Product: Audio: Player
Album Collector's Historic Format Binder   (+3)  [vote for, against]
A place to neatly store your Led Zeppelin IV on CD, cassette, vinyl, and 8 track.

Vinyl sells more than CDs these days, they sound better and it's kind of fun to go back in time with older formats. For any aficionado that would want to collect all the historic formats for any particular album this would be a way to hold them neatly all together.

To be clear, this is a binder that has 4 cardboard pages with plastic holders form fitted to hold each of the formats you've collected. Page 1 would be the CD, 2 the cassette, 3 the vinyl LP and 4 the 8 track. The cover would be the 12" LP sleeve that you'd slip under the clear plastic holder.

The cases for the CD and cassettes would be displayed in separate slots on the same page.
-- doctorremulac3, May 31 2022

Cover https://www.amazon....-405661268328&psc=1
The 12 LP album cover [doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

Page 1 https://www.ebay.co...rQutG8aAt51EALw_wcB
The CD and cover neatly displayed separately. [doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

Page 2 https://www.ebay.co...:g:d8kAAOSwx1Rhy5-H
The cassette and its cover also displayed separately. [doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

Page 3 https://www.ebay.co...kMm8LYaAlaNEALw_wcB
The actual album only, the cover is on the front of the binder. [doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

Page 4 https://www.amazon....-Tape/dp/B01N6NQY9Y
[doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

Something like this only with a nicer layout. https://www.ebay.co...Ctkp%3ABFBM0tjRs6Ng
[doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

Reel to reel? https://www.amazon....-Tape/dp/B005J79KJG
Too weird? [doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

This one's about 14 grand. https://www.etsy.co...W8QKbIaAszZEALw_wcB
[doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

But the new ones are just as cool I think. https://www.etsy.co...listing_top-4&frs=1
[doctorremulac3, May 31 2022]

Here's mine... https://steelyray.imgbb.com/
A Kimball [RayfordSteele, Jun 01 2022]

1925 Technology at its forefront https://antiquepian...o-rhapsody-in-blue/
Hello George. [RayfordSteele, Jun 01 2022]

1925 Technology at its forefront https://ne-np.faceb...r-/602310807159307/
Hello George. [RayfordSteele, Jun 01 2022]

//CDs these days, they sound better // can't disagree with that
-- pocmloc, May 31 2022


It wouldn't be all that hard to have a home record burner that could make a vinyl record from digital recordings. But if you're doing that you may as well just do a direct audio transform to make the music sound like it has been printed onto vinyl and then played through a needle.
-- Voice, May 31 2022


Surely someone has written some filters that throw away enough information to create a convincing "true vinyl sound"?
-- pocmloc, May 31 2022


I've mentioned it before but here's the thing about analog vs digital, digital is just more accurate and more accurate doesn't necessarily sound better. All those spikes and transients hurt your eardrums, try standing next to a drumset with those cymbals crashing in your ears. Analog compresses or limits the dynamic range in a pleasant fashion. You still hear it you just get less ear fatigue.

Plus tape saturation sounds good. Overload a digital signal and the lights on your block go out, planes fall out of the skies, your dental fillings melt, it's a mess.
-- doctorremulac3, May 31 2022


Right but what about the down sides?

Personally I'm not a great fan of vinyl LPs, very sterile sound compared to original shellac pressings played on a HMV model 101. If you haven't heard the loud passages slow the disc down you haven't lived.
-- pocmloc, May 31 2022


I actually have a gramaphone. Never has a music playing machine been so beautiful. Got the big metal horn & everything.

Shoot! I forgot reel to reel. I'd think that was probably the best quality you could get back in the day.

