Re: S-VHS cassette recorders

On Mon, 6 Jan 2025 11:59:40 -0500, bitrex wrote:

On 1/6/2025 6:57 AM, Lasse Langwadt wrote:

On 1/6/25 01:19, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Sun, 5 Jan 2025 13:24:22 -0700, Don Y wrote:
>

On 1/5/2025 12:28 PM, bitrex wrote:

CD players are probably right up there for Rube Goldberg complexity,
people who knew what they're doing probably repaired them regularly
back in the day but I've never had much luck if the unit has a
serious fault, and the service manuals I've seen tend to be pretty
unhelpful.

>
CD players are relatively trivial, compared to VCRs.  There is NO
"media handling" other than hoping the user installs the medium on
the spindle correctly.
>
By contrast, a VCR has to extract the tape from the cassette (after
opening the access door and unlocking the reels) and pull it around
the rotating head assembly.  Then, has to ensure the alignment of the
head tracks the magnetic slices laid down on the medium, in real
time.
>
As well as having to ensure the *mechanism* is operating at the right
"rate of speed" to ensure the video signal complies with that
expected downstream.
>

A lot of the parts for vintage CD players are unobtanium now
particularly the laser diode which seems to be a common fault, in a
few decades I expect there will be almost none in working condition.
like the Chevy Vega.

>
If you resign yourself to using drives intended for use with
computers (even having audio output capability), you can rescue as
many as you can carry!
>

I see why people miss vinyl sometimes but I can't imagine anyone
will really miss the CD, a real stopgap technology.

>
The CD was a huge step up from vinyl.  No fussing with tracking,
warped media, dust and other contaminants, etc.  Play it the Nth time
and it's just as faithful to the source as the first!

>
True, but there must be *something* about vinyl that more than
compensates for its shortcomings, given the fact that prices for old
turntables have soared and record shops are now stocking vinyl albums
again.
>
>

Vinyl sales have been higher than CD sale for years and growing
something like 20% per year while CD sales drop like a rock
 
 
 

The album art is bigger on LPs, and they have more distortion (warmth.)
 
Also as I somewhat mentioned before they haven't made _good_ standalone
CD players at a consumer-friendly price point in like 25-30 years. New
cars don't come with CD players anymore. Very few laptops have optical
drives anymore.
 
And a lot of the more budget models even in the early 90s were getting
enshittified and cost-reduced. And once the laser diode on them goes
that's it, I've read that audiophiles have started resorting to
cannibalizing cheaper units with the same mechanism to keep higher end
ones going.
 
Meanwhile there are probably like 50 million Technics SL-whatever
turntables floating around in generally working condition they made
basically the same turntable for like 40 years.

Yeahbut nobody wants Technics turntables (nor speakers for that matter).
Top dollar goes for vintage English and Scandinavian ones.