keskiviikko 25. lokakuuta 2017 22.04.47 UTC+3 Adrian Caspersz kirjoitti:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record Review,
marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that mag. Wow and
tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

I can remember that in the early 1960's (before the Japanese invasion of UK domestic audio) that there were dozens of British manufacturers offering audio products, amplifiers, speakers, turntables, tape recorders etc, ready built, of as kits. The earliest Hi Fi Year Book I have is from 1965 (price 15/-)

The section on “Constructional kits� has eight pages of products from firms such as Hart Electronics, Heathkit Ltd, Henry's Radio, Martin Electronics, Shirley Laboratories (UK) Sinclair, Stern-Clyne etc etc.

There was also a wonderful choice of British built tape recorders. From EMI, Ampex (Great Britain), Brenell Engineering, Clarke and Smith, Ferrograph, Vortexion, Leevers-Rich, Fi-Cord, Q Cord (Braddock) , Baird, BRC (British Radio Corporation), Bush, Contronics, Elizabethan, KGM, Marconi, Reps Ltd, Stereosound Ltd. Ultra Electronics, etc etc

There were amplifier from, Radford, Leak, Quad, Shirley Laboratories, Armstrong, Rogers, Kerr McCosh, Lowther etc etc.

Most towns in the UK had radio repair and component shops, where one could buy a bag of resistors and caps for the next project. Henry's Radio in Tottenham Court Road, London, used to gave customers who spent more than ten shillings on components, a complimentary booklet of design projects.

Halcyon days :-)

Iain

In article ,
Huge wrote:
On 2017-10-26, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Adrian Caspersz
wrote:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record
Review, marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that
mag. Wow and tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

You may be right. However I keep wondering if the problem is the lack
of either items which would draw people into DIY and/or that people
who'd like it don't bother to tell editors so.

Home construction is dying in all fields, not just Hi-Fi. Indeed, home
DIY is nothing like as popular as it used to be.

Generally, the cost of most built things has come down in real terms.
Making it less attractive to make it yourself - as the retail pricing of
raw materials has more like kept up with inflation etc. Maplin charging
35p for a penny resistor, etc. ;-)

--
*DOES THE LITTLE MERMAID WEAR AN ALGEBRA?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 11:06:29 +0000, Huge wrote:

On 2017-10-26, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Adrian Caspersz
wrote:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record Review,
marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that mag. Wow
and tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

You may be right. However I keep wondering if the problem is the lack
of either items which would draw people into DIY and/or that people
who'd like it don't bother to tell editors so.

Home construction is dying in all fields, not just Hi-Fi. Indeed, home
DIY is nothing like as popular as it used to be.

When you use the term "popular", I assume (rightly or wrongly) that you
mean in the sense that Microsoft Windows is "popular". :-)

--
Johnny B Good

"Iain" wrote in message
...
torstai 26. lokakuuta 2017 14.03.04 UTC+3 Jim Lesurf kirjoitti:
In article , Adrian Caspersz
wrote:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record
Review,
marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that mag.
Wow and
tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

You may be right. However I keep wondering if the problem is the
lack of
either items which would draw people into DIY and/or that people
who'd like
it don't bother to tell editors so.

Are there any modern audio products available in kit form other than
speakers?

I think that the fairly recent surge of interest in valve amps, killed
off by cheap Chinese amplifiers with poor sound but fascinating
pyrotechnics, was partly due to the fact that some people wanted to
get their hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, even if only by
adjusting the cathode bias:-)

Many tube/valve amps are wired point to point, so that the owner has
little difficulty in replacing say the original cathode resistor with
a low noise, 1% component, and enjoy the subsequent improvement which
even the milkman commented upon:-)

It is probably the DIY bug in people that make them want to try exotic
high-price speaker cables, and screened mains cables. This is
probably the closest that many can get to building anything.

There used to be an excellent mag called "Elektor" published in German
and English. I wonder if it is still going?

Iain


IMSMC Elecktor was of Dutch origin but sadly doesn't seem to be around
any more although I still have some back copies form the 80's and
90's! They had some VERY good but relatively simple designs - things
like MOSFETs etc - and even made PCBs available for home building.

That and those designed by such as Doug Self and most of all by the
great John Lindsey-Hood were what it was all about. I taught my wife
(then girlfriend) and her sister to solder and we built one of the JLH
intergrated 50W (or was it 75W?) per channel amps from a kit from Hart
Electronics at Oswestry - and at coming up 92 my father-in-law is
still using it today.

Them were't days tha' knows.............


--
Woody

harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com

On 26/10/17 14:35, Iain wrote:

Are there any modern audio products available in kit form other than speakers?

