Past inspirations

 

Around late July  last year I bought a replacement cartridge on a bit of whim as aspects of those I had were not wotking out where it mattered - just playing a record and being pulled into the music - and it did prove to be something of a revelation that modest cartridge could leave more involved in the music.

In time I picked up a better model - better by coil layout inside it and better for having an improved borin cantilever holding the stylus and the stylus tip itself was more refined being a nude eliptical.

That. the MP200H, is working out well but as we're getting close to the MP110H's anniversary it is time to consider getting a replacement stylus sorted as where they do last for more than  100-300 hours they don't last forever.

Life when I first got into this in the early 80's was easy and as it happened this October 1980 edition of Popular Hifi a magazine I bought then and miss, had the answer.

Page 107 specifically covered the MP15 cartridge but as I mentioned some weeks ago a couple of decades ago the range was renumbered and updated a little and the MP150 as it is know today exists.

It offers a nude eliptical stylus but unlike the Boron of the MP20/200 this uses toughened aluminum for the cantilever and the cartridge body is the same as the MP10/100 and MP11/MP110 designed to work better with aluminum cantilever, controlling any resonances where the 200 was redesigned.

Thus actually I could update it by buying the JP-N 150 stylus used for the MP150 as the body it slots into is the same and it would be "the same" other than the colour of the block you put the screws in to mount it.

You just pull the original forward  to remove it and the push this on until it hits the home position and you're done.

I've ordered on which should be with me in just over a week from a dealer in Japan with Vat charges pre-paid as it was cheaper than over here.

Hot and in the past

Hot, hot, hot!

People through up comparisons, like I lived through 1976 and while that was hot, the felt temperature today is more than what that was then as much as I recall getting burnt legs getting in car after a train trip to Manchester in my so 70's short short trousers that to be honest I was glad of rather than the Jeans of teens back then.

Mum got a right telling off at the start of the 60's for walking to the ambulance to go to maternity but given then we were a bit out of town and to use a modern expression - off grid - what else could you do?

I was on the way as it were when this classic annual came out as annuals are always published the year before as after all you had them for Christmas.

A lot of the mainstays of the classic 60's, 70's and early 80's Dandy were in here such as Winker Watson the best wrangler ever, Korky the Kat, Desperate Dan and Keyhole Kate living very much in the world those of us around during the 60's and 70's recall when adult authority figures roamed and any trangressions dealt with.

Crosswords and quizes complete the collection of comic strips drawn specially for this annual.

Note how the comic strips begin on the covers echoing the comics we bought whereas later on the covers were eye catching themed pieces of art.

It's great to see what the characters were up to and be transported back in that world.

Changing internet landscape

This week as the adults should of decided what's going on in politics for a bit potentially with bye-elections that could alter who the prime minister is and representation in the House of Commons.

One thing we can't ignore is how the changing nature of internet regulation does impact on all from last years Online Safety Act to the proposed ban on social media use by those under 16 and curfews for thos between 16 and 18.

The online safety act placed a requirement on sites and their hosts to require age verification any anything deemed to be not suitable for children which often involved using things like photo id or credit card details to prove you were over 18.

An issue with that is exactly what content that includes as while we'd all agree sexual material definately is are sites that loom at gender and sexual identity issues that have become in recent years a hot topic in schools apart from the wider community the same?

For geographic and often deep rooted cultural reasons some teens cannot discuss such topics at home for fear of being kept in, "made" to be genders and sexualities they are not, undergoing so-called conversion therapies.

To be able to access such information regarding your legal rights facing such situations is invaluable but potentially they could be restricted.

For other groups things connected around say age regression while many of would say categorically we are in no way kink connected and are harmless, for the moment it appears any action depends on your hosts reading of the requirements.

In addition we are not restricted where some other groups that may have more kink connections have either because the host has forced it upon them or sensing the way the wind is blowing they've elected to do it using providers they judge to be the least intrusive and better at keeping your data safe which has been an issue in the past.

Does Youtube need verification adding to some channels or ist that perhaps under sixteens should be locked to Youtube Kids a curated version with addition material relevant for teens on it?

Sporty memories

It's a very wet Summer morning as I type this weeks entry and that damp air bring backs memories such as having to go out in waterproof macs cos school doesn't stop for rain and we'd more than a mile to walk rather than a minute dash.

Then there was the more practical side of things where the much anticpated outdoors games class was suddenly changed for some indoor pe as it was judged too wet or muddy to be undertaking the planned lessons.

With us there was a groan as we loved our football or rounders.

Then we'd always have an informal kick about during lunch recess until afternoon lessons resumed with the ringing of the bell and lining up in pairs by gender, the latter obession was something personally I never got.

We looked rather like these  boys and we loved it.

Two discs and some memories

Sometimes an object ceases to be about just it but everything that was around it, times, events and people and for me two records, technically superceeded, come in to that category.

Music when I was very young eminated from a three foot piece of wood called a Radiogram which was literally a radio and record player all in bigish console, occupying the second most important space in our first house to the 19 inch black and white television which could get a grainy BBC 2 given the state of UHF transmission back then.

