- Whether classic hardware really goes up in value
- Why collectors, commercial studios, and voice actors see things differently
- The surprising role of AI in modeling old gear
- When plug-ins are “close enough”… and when they’re not
- Tales of gear that doubled in value (and some that didn’t keep up with inflation)
🎤 Tribooth — use code TRIPAP200 for $200 off
🎙 Austrian Audio — Making Passion Heard
00:00:00
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Y'all ready to be history?
00:00:01
Get started.
00:00:01
Welcome.
00:00:02
Hi.
00:00:02
Hi.
00:00:03
Hi.
00:00:03
Hello, everyone.
00:00:05
To the Pro Audio Suite.
00:00:06
These guys are professional, they're motivated.
00:00:08
With Tech the VO stars, George Witton, founder
00:00:11
of Source Elements, Robert Marshall, international audio engineer,
00:00:14
Darren Robbo-Robertson, and global voice, Andrew Peters.
00:00:17
Thanks to Triboo, Austrian Audio, Making Passion Heard,
00:00:20
Source Elements, George the Tech Witton, and Robbo
00:00:23
and AP's international demos.
00:00:25
To find out more about us, check theproaudiosuite
00:00:27
.com.
00:00:28
Line up, man.
00:00:30
Here we go.
00:00:32
And welcome to another Pro Audio Suite.
00:00:34
Thanks to Tribooth.
00:00:36
Don't forget the code, TRIPAP200, to get $200
00:00:40
off your Tribooth, and Austrian Audio, Making Passion
00:00:44
Heard.
00:00:45
Today's topic, I'm going to steal this one,
00:00:47
and I will give credit to Bobby Yosinski,
00:00:49
his podcast, The Inner Circle.
00:00:52
He's doing an interview, and one of the
00:00:54
subjects sort of jumped out at me, and
00:00:55
I thought, that's interesting.
00:00:56
Being a person who holds a lot of
00:00:58
expensive outboard gear, and I know Robert has
00:01:01
the same habit, is it worth hanging on
00:01:04
to, and will it go up in value?
00:01:06
And is it better than plugins?
00:01:08
That is my question I pose to you.
00:01:10
I think you've got to frame it by
00:01:11
whose point of view.
00:01:13
From a studio owner's point of view, or
00:01:16
commercial studio owner's point of view, from a
00:01:19
voice actor's point of view, and from just
00:01:22
like a sheer collector's point of view.
00:01:24
From a hoarder's point of view.
00:01:25
I think, well, there's a few different points
00:01:28
of view.
00:01:29
I mean, if I was to sell my
00:01:30
stuff, then I'd probably end up selling it
00:01:31
to a commercial studio, I'm guessing, because a
00:01:35
voice over talent's not going to buy the
00:01:37
stuff I've got in here.
00:01:38
But a music studio, I may.
00:01:40
Right.
00:01:41
So, what we're banking on, is there going
00:01:43
to be more commercial grade music studios vying
00:01:48
for this less and less common gear.
00:01:50
It's harder to get.
00:01:52
That would drive up the price.
00:01:53
Because, I mean, the thing is, a lot
00:01:54
of the stuff you buy now, there's so
00:01:56
many clones of all this classic gear.
00:01:59
Purple, and warm, and there's all these companies,
00:02:03
right?
00:02:04
But don't you reckon there's something tactile about
00:02:06
turning a knob, you know, or adjusting it?
00:02:10
Yeah, but you can get that with a
00:02:11
clone of the new stuff, as the old
00:02:13
stuff.
00:02:13
Not even a digital clone, but an actual
00:02:15
analog clone.
00:02:16
Yeah, yeah.
00:02:16
You can get that.
00:02:17
And some of that kind of holds its
00:02:19
value, probably.
00:02:21
But the original LA-2As, and the original
00:02:23
1176s, those go way up in value.
00:02:27
I had an original Tube Screamer pedal that
00:02:29
was stolen from me.