Should those be in there or is that too obscure? Only weirdos had reel to reel players in the day. I'd assume anybody with a reel to reel collection was trying too hard to get laid. (link)

Although if the point of these binders is for collectors to have a place to hold their rare and antique album formats that's about as rare of an album format as you can get.
-- doctorremulac3, May 31 2022


//Got the big metal horn & everything.//

Jealousy. I have a cabinet windup unit from the early 20's but nothing with a metal horn.
-- RayfordSteele, May 31 2022


Got it an an auction, not sure what it's worth, paid maybe $300 for it many decades ago. I believe they still make re- issues that are brand new. Some of the actual antiques can go for bucks. (link)

Yea, the re-issues are just as cool I think. Who cares if it's new? They're beautiful.
-- doctorremulac3, May 31 2022


Anyway to return to the original idea, it seems to me that bespoke would be better than standardised one-size-fits-all. Rare book collectors have for a long time had specially made cases or boxes to hold important rare books. For example if you own a unique 15th century manuscript book in its original binding, you are unlikely to have the book just sitting on your bookshelf. More likely it is kept in a custom-fitted case which may also have compartments for a companion volume which gives the history and provenance of the manuscript and a technical monograph on the decoration.

So I think that this idea would work best in a similar bespoke way. A custom fitted case for a set of LPs (one each of the first five pressings), the original studio master tapes, CD reissues, an autographed ticket for the launch party and a broken guitar string from the recording sessions; but the next one might only have been issued on home-made cassette tape and so the custom-fitted case would naturally be different inside even if they had uniform exterior format.

In fact thinking further I'm sure sound archives already kind of do this, though probably they custom-box each item separately rather than combining multiple different formats in one box.
-- pocmloc, Jun 01 2022


Minidisc? I'm in.
-- not_only_but_also, Jun 01 2022


Bought mine at a local estate sale for the same amount. Some idiot painted the cabinet interior black, I think, but the patent label is still visible. It does this weird thing in that it drops the needle into a hole after it's done playing a record, and I'm not sure I have the full needle clamp as it just kinda slides in.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 01 2022


That's cool as hell! I love antique technology.

Gotta get me a 1950s jukebox next.

Forgot about minidisc. Think I'd put that in the CD page.

And Poc, the exteriors would all be the same so you could have a bookshelf lined with these, but adding some custom pages for memorabilia stuff would be cool, like tickets and autographed pictures.
-- doctorremulac3, Jun 01 2022


You would love to visit a place called the Music House Museum up near Traverse City Michigan. They have a Weber Duo Grand reproducing piano, which was owned by the Ford family, who commissioned Gershwin to play Rhapsody in Blue on that piano. The thing about reproducing pianos is that they capture not just the notes like your average run-of-the-mill player pianos, but the pitch and attack as well is precisely duplicated. Super- expensive pianos for the time. It literally 'IS' Gershwin playing it, while you watch the keys. Maybe I can find a link.

They also tell how the US won air dominance because we had so many domestic player piano manufacturers that transferred their pneumatic valve technology to manufacture flight simulators and teach young pilots how to fly.

Fascinating place.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 01 2022


Wow, something poetic about that. Our love of music technology (which was my passion and how I made my living in my youth) was transferred in time of war to help us achieve victory.

Almost has a fairytale vibe to it.

You could also say that player pianos using automatic weaving technology punch cards were a stop on the road to computer data tech.
-- doctorremulac3, Jun 01 2022


The binder should also have built-in memory chips to store MP3 and other digital versions.

I am sure in 20 or 30 years time people of our age will wax lyrical about how the compression of mp3 files gave the music such a "crunchy" and "chippy" sound. How the new high-bandwidth full-spectrum holo-samplified downloads are sterile in comparison and nothing beats the original 128k joint stereo mp3 version. And there will be endless arguments about whether you can hear the difference between a file played from a genuine old-style actual silicon memory chip
-- pocmloc, Jun 01 2022


Yea, that would work. Maybe just QR codes to the various online versions?

Is physical retention of songs even a thing anymore?
-- doctorremulac3, Jun 01 2022


Surely the idea is maximum format? So, QR codes AND embedded chips.
-- pocmloc, Jun 02 2022


Well I'm thinking this is more of an antique display thingy, like visual n stuff.
-- doctorremulac3, Jun 02 2022



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