Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Have You Seen the Saucers?

From Planetaria Obscura May 2016

  Have You Seen the Saucers?

When I inherited  from my late father in law an additional turntable and old vinyl collection, it went right in the planetarium. Never completely comfortable with invisible digital stuff, now I could buy 99 cent vinyl at Goodwill and sit back in a lazy-gare and contemplate the actual printed French lyrics to Dominique by the Singing Nun.  Who wouldn’t? But how to work it in though - all these soulful old discs. How is a record like a galaxy I mused. There’s a black hole at the center!  I tried to get rolling.  It spins.  It has side A and side B - like …  matter and anti matter …  light and dark matter…   Gravity holds the needle in the groove - its like the march of time from the outer edge to the innermost track.  That’s all I could think of, but after an extensive google-based search of 10 seconds, there was this:…. The linear velocity of the needle in the groove is much slower near the end of the record than at the beginning.  This means the frequency response is audibly different on the inner tracks… its always a good idea to end each side with a quiet song.  That sounds like red shifted light - the further out, the faster…  the old stars at the center quiet down while the young ones out further rage…. ..

But did Kiss end LP’s quietly? 

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