00:02:31
And those things are like $1, and
00:02:34
I have a reissue now of a Tube
00:02:36
Screamer, and I don't know if it sounds
00:02:38
different or not.
00:02:40
So somebody out there, those pedals are worth
00:02:43
a lot more when they're the original one,
00:02:45
that they don't make anymore, that has the
00:02:47
what-have-you chip in it, that you
00:02:49
can't get anymore.
00:02:51
So I don't know that a lot of
00:02:53
that stuff really makes such a huge difference
00:02:57
in sound, to be honest.
00:02:58
Like a purple 1176 is still a really
00:03:01
great compressor, as an original 1176.
00:03:04
But there's definitely a lot of cachet.
00:03:06
Yeah, it's like microphones, really.
00:03:08
I mean, you know, a classic E47, you're
00:03:11
going to be paying like $25 for
00:03:13
it, or a U67 for sure.
00:03:15
So, you know, I mean, I'm guessing it's
00:03:18
going to be the same with Outboard.
00:03:19
If you had a 2254, an original square
00:03:23
2254, that would be worth a fortune.
00:03:27
Probably like $10 or something, or more,
00:03:29
I don't know.
00:03:31
So a lot of people are getting used
00:03:33
to, this was the interesting part, it's like
00:03:36
you get a reference.
00:03:37
So if you started as an intern in
00:03:39
a studio, and you worked your way up
00:03:41
in a proper commercial studio, you have a
00:03:45
reference in your head, you know, the sound
00:03:47
of the real stuff.
00:03:49
So when you hear a clone, you know,
00:03:52
unless it's a very good clone, you'll pick
00:03:54
it, you'll pick the difference.
00:03:56
But a lot of people are kicking off
00:03:57
their careers in bedrooms, so they have no
00:03:59
reference of what this stuff sounds like.
00:04:02
I mean, let's just take something we're looking
00:04:04
at.
00:04:04
How close is that 737 plug-in to
00:04:09
those units behind you?
00:04:11
Oh, right here?
00:04:12
Yeah.
00:04:13
Yeah.
00:04:13
It's pretty close, because I've, you know, the
00:04:15
reason I have some to get rid of
00:04:18
is we've been replacing them with the virtual
00:04:20
plug-in.
00:04:22
And in this particular case, in my opinion,
00:04:26
the 737 preamps being class A, they're very,
00:04:30
very clean.
00:04:31
I mean, they really have no character to
00:04:34
them.
00:04:35
They don't have transformers, and they just have
00:04:38
a really clean sound.
00:04:39
So in my opinion, they're really easy to
00:04:40
replace, because they don't really have much sound,
00:04:43
character to them, not like a Neve or
00:04:45
something.
00:04:47
So in my opinion, it's very easy to
00:04:49
replace them.
00:04:50
Now we've used the plug-ins, and we
00:04:52
did some extensive testing with one of my
00:04:54
clients, obsessively so.
00:04:56
We did hear a difference between his particular
00:04:59
Avalon 737 and the plug-in we were
00:05:01
using, that it was an EQ thing.
00:05:04
I found a little frequency that I...
00:05:06
Is it better or worse, or just different,
00:05:08
you know?
00:05:09
It wasn't a better or worse thing, it
00:05:10
was just not exactly identical.
00:05:13
There was something in the mids, like in
00:05:15
the 2k-ish, where somewhere that wasn't exactly
00:05:18
the same, and we bumped one up a
00:05:21
dB or two.
00:05:22
I mean, it was similar.
00:05:23
It was really, really similar.
00:05:26
I think a better comparison could be maybe,
00:05:28
and I don't have one, of course, but
00:05:30
a Manley VoxBox to the VoxBox plug-in.
00:05:34
If someone wants to buy me the Manley
00:05:35
VariMu, I've got a VariMu.
00:05:37
You have a VariMu?
00:05:38
I have a VariMu, yeah.
00:05:40
Oh, wow.