In the UK unlike the US the Beach Boys were not has bins, no longer hip in world of San Francisco hipper bands like Country Joe and the Fish, the Doors and naturally the Jefferson Airplane but respected by their UK pop peers, able to sustain large concert audiences.

Because of how things went, not least when Pet Sounds, lauded over here just didn't make much of impression over there, Capitol Records decided the best thing was to resell old hits issueing The Beach of the Beach Boys.

The UK issued it but with substancially different track list, that told more of the development of their sound and at that point a number of earlier albums hadn't been released.

This was the record my Aunt had and was borrowed by my parents the odd time which taped which is where I first heard it in its tiny white box holding a three inch reel.

I grew up learning to thread tape so liking music of various sorts I could play the tape all by myself as I read comics and played.

It had hits and the off "deep" album track. It reach the #2 for a massive 142 weeks on the UK album charts in November 1966.

As things had hardly improved in the States, a second volume was prepared and the UK issued another varient which like the previous album had some 14 tracks.

It was issued in "stereo" too but back then stereo also included fake stereo and our version had two mono tracks for good measure.

This one also made its way to our radio gram and was taped.

This offered a few early singles and some more recent singles such as Wouldn't It Be Nice, the number one smash Good Vibrations and Then I Kissed Her from 1967

These albums remained on catalogue unto the late 1970's gaining different label designs from the 1969 black One Box with the capitol logo in a box with the EMI logo at the bottom, a  1970 Lime Green target design and Salmon Pink mid 70's.

Over the years and two house moves those tapes came with us and as I was able to get money I replaced them with original records because being sat playing them took me back to my earliest days.

Enter the MP200

It has been a hot week here but one thing I did was add a better quality cartridge to the record deck apart from making sure some much played discs were straight to avoid any heat based issues as this house soon gets like an oven.

Some product have a very short in production life, lasting some 12 to 18 months before being replaced or at times more accurately rebranded with a new number and a minor change, others perhaps a hands worth of year and yet tiny number seem to have been around for well eons.

When it comes to the Cartridges for my Marantz turntable that is very true as the keen eyed will spot in this 1981 advertisment a number that still are in production, revised in the late 2000's and renumbered by sticking an extra zero at the end of the model number.

When you consider the principals that make records have been around since Berliner at the end of the nineteenth century,  adjusted for "microgrooves" in 1949 and stereo in 1957/8 well you might say what is new when it comes to cartridges beyond a few attempts to "read" the groove optically that haven't really caught on?

Thus if you look at that 1981 add from when I was in the Lower Sixth and spot the MP20 actually what I ended up getting this week was the slightly improved modern version, the MP200 in its "H" version.

The "H" standing for the premounted in a headshell version so I don't gnarl my paws mounting it myself, turning screws.

That's a neater job that I'd of managed!

What you get is a better set of coils to convert the "wobbly" actions of the groove into sound revealing more of the finer timbre of instruments and the use of a less resonant material, boron, for the cantilever that holds and transmits the modulations from the stylus to the coils.

This means you can for instance follow much more of the bass and lead guitar riffs on my eary 80's UK A Hard Day's Night album by the Beatles and the vocals sound very realistic - as if you were in the studio.

Great over forty odd years ago remains great today with subtle improvements along the way while the stylus remains easy to change pull off the original and push on the new unlike moving coil designs that need to be changed by the manufacture or "swapped" under a discount scheme for a new whole cartridge.

To my ears moving iron designs get very close to them with considerable advantages like fuss free stylus changes when they get worn, like you can do it yourself in minutes.

Every 1981 model remains available today in improved forms for a reason: they are all great acrosss a wide variety of music and record decks, the more you spend the more fine detail and sense of spaciousness you can experience from your record collection, new and old.

Magazines and offers

It isn't as I type this quite as warm as had been forecast not that that doesn't put me off going and out and doing things as we all wedre as many modern youngsters cue up to to say to they were inspired to as they read about and reenacted being soldiers, playing war games, or emulating our footballing heroes, practising in all conditions.

As it was rare for school to be closed we just had to be resilient coming in in snow and heavy rain.

Later on as moved more into just being my more child-like self self I followed the manga and animes of Narato.

The series follows Naruto Uzumaki as a teenage ninja striving to protect his village and achieve his dream of becoming Hokage, the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village. 

With over 250 million copies of the Naruto manga sold worldwide and Naruto Shippuden running for over a decade, the series has become a cornerstone of anime culture praised for its action, complex characters, and emotional depth. 

Naruto Shippuden’s themes of redemption, sacrifice, and perseverance explore how the bonds of friendship can defeat the most powerful enemies and that was really what appealed to me.

Magazines and comics were always a thing with me and often had ads for others by the same publishers and with some it seemed few payed the Newsstand price always being on a reduction.

It was rare over here to see "Bill me later" offers but I dare say some of us might, like Calvin, might of had a field day filling in such cards and then at some point having the letters demanding payment we'd need to show our parents at which point all hell would break loose!

These days you can have this with "In game" purchases where you might of thought having got the game for your child that was it but not anymore and if you left your bank details in... you can work out how that would pan out!