Schurkey

Civilian production became "War" production because 1. The entire country was mad as hell at the Japanese. 2. Deep down, the American Citizen still trusted the Government. Among other things, Americans knew that war was ongoing in Europe, and better to fight an enemy there or in Asia, than to fight one on US soil. You are unlikely to see such a thing in the future, because 1. Americans don't get angry enough when thousands of citizens are killed by "terrorists"; and 2. The decades-long list of provable lies told by Government at all levels has destroyed any lingering doubts about the ethics or competence of Government. The USA fought "world wars" of colossal scale, and we were done in four years, with surrender papers from beaten foes. Our current Elected Dirtballs have had us fighting in the Middle East with no will to win, no WAY to win, no plan to win. We're going to be there until the end of time, draining our economy and killing our youth, sacrificed in vain because US politicians don't have enough stones to declare a war, let alone fight one.

I looked at a pair of Stratus Gold, but not the "i" version. I think this was when I was sent to Pennsylvania for work, about '92. I thought they were very nice, but wasn't in a position to buy them even if I could have shipped them home. More recently, there was a pair of "i" models for sale a (long!) day's drive from me, but I didn't have time to make the trip. http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/704/index.html http://www.stereophile.com/content/psb-stratus-gold-loudspeaker-john-atkinson-1997 Curious: Are the driver surrounds foam or rubber? Any deterioration?

Depends on WHY it's not common-ground. If one channel is inverted, or if it's a "bridged" or "balanced" design, there's nothing you can do. If it's not common-ground because of a couple of resistors used to isolate the chassis ground from the negative terminals (very common design practice) all you need is a foot of speaker wire to tie the negative terminals together. Can you get a schematic? Have you measured the resistance between the negative terminals?

There are a pair of ten-ohm resistors between the negative terminals and chassis ground. From one terminal, through both resistors, to the other terminal is 20 ohms. This is not a floating-ground system, it's more like a "semi-common-ground" arrangement. Other manufacturers do the same thing, perhaps with different-value resistors. Adcom has an amp that has 100 ohm resistor pairs, 200 ohms from one post to the other. I seem to remember something about Parasound having similar resistors. This is--apparently--some kind of "safety" deal. I don't claim to understand it. I just know that my Aragon/Polk system was UN-LISTENABLE before I slapped the jumper wire in place.

This is a Carver forum, so how about an M1.0 non-inverting version, with appropriate mods? I'm thinking a TFM 42, TFM 45, or TFM 55 would also work. The M1.0 inverting style, and the M500 invert one channel, so they're not compatible. Any "bridged" or "Balanced" amplifier is also not compatible. I'm using an Aragon 8008BB, but with a 12-guage jumper wire between the negative terminals to provide "true" common-grounding. The 8008 on it's own has 20 ohms of resistance between the negative terminals, and it makes the 1Bs sound TERRIBLE.

You're correct, in that the M500 is not compatible with SDA speakers unless the speakers are new enough to use the AI-1-style isolation transformer. In your case, those speakers ARE NOT compatible with the AI-1, so until you upgrade to a common-ground amplifier, you can't use the interconnect. You are not correct about the Polks sounding "just right"; until you hear them with the interconnect cable, they're just another wonderful-sounding speaker pair. WITH the interconnect, they image like no other speaker series.

I suppose it's too late to save all the grille retainers.

The voice coils/magnets/pole piece can all be re-aligned using home-made PVC pipe and machine screws as a "special tool", with automotive anaerobic thread-locking compound as the glue. Having the mid-woofers lock up is said to be a common problem with the older Polk drivers, the usual explanation is "bad glue" holding the drivers together. Some sort of mechanical shock knocks the pieces out-of-alignment when the glue bond breaks. In my case, I dropped the driver on the floor from waist-height. I've re-aligned exactly one Polk driver--not at all difficult, and like most projects the second one should be a bunch easier than the first. (That darned "Learning Curve" thing, amplified by the fact that the tooling is already made when you do the second one.) http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?135716-Let-s-Try-to-Fix-a-MW6511-Damaged-in-Shipping...&p=1878797&viewfull=1#post1878797'>http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?135716-Let-s-Try-to-Fix-a-MW6511-Damaged-in-Shipping...&p=1878797&viewfull=1#post1878797 (The entire thread is here: http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?135716-Let-s-Try-to-Fix-a-MW6511-Damaged-in-Shipping ) Polk supplies a replacement tweeter that's said to be better than the originals. It's not a drop-in replacement for your tweeter, though. Seems to me the screw-holes are spaced a little differently. (You could research that at Club Polk $50 plus tax shipped in the USA. http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?28-Vintage-Speakers

No, not the content of each post, or the content of the charts in some of the posts. I mean, each post is numbered, the first post in this thread should be, and is post number 1. The second post is # 2, etc. On my computer, the posts are almost numbered randomly. On the first page of this thread, the posts are numbered 1, 2, 7--14. The second page has #3, 4, 15, 16, 5, 17, 6, 18, 19, 25. The remaining pages are similar. This post, on my computer, is number 23, immediately following #36. I never noticed this until I went to reference post #29, and discovered it wasn't where I thought it would be.