00:05:40
Do they still make those?
00:05:42
I think so.
00:05:43
Okay.
00:05:43
So what's the concept behind a VariMu?
00:05:47
The compression style, it's like, I forget exactly,
00:05:51
but it's like, you know, instead of an
00:05:52
optical, it's a variable Mu, which I would
00:05:57
have to AI it to re-remember.
00:05:59
You have to Google that one.
00:06:01
Yeah.
00:06:01
Well, I mean, speaking of AI, I used
00:06:04
an AI, and I put into the system,
00:06:08
here, has the value of used vintage audio
00:06:10
recording equipment increased at a rate that outpaces
00:06:13
inflation?
00:06:14
Well, the first piece of data it gave
00:06:16
me was about new audio gear, and that
00:06:19
clearly is a different story.
00:06:21
It says it has deflated sharply since 1977.
00:06:25
So, you know, the equivalent of a $20
00:06:28
to, is about, $20 with a gear in
00:06:32
77 would now be $5.80 worth.
00:06:35
Like if you're going to go buy a
00:06:37
receiver, right?
00:06:39
There's just, they've devalued because they've gotten so
00:06:41
much cheaper to produce.
00:06:43
But let's talk about vintage gear, and again,
00:06:47
it's doing a comparison here of consumer stuff,
00:06:49
not pro.
00:06:51
Yeah.
00:06:51
I want to mention a Sansui G9000.
00:06:55
It has doubled in value in two years,
00:06:57
while some Marantz units are escalating rapidly also.
00:07:02
But others have noted that things like the
00:07:05
1178, it says, 1178.
00:07:08
1178?
00:07:09
Yeah, that's- It might be, I mean,
00:07:11
that's a home stereo amp, or the-
00:07:12
No, now it's going into pro audio, and
00:07:14
I think it's starting to hallucinate, because the
00:07:16
model numbers are 1178LA2A and CL1B.
00:07:20
Anybody know what a CL1B is?
00:07:23
The CL1B is a modern re-create of
00:07:26
a Tubetech, I mean, is a Tubetech re
00:07:28
-create of a Pultec- Yeah, so these
00:07:30
model numbers are a little bit word-synced.
00:07:32
I think, or CL1B is known as a
00:07:34
compressor.
00:07:34
So- It's a Tubetech compressor though.
00:07:37
So a community member notes that reissues and
00:07:39
vintage models from a rate, they climbed from
00:07:42
2 to 2 and over 3
00:07:45
during the pandemic era.
00:07:48
Certain brands from the 1670s continue to go
00:07:50
up in price because of reputation and looks.
00:07:53
They're going up roughly the same rate as
00:07:56
the stock market, says somebody on Gearspace.
00:07:59
Oh, wow, okay.
00:08:00
Well, here's one I can tell you, I've
00:08:02
got a Neve 1073 DPA.
00:08:07
I bought it probably 10 years ago, I
00:08:10
guess.
00:08:11
I think I paid $2 for it.
00:08:14
I've just seen the used one on eBay
00:08:16
for 4.
00:08:18
Wow, so 10 years ago, you doubled your
00:08:19
money.
00:08:20
If you could sell it for that.
00:08:21
I always search for closed or completed sales
00:08:24
because there's a lot of like, I'll put
00:08:26
it, there's a lot of stuff on eBay
00:08:29
that is the wife has been nagging me
00:08:31
to sell this shit for years.
00:08:33
So I'll put it up on eBay for
00:08:35
aspirational price and just let it sit there
00:08:38
for five years so that she doesn't nag
00:08:41
me about it.
00:08:41
Honey, it's on eBay.
00:08:45
I'll tell you one that I did actually
00:08:46
do really well on.
00:08:47
I bought a Neve eight channel mixer from
00:08:52
the 80s right after like Rupert left.
00:08:57
So it's like, and I bought that thing
00:09:00
for five grand and I think it's 15
00:09:02
now.
