Good excuses for bad equipment

Berkeley

Berkeley

Junior Member
With a tip of the hat to @Kyle 's brilliant thread "bad excuses for new equipment" and not because I keep reading the title wrong, I'm sure it will be useful for many of us here to have a handy list of excuses in case we are "put to the question" by - uh - parties unknown, shall we say?

Now this is serious, folks. Nothing like makes a great boat anchor or helps the bulldozers squish down the landfill.

A serious answer would be something like the 18 year old CD player gathering dust in the closet just might have some user serviceable parts that could be used in my Oracle CD player or you can never tell when a conical stylus is useful for records that were gifted to you but really need to be worn out quickly to avoid being played.

Looking forward to filling up my cue-cards for unexpected emergency situations! Thanks, all.
 
I used to hoard equipment and then got too lazy to get rid of it, so I'll just keep it all to give me something to do after I retire.
 
Dan said:
I used to hoard classic tube gear....til I felt I no longer owned it....but it owned me. I packed it all up and sold it to Audio Classics.
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seems more like a good excuse to get rid of good equipment :)
 
First, can someone please explain to me why I still hang onto a pile of dead Sony disc players? And why I bought more when the first ones failed? (Can you say, "Stupidity?") Let's not mention the DAT deck that just died....from sitting in storage for just a few years. 🙄

I also have four Sony DSS (what we called DirecTV satellite back in the old days) receivers. They worked perfectly fine. Only, I haven't had DirecTV in 16 years. I also have a brand-new-in-the-box satellite dish for these. I bet none of this is compatible with what DirecTV has turned into. On top of all this, I also have piles of what I consider mid-fi gear that I want to get rid of, yet don't want to sell locally due to the bottom feeders who always reply with abusive comments; got tired of reporting them all. Also an 8-track and tapes I don't want, and over 100 laserdiscs that outside of a few, I'll never play again. Two S-VHS decks, perfectly good, and perfectly obsolete.

I think I just don't want to see these things go to the landfill. That's the only excuse I can come up with. 🤷‍♂️
 
Donations unfortunately do me no good for tax write-offs--I use the standard deduction since I can't get enough expenses to exceed that standard deduction value.

I'm almost at the "totally disgusted" point where I stack it all at the curb, put a note about it on Craigslist and tell 'em to fight it out in the street if they arrive at the same time.
 
Out of curiosity, What DAT deck died on you Rudy? Ive got a few dead ones and still need to hook one up to my new setup. The last time I hooked up a DAT (maybe 2 years ago, Technics SV-DA10) it ate a tape which I managed to fish out but then I promptly packed up the deck as I was in no mood to have it eat another tape. The master of my favorite recording (Ben Harper 5-17-97 front row center) has been stuck in my Sony 60ES for probably going on 15 years. DAT - a love/hate relationship, though mostly love.
 
thin_ice said:
Out of curiosity, What DAT deck died on you Rudy?
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Sony DTC-670. Sad thing is, I have a handful of tapes I wouldn't mind retrieving and converting to files. I taped a live performance from radio when Eddie Palmieri played at our jazz festival in the mid 90s. And I had someone from a well-known jazz group send me a handful of tapes that we were going to convert to MP3 and post online, but I never could read his tapes. Not a big deal though. I had two DAT decks for a while. I should have kept the Matsushita--it was better in every way. Although I don't know about reliability...
 
The 690 which succeeded the 670 was my first deck. The main issue I have with the Sony decks is the "delicate wire frame structure" the dat gets inserted into. I left my workhorse deck (Fostex D5) with a friend when I moved back from Cali. I do have an Opcode Dat port that is a USB<==> coax convertor box that I would be willing to send you if you want to figure out the driver for it. It orginally came with a 3.5" floppy that had the driver, then the company went out of business. I looked into it a while back but I am not computer person. Drivers were out there for free you want to look into it and if the 670 has a coax out. Not sure what you would do then, I have been out of that loop for nearly 20 years. I went into my computer with it then used Soundforge 4.0 (fade ins and outs, insert tracks) and EZ CD creater to make CDs. I also came digi out from computer to it and into a Audio Alchemy DACman to my stereo. If you are interested, not a problem I just need to find it(so it might be a problem lol). But Im sure I can find it.
 
These tapes aren't worth bothering with. I will probably bulk erase the lot of 'em and whichever sucker gets my DAT deck can have the tapes. 😁 Back in the day, I had way better luck with the computer backup DDS tapes--no dropouts, and the tape stock seemed stronger. I even got away with using the DDS tapes that were equivalent to a three hour playing time and never had an issue. The loading mechanism in the 670 would get the tape tangled up inside if the tape wasn't fully rewound to the beginning. But now, it won't read the tape or sync up or whatever, and it's nothing I want to put time or effort into.
 
Over the years I have purchased some used receivers at a local Christian thrift store.

I don't need a TOTL receiver in my bathroom for listening, while I am taking a shower.
The same is true for when I am lifting weights or doing some woodworking in my basement.

Basically I really enjoy being able to listen to something all the time.
 
JimPA said:
I don't need a TOTL receiver in my bathroom for listening, while I am taking a shower.
The same is true for when I am lifting weights or doing some woodworking in my basement.
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I'm working from my basement these days, set up a mini system which makes it much more enjoyable.

The heart is a 15W Sansui AU-2900. Perfectly find for low level listening! I'm even toying with the idea to set up a 5.0 surround system but I really shouldn't get too distracted as I am supposed to be working! :D
 
I sort of wanted a 5.1 system for my computer, but then I realized years ago that I needed an excuse to get away from the computer. I work there most of the day; I don't need an excuse to hang there longer. (Although my KEF LS50s sound so good sometimes that I am not motivated to get up as often as I should!)
 
I think the biggest excuse I use for bad equipment is it LOOKS GOOD! I definitely know a few pieces that hung out in my stash way longer than they should have just because they LOOKED COOL!

- Woody
 
If my better half had ever noticed my phono stage upgrade last year, I probably would have told her I bought it to match the other two components in the rack. 😇 I've had my current turntable for maybe four or five years now, so she knew I had it. (No way I could have snuck that 110 pound crate into the house.) But the other day she tells me, "I can only imagine how much this cost." Thankfully I didn't have to answer.
 
Rudy said:
Donations unfortunately do me no good for tax write-offs--I use the standard deduction since I can't get enough expenses to exceed that standard deduction value.
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Just FYI, 2020 is a little different:

Special $300 tax deduction helps most people give to charity this year – even if they don’t itemize | Internal Revenue Service

IR-2020-264, November 25, 2020 — The Internal Revenue Service today reminded taxpayers of a special new provision that will allow more people to easily deduct up to $300 in donations to qualifying charities this year.
www.irs.gov www.irs.gov

Unfortunately, donations of "household items" don't count.
 
The issue in this for me comes in defining "bad audio". Is a good 70s receiver with a decent pair of speakers of the same period "bad audio" or just "different audio for different listening"? I don't need anything like my main system for listening to music in the kitchen whilst cooking and this sounds just fine for the purpose. Good audio? Bad audio? Enjoyable audio at any rate...
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