Found on Ebay: Meccano Sheba and Meccano Magician

 

I'm always cruising Ebay for interesting stuff, and I when I find something really good, I like to let you know about it.

Amsterdam-based Ebay seller voossie03 offers this fantastic Meccano Sheba and Meccano Magician.

According to the Meccano Wikipedia page, Meccano was founded in England in 1901 by Frank Hornby (who also founded Dinky Toys).

The Ebay listing says that the Sheba model was built as a display to introduce the yellow/blue edition of Meccano and that the Magician model was built as a display for Dinky Toys; ("When the arm with cover is lifted an antique Dinky Toy car is displayed, four different car models possible.")

The current Ebay "Buy it Now" price for the Sheba is $1200 US and the Magician is $ 1300 US. Here are more pictures:

Patti Page - Tennessee Waltz

A fond adieu to the incredible Patti Page! This is an exceptional performance of Tennessee Waltz. Patti is incredible, and the band really knows how to stay out of the way. Bonus points for a terrifically slow tempo.

The New Tocaro 45D Loudspeakers!

The 45Ds are the flagship of the Tocaro Loudspeaker brand. You can hear them at The Rocky Mountain Audio Festival 2012 in room 542. You can also hear them at our showroom in Austin Texas.

Here's a close-up view of the 45D's high-frequency driver.

Announcing the arrival of the new Tocaro 45D Loudspeakers from Gütersloh, Germany!

We've been offering the Tocaro 40 Loudspeakers since 2008 (Austin Hifi is the U.S. importer and distributor), so naturally we were very excited to hear the new D-Series drivers (which are now standard-issue in The Tocaro 45D, The 42D and the 40D Loudspeakers. Owners of pre-D-Series Tocaro Loudspeakers can upgrade their speakers to D-Series specs. Contact us for details!)

The verdict? The D-Series Tocaro drivers do just about everything better than their already-impressive C-Series predecessors. More bass. Clearer highs. Better timing. As one listener said: "Damn, it sounds like music in here!"

The Tocaro 45D Loudspeakers each have twin 10-inch drivers with independent chambers (the bottom driver's chamber is ported while the middle driver's chamber is not.) The 45D Loudspeakers also employ the new Tocaro 5-inch high-frequency driver built around a proprietary laminated wood membrane (see picture above!) Overall sensitivity is 103dB/2.83V/m.

The 45D uses no electrical crossover or filtering and there are three pair of speaker terminals so that the 45Ds may be used with one, two, or three amplifiers. All internal wiring is Crimson Audio Cable.

The overall height of the Tocaro 45D Loudspeakers (with stands, which are included, and are an essential part of the sound of the 45D) is 50 3/4". They're 17 3/4" wide and 13 3/4" deep and are available in a variety of finishes.

Tocaro Loudspeakers are entirely hand-built. The 10-inch driver membranes are made by hand from raw cellulose. The cabinets and stands are made from hand-selected beechwood. There are some terrific photos of the Tocaro Loudspeaker factory in Gütersloh at Tocaro's own page on the subject.

But, of course, the sound is everything, so let's get to that. First of all, if you've been listening to "conventional" high-end speakers, the 45Ds are going to take a little getting used to. Just remember: they're getting you closer to the sound of real music and further from a polite, reserved simulacrum of same. They've got enormous scale, great pitch-definition, excellent timing and impressive dynamics. And as an added bonus, they'll play loud as heck if you want them to. These are extremely revealing loudspeakers that have an amazing way of "digging deep down into" recordings.

A note about amplifiers: usually when people (especially hifi magazine reviewers!) talk about high-efficiency loudspeakers, they say that you should use a low-powered amplifier. And while you can use a low powered SET amplifier with the Tocaro 45D Loudspeakers (did we mention their 103dB sensitivity rating?), we use and recommend (and import and distribute!) the incredible 175-watt Crimson 640E-III Monoblock amplifiers. which will allow you to experience all the scale and dynamics that the Tocaro 45D Loudspeakers can dish out.

Beck's Record Club: "New Sensations"

Beck has been doing a cool project called Record Club for a while now. He gets some friends together in the studio and records a classic album, then releases a video of the performance on the internet.

This time out, Beck has rounded up St. Vincent and The Liars, plus a few extras and recorded the album "Kick" by INXS.

Other Record Club outings:

The Velvet Underground and Nico

The Songs of Leonard Cohen

Skip Spence - "Oar"

Yanni - "Live at The Acropolis"

JM Reynaud with Crimson Amps and Preamps at RMAF 2012

The Abscisse, a terrific new loudspeaker by the renowned JM Reynaud is being introduced this year by JM Reynaud importer/distributor Bob Neill's Amherst Audio.

Bob will also be playing the Crimson 710/640E-III preamp and amplifier (with Crimson Audio Cables, of course!) as well as the Cantata Music Center by Resolution Audio.

Amherst Audio will be in room 561 at RMAF 2012.

You can also visit Amherst Audio in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Around the World with the International Space Station

Click here to see a large version of this video!

I have mentioned the Astronomy Picture of the Day in a previous post.

This time, I wanted to mention an amazing video of the Earth that was shot from the International Space Station.

I noticed Italy and Sicily, then Egypt with the Nile Delta, plus several Aurora. There's a page at Starship Asterisk where members have created a guide to what you can see in the video. I noticed a bright, orange squiggle that Starship Asterisk members identified as the India/Pakistan border.

Great stuff!

Found on Ebay: 1939 RCA Storytone Electric Piano

click images to enlarge!

Here's something you don't see every day: a 1939 RCA Storytone Electric Piano. The piano is listed on Ebay for $250,000, but there's a "make offer" option, so maybe you could get it for less if you're interested. It's a real Art Deco beauty. The Piedmont Piano Company in the Bay Area has a nice page with some information and additional pictures of another Storytone Piano.

Here's a recording of Earl Hines playing a Storytone Piano. The Storytone was strung much like an acoustic piano, and had a pickup but no soundboard (according to the Piedmont Piano Company) but I can't figure out what kind of pickup it had. The Storytone has an interesting sound, but not as distinctive as either a Fender Rhodes piano, which uses tines and magnetic pickups, or the Wurlitzer Electric Piano, which uses metal reeds with an electrostatic pickup.

Here's the link to the Ebay listing in case you'd like to make an offer on the Storytone.