00:09:03
Some people try to get 15 for
00:09:06
it now.
00:09:07
I don't know if they're getting it though
00:09:08
again.
00:09:09
I think it has to be really venerable.
00:09:12
The stuff, the more it's knocked off, the
00:09:14
more it's probably worth.
00:09:15
Wouldn't you say?
00:09:16
Yeah.
00:09:16
So this one's not knocked off a lot.
00:09:18
And if anything, it's knocked on like, you
00:09:20
know, all the Neve snobs were like, that's
00:09:21
not a Neve because Neve wasn't there when
00:09:24
Neve made that.
00:09:24
Oh, I see.
00:09:25
That's a John Pope.
00:09:25
Yeah.
00:09:26
Yeah.
00:09:26
Yeah.
00:09:26
Yeah.
00:09:26
You know.
00:09:27
What model is the one you're talking about,
00:09:29
AP?
00:09:31
The 1073 DPA, which is IMS Neve.
00:09:35
But if your 1073 was an original 1073,
00:09:39
it'd be like fricking $10 more.
00:09:42
Yeah.
00:09:43
Yeah.
00:09:43
In the States.
00:09:43
Because yours is an actual Neve recreate, but
00:09:46
it is a Neve.
00:09:47
Yeah.
00:09:48
It's legit.
00:09:48
It's not like a heritage.
00:09:50
Oh, it's basically like Neumann.
00:09:52
It's a circuit match, right?
00:09:53
It's an exact circuit match.
00:09:55
Well, as much as Neve can match it.
00:09:58
A brand new one in the U.S.
00:09:59
right now is 2743.
00:10:02
Yeah.
00:10:03
So that's 540s.
00:10:04
With the exchange rate up there, close to
00:10:06
4.
00:10:07
Yeah.
00:10:08
Which is about the same.
00:10:09
What are Verimuse going for?
00:10:11
I don't know.
00:10:13
I'm on Reverb.
00:10:14
You guys use Reverb down under?
00:10:16
I've bought a lot of stuff off Reverb.
00:10:18
Have I?
00:10:19
I know of Reverb, but no.
00:10:21
I don't know whether people sell much.
00:10:23
No.
00:10:23
What's Reverb?
00:10:24
It's very trustworthy.
00:10:25
It's good for pricing, that's for sure.
00:10:27
Yeah.
00:10:28
So...
00:10:29
Five grand?
00:10:29
5?
00:10:31
Yeah.
00:10:32
Yeah.
00:10:32
So I got mine for four.
00:10:34
But you can buy them for 3
00:10:35
bucks.
00:10:37
Used.
00:10:38
So, $3.
00:10:39
It's like, I've lost money on that one.
00:10:42
The 2254 Neve compressor, the AMS version, which
00:10:46
is what I've got here.
00:10:48
A new one of those is 4
00:10:49
Australian dollars.
00:10:53
But if you have a 2254 limited compressor
00:10:56
vintage rack stereo pair, U.S. dollars?
00:10:59
12.
00:11:02
Hmm.
00:11:03
So, yeah.
00:11:03
I mean, there's certain gear that is still
00:11:05
very commonly available and or still being made
00:11:09
new, which definitely is going to happen.
00:11:11
You know, like the Avalon's are a great
00:11:13
example.
00:11:14
They still produce these.
00:11:15
I think the Varium U is still being
00:11:16
made.
00:11:17
Right.
00:11:17
So, that drives down the use price a
00:11:21
fair deal.
00:11:22
And I thought these things were worth well
00:11:24
over two grand.
00:11:26
They're worth 1 to 1 bucks,
00:11:30
the Avalon's.
00:11:30
For those Avalon's?
00:11:31
And you know what?
00:11:32
Every one of them that I'm selling has
00:11:33
been refurbed.
00:11:36
So, there's about $500 to $700 in labor
00:11:38
into each one of these units.
00:11:40
So, I have to recoup 1.
00:11:43
I can recoup 1 bucks maybe on
00:11:45
these.