On eBay, loads of kits and preassembled assemblies. If you want to build
a bluetooth speaker, knock yourself out ;-)

I think that the fairly recent surge of interest in valve amps, killed off by cheap Chinese amplifiers with poor sound but fascinating pyrotechnics, was partly due to the fact that some people wanted to get their hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, even if only by adjusting the cathode bias:-)

Many tube/valve amps are wired point to point, so that the owner has little difficulty in replacing say the original cathode resistor with a low noise, 1% component, and enjoy the subsequent improvement which even the milkman commented upon:-)

Changing filtering components after a DAC, or modding its power supply
is the new equivalent, maybe?

It is probably the DIY bug in people that make them want to try exotic high-price speaker cables, and screened mains cables. This is probably the closest that many can get to building anything.

However some of that DIY is like the freak alternative medicine
overtaking plausible complementary, where the generic traditional is now
dispensed from the likes of Currys', and folks want to make their ears
feel a bit better :-)


There used to be an excellent mag called "Elektor" published in German and English. I wonder if it is still going?

Yup.
https://www.elektor.com/

Repurposing things into other things a.k.a. "a Hack" is of interest to
some, especially if recycling something that the industry would rather
have reduced back to its component chemicals or buried.

--
Adrian C

Once upon a time on usenet Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Adrian Caspersz
wrote:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record
Review, marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that
mag. Wow and tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

You may be right. However I keep wondering if the problem is the lack
of either items which would draw people into DIY and/or that people
who'd like it don't bother to tell editors so.

Jim

I built my own amplifiers and preamp (albeit the preamp was a Chinese kit)
and was planning to build another set of speakers until I got offered some
that sound awesome at a price far less than my build was going to cost.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Once upon a time on usenet Woody wrote:
"Iain" wrote in message
...
torstai 26. lokakuuta 2017 14.03.04 UTC+3 Jim Lesurf kirjoitti:
In article , Adrian Caspersz
wrote:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record
Review,
marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that mag.
Wow and
tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

You may be right. However I keep wondering if the problem is the
lack of
either items which would draw people into DIY and/or that people
who'd like
it don't bother to tell editors so.

Are there any modern audio products available in kit form other than
speakers?

I think that the fairly recent surge of interest in valve amps, killed
off by cheap Chinese amplifiers with poor sound but fascinating
pyrotechnics, was partly due to the fact that some people wanted to
get their hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, even if only by
adjusting the cathode bias:-)

Many tube/valve amps are wired point to point, so that the owner has
little difficulty in replacing say the original cathode resistor with
a low noise, 1% component, and enjoy the subsequent improvement which
even the milkman commented upon:-)

It is probably the DIY bug in people that make them want to try exotic
high-price speaker cables, and screened mains cables. This is
probably the closest that many can get to building anything.

There used to be an excellent mag called "Elektor" published in German
and English. I wonder if it is still going?

Iain


IMSMC Elecktor was of Dutch origin but sadly doesn't seem to be around
any more although I still have some back copies form the 80's and
90's! They had some VERY good but relatively simple designs - things
like MOSFETs etc - and even made PCBs available for home building.

That and those designed by such as Doug Self and most of all by the
great John Lindsey-Hood were what it was all about. I taught my wife
(then girlfriend) and her sister to solder and we built one of the JLH
intergrated 50W (or was it 75W?) per channel amps from a kit from Hart
Electronics at Oswestry - and at coming up 92 my father-in-law is
still using it today.

Them were't days tha' knows.............

https://www.elektor.com/

The magazine is still being published. I've been reading it for quite a
while now.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

"~misfit~" wrote in message
news
Once upon a time on usenet Woody wrote:
"Iain" wrote in message
...
torstai 26. lokakuuta 2017 14.03.04 UTC+3 Jim Lesurf kirjoitti:
In article , Adrian Caspersz
wrote:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record
Review,
marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that mag.
Wow and
tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

You may be right. However I keep wondering if the problem is the
lack of
either items which would draw people into DIY and/or that people
who'd like
it don't bother to tell editors so.

Are there any modern audio products available in kit form other
than
speakers?

I think that the fairly recent surge of interest in valve amps,
killed
off by cheap Chinese amplifiers with poor sound but fascinating
pyrotechnics, was partly due to the fact that some people wanted to
get their hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, even if only by
adjusting the cathode bias:-)

Many tube/valve amps are wired point to point, so that the owner
has
little difficulty in replacing say the original cathode resistor
with
a low noise, 1% component, and enjoy the subsequent improvement
which
even the milkman commented upon:-)

It is probably the DIY bug in people that make them want to try
exotic
high-price speaker cables, and screened mains cables. This is
probably the closest that many can get to building anything.

There used to be an excellent mag called "Elektor" published in
German
and English. I wonder if it is still going?

Iain


IMSMC Elecktor was of Dutch origin but sadly doesn't seem to be
around
any more although I still have some back copies form the 80's and
90's! They had some VERY good but relatively simple designs -
things
like MOSFETs etc - and even made PCBs available for home building.

That and those designed by such as Doug Self and most of all by the
great John Lindsey-Hood were what it was all about. I taught my
wife
(then girlfriend) and her sister to solder and we built one of the
JLH
intergrated 50W (or was it 75W?) per channel amps from a kit from
Hart
Electronics at Oswestry - and at coming up 92 my father-in-law is
still using it today.