If the chart in post 29* is accurate, there IS NO "vinyl comeback". It's more of a residual, vinyl-never-really-left-but-it's-barely-hanging-on. It's not that vinyl is becoming more popular, it's that the "other" medium--CDs--are becoming relatively much less popular. What's "happening" in vinyl is long-stored albums are being played again; by the original owners or by "recent" owners when items are sold or given away by the original owners. Therefore, there's some sales of new, quality turntables, some sales of new, junk turntables expressly for re-recording to a digital medium via USB or some-such, and sales of used turntables and parts similar to the sales of used vinyl. *Is it just me, or are the post numbers very inaccurate?

The big problem with "radio" is not the mechanism, it's the program material they broadcast. Digital will not change that. The FCC screwed the pooch when they eliminated the requirement for "equal time for opposing viewpoints". That one decision doomed radio to being a vehicle for propaganda rather than a medium for enlightenment. Add in the tendency to compress the soul out of music, excessive "station identification", and DJs who can't keep their mouths shut; and on the whole, you can keep radio in any form--analog or digital. In the last ten years, I bet I haven't listened to ten hours of radio. When the Orbitron rating survey sent us two dollars to participate, I had to write down that the only radio I heard that week was when I wandered into a Subway sandwich shop and they had a college hockey program broadcast over a local station. One week...five minutes of radio...and it wasn't even something I had chosen to listen to, it was inflicted on me by the owner of the restaurant.

To reinforce some of what has been said already: Abused discs will skip or simply not play at all. Easy to see--just inspect the playing surface. Sometimes, these can be buffed/sanded/machined to make them playable again. If a laser assembly is becoming defective, the discs will skip or fail to play even if they appear good (not scratched). OEM laser assemblies can be very expensive, but the Communist Chinese aftermarket lasers are dirt-cheap and work fine for a few years. Depending on the CD player, installation of a replacement laser assembly can be very easy, or a royal PITA. There is a list circulating the internet showing which laser assembly goes in which CD player. The version of that list that I've seen would be severely out-of-date, failing to cover stuff made in the last ten years or more. Since my CD players were made in the early '90's, they're listed. My players all had worn-out lasers that skipped so I had to replace them. There are some early-production CDs (and laser discs) that are subject to "CD Rot"; "Bit Rot" "Disc Rot", "Laser Rot" or some other clever term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_rot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_bronzing The aluminum layer wasn't properly applied--or improperly protected from atmospheric oxygen and other contamination--so the aluminum reflective layer ends up with holes in it, or is no longer reflective. As the holes become progressively larger, enough information is lost that the error correction/error interpolation circuitry of the player can no longer disguise the drop-out, and the disc skips. I had a few discs like this. Again, easy to see--just hold them up to the light, and see if the aluminum layer is no longer shiny silver, or has a bunch of tiny transparent "holes" that the light shines through.

Twenty-one years of Government-control madness. A total failure as a fuel-conservation method, a total failure (actually counterproductive) as a "safety" measure. I can't believe "55" ever happened in America.

Valentine One. Very recommended. http://valentineone.com/ Mine's an older unit, sent back to the factory for laser upgrade more than a decade ago. Still works wonderfully.

Success! THANK YOU!

How do I save the downloads on my hard drive? Using Windows Media Player, there's doesn't seem to be an option to save the file. I presume this was pulled from a vinyl record and digitized, not pulled from a CD--correct?

Mid-'70's sometime. Got a "stereo" all-in-one system from GE for Christmas. Turntable (changer), "amplifier" and two speakers, all in a single big plastic housing, Folded-up for portability. I just found it again in my mother's closet (I'm cleaning out her house.) I bought three albums from some mail-order outfit. Danged if I remember what titles they were. Perhaps two from Jim Croce, and one from Procol Harum??? When I get back to her place again, I'll likely find those albums; if so I'll post again to confirm.

Better power them with some plexiglas amplifiers. Here's one... http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMPZILLA-2000-SECOND-EDITION-200-WATT-MONO-AMPLIFIER-/300991547615?pt=US_Home_Audio_Amplifiers_Preamps&hash=item46147e88df

A Milty/Zerostat anti-static "gun" works wonders. Mine is a thousand years old. I think they went out-of-production for awhile, but were "revived" a decade or so ago. http://www.amazon.com/MILTY-ZEROSTAT-ANTI-STATIC-GUN-BLUE/dp/B0033SHDSS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375539792&sr=8-1&keywords=Anti-static+gun

Sammy Hagar "I Can't Drive 55" Joan Jett "I Love Rock and Roll" Boston's entire first two albums.

Sammy Hagar: I can't drive...Fifty Five.

From the web site: "Homeless man designs audio crossover to get stereo sound from a single speaker"

Anyone besides me thinking of the motional-feedback/special amp design was the philosophical beginning of Velodyne? Didn't Carver make a big deal of the "back-EMF" part of the design when marketing the Carver subwoofers? Everything new is old again.