00:11:47
But yeah, they're definitely not going up in
00:11:49
value in terms of used market, the Avalon's.
00:11:52
They're pretty kind of stable.
00:11:54
The other question is, as people dealing with
00:11:57
audio, can you hear the difference between a
00:12:00
clone or a plug-in as opposed to
00:12:03
a real piece of…
00:12:05
Well, I mean, you can have five LA
00:12:07
-2As that are all going to sound different,
00:12:09
right?
00:12:10
Yeah.
00:12:10
And that's the problem with anything that's got
00:12:14
tubes or old wiring and capacitors and stuff.
00:12:18
All that stuff degrades and ages over time.
00:12:21
So, like I said, when I bring these
00:12:22
Avalon's into my friends over at Audio Rehab,
00:12:25
which is the official repair center of Avalon
00:12:26
for the entire United States, it's going to
00:12:29
come out of there benching as a new
00:12:31
unit.
00:12:32
No questions asked.
00:12:33
No, you would not hear the difference in
00:12:35
that case.
00:12:37
But yeah, when they're truly vintage and they
00:12:40
haven't been benched in 5, 10, 20 years,
00:12:43
yeah, they're all going to sound different for
00:12:45
sure.
00:12:45
In fact, even UA has in their library
00:12:49
of teletronics LA-2As, their models, there's three
00:12:52
or four different models.
00:12:54
They all have a different image on the
00:12:57
screen and one looks like it's got little
00:12:58
Dymo labels stuck on it, like somebody's original
00:13:02
piece of gear out of his…
00:13:03
It probably came out of, you know, what's
00:13:05
-his-face's studio.
00:13:06
And people played with this.
00:13:08
Who's the plug-in manufacturer that we interviewed
00:13:10
where it's like, that's not just anything for
00:13:12
a child, that's so-and-so's for a
00:13:14
child that we cloned?
00:13:14
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:13:16
And then the other one is Plugin Alliance
00:13:17
that they have.
00:13:19
Imagine you have a Neve desk and there's
00:13:22
80 channels in the Neve desk.
00:13:23
It's expected that not all 80 channels are
00:13:26
the same.
00:13:27
And so in their plug-in, when you
00:13:28
throw the plug-in down many times, they
00:13:30
have a setting that they have patented that
00:13:34
gives every single plug-in reiteration of that
00:13:38
within your DAW a different sound.
00:13:42
Oh my God.
00:13:43
You didn't know about that?
00:13:44
No, I mean, that's not the world I
00:13:46
live in, but that's insane.
00:13:49
I mean, I know what it's all about,
00:13:52
authenticity, but holy smokes.
00:13:54
Well, it's like sampled instruments.
00:13:57
Sampled pianos and Rhodes and stuff only got
00:13:59
good when they started sampling them at every
00:14:02
velocity, you know, softer, harder, harder, harder, harder,
00:14:06
you know?
00:14:07
And it's still not good enough.
00:14:09
It's still not the same.
00:14:10
When you go with the really soft, you're
00:14:11
like, man, I can hit a piano hammer
00:14:13
so soft that it doesn't make any sound.
00:14:16
Right, yeah.
00:14:17
Yes.
00:14:17
Plugin Alliance calls it variable harmonics.
00:14:20
Wow.
00:14:21
And you can make it...
00:14:23
Is it sort of a randomizer?
00:14:25
It's a randomizer that changes the TVT.
00:14:28
No, no, no, sorry, sorry.
00:14:30
Tolerance Modeling Technology, TMT, patented by Brainworks.
00:14:35
This technology is used by many plug-in
00:14:37
products, including the Lyndall Audio 50 Series.
00:14:41
Functionality, TMT emulates the minor component variations found
00:14:45
in various analog hardware.
00:14:47
This process adds a slight realistic difference in
00:14:49
tolerance between every single plug-in channel.
00:14:52
I don't like the way this mix sounds.