Them were't days tha' knows.............

https://www.elektor.com/

The magazine is still being published. I've been reading it for
quite a while now.
--


Ah, but I don't think in print, at least not in the UK? Unless of
course WHS see no market for it any more.....


--
Woody

harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com

Once upon a time on usenet Woody wrote:
"~misfit~" wrote in message
news
Once upon a time on usenet Woody wrote:
"Iain" wrote in message
...
torstai 26. lokakuuta 2017 14.03.04 UTC+3 Jim Lesurf kirjoitti:
In article , Adrian Caspersz
wrote:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record
Review,
marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that mag.
Wow and
tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

You may be right. However I keep wondering if the problem is the
lack of
either items which would draw people into DIY and/or that people
who'd like
it don't bother to tell editors so.

Are there any modern audio products available in kit form other
than
speakers?

I think that the fairly recent surge of interest in valve amps,
killed
off by cheap Chinese amplifiers with poor sound but fascinating
pyrotechnics, was partly due to the fact that some people wanted to
get their hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, even if only by
adjusting the cathode bias:-)

Many tube/valve amps are wired point to point, so that the owner
has
little difficulty in replacing say the original cathode resistor
with
a low noise, 1% component, and enjoy the subsequent improvement
which
even the milkman commented upon:-)

It is probably the DIY bug in people that make them want to try
exotic
high-price speaker cables, and screened mains cables. This is
probably the closest that many can get to building anything.

There used to be an excellent mag called "Elektor" published in
German
and English. I wonder if it is still going?

Iain


IMSMC Elecktor was of Dutch origin but sadly doesn't seem to be
around
any more although I still have some back copies form the 80's and
90's! They had some VERY good but relatively simple designs -
things
like MOSFETs etc - and even made PCBs available for home building.

That and those designed by such as Doug Self and most of all by the
great John Lindsey-Hood were what it was all about. I taught my
wife
(then girlfriend) and her sister to solder and we built one of the
JLH
intergrated 50W (or was it 75W?) per channel amps from a kit from
Hart
Electronics at Oswestry - and at coming up 92 my father-in-law is
still using it today.

Them were't days tha' knows.............

https://www.elektor.com/

The magazine is still being published. I've been reading it for
quite a while now.
--

Ah, but I don't think in print, at least not in the UK? Unless of
course WHS see no market for it any more.....

.... and so the goalposts move...

https://www.elektor.com/elektor-maga...tober-2017-pdf
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Once upon a time on usenet ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Woody wrote:
"~misfit~" wrote in message
news
Once upon a time on usenet Woody wrote:
"Iain" wrote in message
...
torstai 26. lokakuuta 2017 14.03.04 UTC+3 Jim Lesurf kirjoitti:
In article , Adrian Caspersz
wrote:

I was leafing through an old 1980 copy of Hifi News and Record
Review,
marvelling at the amount of constructional projects in that mag.
Wow and
tears that that general interest doesn't exist anymore.

You may be right. However I keep wondering if the problem is the
lack of
either items which would draw people into DIY and/or that people
who'd like
it don't bother to tell editors so.

Are there any modern audio products available in kit form other
than
speakers?

I think that the fairly recent surge of interest in valve amps,
killed
off by cheap Chinese amplifiers with poor sound but fascinating
pyrotechnics, was partly due to the fact that some people wanted to
get their hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, even if only by
adjusting the cathode bias:-)

Many tube/valve amps are wired point to point, so that the owner
has
little difficulty in replacing say the original cathode resistor
with
a low noise, 1% component, and enjoy the subsequent improvement
which
even the milkman commented upon:-)

It is probably the DIY bug in people that make them want to try
exotic
high-price speaker cables, and screened mains cables. This is
probably the closest that many can get to building anything.

There used to be an excellent mag called "Elektor" published in
German
and English. I wonder if it is still going?

Iain


IMSMC Elecktor was of Dutch origin but sadly doesn't seem to be
around
any more although I still have some back copies form the 80's and
90's! They had some VERY good but relatively simple designs -
things
like MOSFETs etc - and even made PCBs available for home building.

That and those designed by such as Doug Self and most of all by the
great John Lindsey-Hood were what it was all about. I taught my
wife
(then girlfriend) and her sister to solder and we built one of the
JLH
intergrated 50W (or was it 75W?) per channel amps from a kit from
Hart
Electronics at Oswestry - and at coming up 92 my father-in-law is
still using it today.

Them were't days tha' knows.............

https://www.elektor.com/

The magazine is still being published. I've been reading it for
quite a while now.
--

Ah, but I don't think in print, at least not in the UK? Unless of
course WHS see no market for it any more.....

... and so the goalposts move...

https://www.elektor.com/elektor-maga...tober-2017-pdf

And, as so few articles in the magazine are about audio gear these days;

https://www.elektor.com/retro-audio-e-book
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)