suitable leads, and other necessaries.

However, I've not had an oscilloscope or signal generator until recently. I did a bit of reading and research, and found a Tektronix 2246 on Facebook Marketplace that seemed would do pretty much everything I would need for my purposes, and figured I'd snag it so I could practice with it a bit. Unfortunately, the seller didn't have any probes, and I didn't really have anything that I thought I could test it with anyway, and all I could do was turn it on and see if it powered up, which it did. He said he'd bought it at an auction several years back, and had never used it. I figured that, based on what I could see and what I'd read about that model, it was possibly worth the risk. So I gave him the hundred bucks he was asking, and brought it back home to test.

Errrrm, I don't think it's working--although I may be wrong, and that's what I hope you can advise me on. It does power on, and in the photo you can see what it looks like after it completes that. I read that if the battery is old inside the unit, that you really need to leave it on for at least 20 minutes so it can kind of reorient itself. And I've done that--for the recommended period and longer. However, pressing any of the buttons does *nothing* whatsoever--there is absolutely no response from the unit. How it looks in the photo is exactly how it looks no matter what I do, which to me does not seem proper.

https://preview.redd.it/onigm7oofb8h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e51b9b66651ad809546b124328d9a254de779a6

Today I was at an estate sale, and snagged a sweet and very powerful old Pioneer Elite receiver for a very reasonable sum, in excellent condition. The late old gentleman who owned it was clearly into high end gear--he had some speakers and some other things I couldn't hope to touch pricewise--and had clearly taken good care of his stuff. He also had a Leader LAG-126S audio signal generator that looked very clean and which they wanted hardly anything for. I did a quick readup on it and it seemed a very capable unit, so I snagged it, too.

Before I got home, I made a quick stop at my favorite thrift store. Lo and behold, they had two digital oscilloscopes on the shelf, priced at $89 each. As you can see, one was a Tektronix TDS 3014, and the other was a Gw Instek GDS-2204E. I was under a bit of time pressure, but read up as much as I could on the two units, and we did plug them in, power them on, and I fiddled with a few of the functions--which, hey, did kind of what I expected them to. Unfortunately, the folks at the thrift shop, who apparently got these from an estate, had chucked out the probes and any other accessories that might have come with them. Duh. But what I had time to read made me think that, even if these aren't totally modern scopes--which, of course, they aren't--they'll at least do everything I need them to.

I negotiated them down to $69 each if I bought the pair, as I could afford that and it seemed a bit of a bargain given their original selling price and their apparent capabilities. I buy so much stuff from these folks that they'll take one or both back from me if they don't work, so it seemed like a no-brainer (hopefully, that actually isn't what I've done), and I figured I could decide which one I liked best and worked best for me, and I could sell the other one. Here they are, powered on:

https://preview.redd.it/13d053j5hb8h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27cfd83c8730eefe6f7191bb56e74e01a2c0c9d6

https://preview.redd.it/p5uh73j5hb8h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95c154d87d16ae70293c095fe5f3f36d2e529139

So, what can I do/where should I start to see if the original Tektronix I bought will actually work? I just really don't know where to start with troubleshooting it. And with the other two units, assuming they work--they *seem* to, at the moment--is there a video or some other guide I could use to put them through their paces? What probes would you recommend I get for working on old audio gear? Anything else I should consider shopping for? I really would appreciate any and all advice you feel like offering to help me get up and running with these.

If I am being completely daft, foolish, clueless, etc., I would be grateful to be suitably admonished, I suppose the best way to learn sometimes is to get burned and/or have those with far more knowledge than me tell me what I *should* have done and how blockheaded I've been.

Thanks for reading all this, and thanks in advance for your sage advice! It will be gratefully received, and assiduously followed.

Picked these up for a grand total of $50 (including a small round-up donation) at Indy Reads in Indianapolis this morning. Indy Reads is a nice second-hand bookshop that supports adult literacy efforts. They only rarely have good photography books, but these gems were available today - I even asked if they had any other books back in the back that hadn't been put on the shelf yet, but no luck; hate to think what I might have missed that came in with them.

And yes, that is a first edition of Larry Sultan's iconic volume.

I'll have them out tonight as we do our bi-monthly photobook meetup. We have a circle of photobook aficionados here in town, and in alternate months I host a meetup either at my home, where I have a big shelf of books, or here in my photography studio, where I'm hosting it tonight. In the other months, Aurora Photo Center--our excellent local gallery--hosts theirs, from which I took inspiration for mine.

https://preview.redd.it/x6y6exw9h28h1.jpg?width=2837&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59f820aaa80494b64bae49d584b3969054009832

Well now, this is certainly interesting. I have, over the years, often felt that my Radiohead recordings have, somehow, not sounded quite as good as some of my other CDs. I'm certainly not talking about the music itself--they're easily my favorite artists. But something about either the recording, mastering, or pressing of the discs.

I've got most of their album discography on CD, along with In Rainbows and the live recordings of Hail to the Thief on vinyl (the former is easily and disappointingly the *worst* sounding vinyl record I have in my roughly 50-disc collection).

It's certainly a bit shocking to see the measured lack of dynamic range on the vast majority of their recordings, which seems to confirm my completely untutored observations. And it's something you'd think the band would be rather anal about.

What's going on here? Anyone got any expertise, insight, ideas, opinions?

Edit: Browsing that site, it's pretty obvious that RH are not alone in having what seems to be rather compressed recordings. It's just a bit surprising to me, and maybe I'm wrong in thinking this isn't a good thing.