00:14:53
Hang on, hit the button.
00:14:55
Click.
00:14:55
Let me fuck it up.
00:14:56
Randomize all the models.
00:14:59
Right.
00:14:59
Do it again.
00:15:00
Now that's better.
00:15:01
I think I like that better.
00:15:03
Now go back to the first one.
00:15:04
I can't.
00:15:05
It was random.
00:15:07
So by introducing these subtle imperfections, TMT creates
00:15:11
harmonic variations across multiple tracks, which provides depth
00:15:15
and realism associated with analog consoles.
00:15:18
Wow.
00:15:19
Maybe they couldn't make it consistent, and then
00:15:22
they called it a feature.
00:15:23
There you go.
00:15:25
Well, if it's machine learning based, then it
00:15:28
would have problems.
00:15:29
Patent that flaw.
00:15:30
Well, anything that's machine learning has problems with
00:15:32
consistency.
00:15:32
If that's part of what's going on, I
00:15:35
don't think so.
00:15:36
Yeah.
00:15:37
Yeah.
00:15:38
That's fascinating.
00:15:39
And I haven't really seen machine learning entering
00:15:41
the world of modeled preamps and modeled gear
00:15:44
yet, so I guess that's the next thing
00:15:46
probably.
00:15:47
You could go to the plug-in and
00:15:48
go type into the thing.
00:15:51
I just hit you with a hammer three
00:15:53
times.
00:15:54
What do you sound like now?
00:15:56
You know, it's like microphonic and it's distorting.
00:16:03
It's like the spring reverb that they modeled
00:16:06
the sound of someone kicking the amp.
00:16:09
Right.
00:16:09
They did that.
00:16:11
Did they really?
00:16:12
Yes.
00:16:13
And one of the soft tube spring reverb,
00:16:16
you can flick it and it, you know,
00:16:20
like there's a knob for it.
00:16:23
It really does depend on how unique the
00:16:28
pre is, I think, or the pieces.
00:16:30
How hard it is to find and how
00:16:32
popular it is right now.
00:16:34
Some of it's not really like gaining.
00:16:36
Some of it's matching, you know, like inflation
00:16:40
and some is outpacing it.
00:16:42
Some is doing as well as stock.
00:16:43
I mean, if you have a used piece
00:16:44
of gear that's doing as well as the
00:16:45
stock market, that's pretty good.
00:16:47
Because the stock market is better than real
00:16:49
estate.
00:16:50
And at least here it is.
00:16:56
But we've also seen the real estate market
00:16:59
go haywire too.
00:17:02
So it's fascinating to look at.
00:17:04
But it doesn't really go down or down
00:17:07
fast.
00:17:08
So there's that.
00:17:10
I mean, I have a bag of junk
00:17:12
silver that hasn't really gone up in value
00:17:14
in the last 10 years.
00:17:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:16
I might actually have lost money on that.
00:17:19
If you talk to Andrew Sheps, he mixes
00:17:21
in the box now.
00:17:22
Yeah.
00:17:23
You mean the creator of the Sheps Omnichannel?
00:17:26
Yeah.
00:17:26
Yeah, of course.
00:17:27
He made his own plug-in.
00:17:29
Why would you spend all the time to
00:17:30
make a plug-in if you didn't believe
00:17:32
it was amazing?
00:17:33
But, I mean, you recall the desk.
00:17:35
And you know how clients are.
00:17:37
And it's a business.
00:17:40
And it is so much more practical to
00:17:43
mix in the box and recall that thing
00:17:45
and make a tweak.
00:17:46
Yep.
00:17:46
And the most you want to have is
00:17:48
maybe something on your master chain.
00:17:50
But if you get too far out on
00:17:52
gear, you can only mix it in one
00:17:55
place.
00:17:56
You can't have it on your laptop.
00:17:57
You can't recall it and do a quick
00:17:58
change for somebody.
00:17:59
Let's talk about summing amplifiers sometime too.
00:18:02
That's a whole other mystical piece of the
00:18:05
mix down puzzle.
00:18:06
Summing amps.
00:18:07
Or even people just talking about different DAWs
00:18:09
having different summing characteristics.
00:18:12
I always use the Harrison DAW because of
00:18:16
its summing.
00:18:18
Oh, it's real analog.
00:18:20
Or UA is trying to say that their
00:18:24
Luna sounds real.
00:18:29
And then Pro Tools has heat on the
00:18:31
mix bus.
00:18:31
Right.
00:18:32
Which is literally just all of these things
00:18:34
are distortions.
00:18:34
Just distortions.
00:18:35
Yeah.
00:18:36
Tape saturators, virtual tape decks, et cetera, et
00:18:39
cetera, et cetera.
00:18:40
Yeah.
00:18:41
I can say having used tape saturators and
00:18:43
real tape, it's really hard to get one
00:18:45
that feels really exactly the same.
00:18:48
Oh, yeah.
00:18:49
There's just something about tracking drums through tape
00:18:51
that works really well.
00:18:53
It takes away a lot of compressor work
00:18:55
later.
00:18:55
And I think it's really the drums themselves.
00:18:57
Yeah, it does the compression for you.
00:18:59
You don't have to spend nearly as much
00:19:00
time monkeying with compressors trying to get that.
00:19:03
Yeah, it just kind of gets them in
00:19:05
a nice fat, kind of consistent.
00:19:07
I don't know about consistent, but just has
00:19:12
a certain roundness without being overly compressed.
00:19:16
And it just happens for you so much
00:19:18
easier.
00:19:19
And then you try the tape emulators, and
00:19:21
they're just flipping them on and off.
00:19:23
You're like, can I hear it?
00:19:24
And probably the difference is the tape deck
00:19:26
is really messed up.
00:19:28
The tape emulators are emulating a tape deck
00:19:31
that's properly set up.
00:19:32
Meanwhile, your love of the tape deck is
00:19:35
it's not really well calibrated or hasn't been
00:19:38
calibrated in a while.
00:19:39
Well, I mean, I've been listening to cassette
00:19:40
tapes a little bit because I bought my
00:19:42
daughter a cassette boom box, little mini tiny
00:19:44
one that has CD player in the top
00:19:46
and Bluetooth and stuff.
00:19:48
And I was at her house, and I
00:19:49
played a tape that I'd bought for her,
00:19:52
a Billie Eilish tape, her newest albums on
00:19:54
cassette.
00:19:55
And I played it back on her deck,
00:19:58
and it sounded like shit.
00:19:59
I was like, is that the deck or
00:20:03
is that the tape, right?
00:20:05
So fortunately, I had made her a dub
00:20:07
of my own.
00:20:08
I took her top 30 songs on Spotify,
00:20:11
recorded them through a Sony cassette deck that
00:20:14
I bummed off a friend of mine who
00:20:15
never uses it, right?
00:20:17
And it won't rewind, but it still records
00:20:19
perfectly.
00:20:21
And I made a tape for her.
00:20:23
I had that tape too.
00:20:24
I put that into her deck, and it
00:20:26
sounded so much better.
00:20:28
All it did remind me is that bin
00:20:30
-looped mass-produced cassettes still sound like garbage.
00:20:33
Sound like garbage.
00:20:34
Maybe Billie Eilish cleaned the heads of her
00:20:37
tape deck.
00:20:38
Right?
00:20:39
But the point of those cassettes is not
00:20:41
at all about quality because I was shocked
00:20:43
at how good the tape sounded when I
00:20:45
made that one for my daughter.
00:20:46
I actually sat and listened to pretty much
00:20:48
the whole tape, headphones plugged right into the
00:20:50
deck.
00:20:51
And I was like, damn, this sounds pretty
00:20:52
good.
00:20:52
Because you can't hear above 14k anymore?
00:20:55
It just sounded pretty solid, you know?
00:20:57
It sounded clean and good.
00:20:58
And then I shipped her off the tape.
00:21:01
But I don't know, my point being, I
00:21:03
guess, is that, you know, I don't know
00:21:06
what my point is.
00:21:07
Go ahead, AP.
00:21:08
I was just going to say that I
00:21:09
remember years ago, I was back in the
00:21:12
80s, I was in the UK doing some
00:21:13
interviews, and they'd always give you like a
00:21:16
white label or promotional copy of whatever record
00:21:20
you're going to be talking to the person
00:21:22
about.
00:21:23
And the best one I got was actually,
00:21:25
which I've since lost, which is so annoying,
00:21:27
it was the drummer from Orange Juice, a
00:21:29
guy called Zigbang Yika.
00:21:30
And they gave me his album on cassette,
00:21:33
and it was a chrome cassette, chrome tape.
00:21:36
Man, did that sound good.
00:21:38
They can sound good, yeah.
00:21:39
Yeah, that was very good.
00:21:40
So here's one that went up in value.
00:21:42
I still have my Tanscam 688 8-track
00:21:45
cassette.
00:21:46
I bought it in 1994 or 1992.
00:21:52
New.
00:21:53
No, no, I bought it like 1990.
00:21:56
Okay, so it was used.
00:21:57
I graduated in 92.
00:21:59
So I bought it new in 1990.
00:22:01
Oh, new, yeah.
00:22:03
And it was $1.
00:22:05
I took a loan out to buy that
00:22:06
thing.
00:22:06
Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of money.
00:22:09
Now, one in good condition, it's $2.
00:22:14
Well, is that keeping up with inflation?
00:22:16
But that's probably not the same value as
00:22:17
the $1 I spent.
00:22:19
No, because I love this.
00:22:20
I don't think that kept up with inflation.
00:22:22
Okay, so ready?
00:22:23
If you took $1 and put it
00:22:25
in the stock market, this would be funny.
00:22:26
Don't depress yourself.
00:22:28
Yeah, you'd be about $2.
00:22:31
$1 times, we're going to say 5%.
00:22:33
And what is that, 1990?
00:22:35
So 10, 20, 35 years?
00:22:39
35 years ago, yeah.
00:22:40
That's frightening, isn't it, 35 years ago?
00:22:42
Good God.
00:22:44
Yeah, if you put it in the stock
00:22:45
market, you'd have $8.
00:22:50
And that's conservative.
00:22:52
You probably would have a lot more than
00:22:53
that.
00:22:53
Which we'd buy you a meat pie and
00:22:55
a beer these days anyway.
00:22:56
So, you know.
00:22:57
Yeah, that's right.
00:22:58
We're doing 20% lately.
00:23:02
Yeah, 20%, you'd have a crapload.
00:23:05
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:23:06
You could buy my stuff, and then I
00:23:07
could invest the money into something else.
00:23:09
There you have it.
00:23:11
Pro Audio gear, not a solid.
00:23:12
I had a hell of a lot of
00:23:14
fun with that thing.
00:23:15
Yeah.
00:23:16
It ain't all about the resale value.
00:23:18
No.
00:23:19
Well, that was fun.
00:23:20
Is it over?
00:23:21
It's over with me.
00:23:22
The Pro Audio Suite.
00:23:24
With thanks to Tribooth.
00:23:25
And Austrian Audio.
00:23:27
Recorded using Source Connect.
00:23:28
Edited by Andrew Peters.
00:23:30
And mixed by Robbo.
00:23:31
Got your own audio issues?
00:23:33
Just ask Robbo.com.
00:23:35
And tech support from George the Tech Witter.
00:23:37
Don't forget to subscribe to the show.
00:23:38
And join in the conversation on our Facebook
00:23:41
group.
00:23:41
So leave a comment, suggest a topic, or
00:23:43
just say g'day.
00:23:44
Drop us a note at our website.
00:23:46
ProAudioSuite.com