Track De Jour Returns: "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" —Dave Mason "Alone Together" lacquer transcript

Don't try to sneak into your room like that. I know what you've got behind your back. Records. More no records. >> Why haven't I done a track de jour in a couple of days? Well, a bunch of reasons. The first thing that happened was there was an update to Roon and Roon couldn't find the server. So, this wasted about a day of my time. Could not find it. I went online. I went and people I know whose names I will not mention scolded me and said, "You know, if you can set up a turntable uh and spend the time to set up a turntable, maybe you should do a little bit more research and figure out what what you're doing wrong cuz 99% of the time you're doing something wrong.

It's your network." And I said I've gone through everything I know and and I still can't get it to find the server. So, after being scolded like that, I contacted one of the higher-ups at Roon who I happen to have known since Roon got started who I try not to bother. You know, he's an important guy and I don't want to bother him. So, but finally I got desperate. I said, "Hey, blankety blank." I'm not going to give any names.

I explained what the problem was and he got back to me and he was overseas someplace and he goes, "I just checked your system. I'm having the same problem as you're having. Yeah, we're having a problem. We've got to do an update. So, you know, hang on. We'll have the update done." So, it wasn't me. It wasn't my problem, but this person who who's going to hopefully watches this cuz he he'll know who he is. He's turned into a crotchety old scold.

Okay? So, I got that problem solved after that half a day. Then I installed the this cartridge. Just did that yesterday. This is the Ortofon Vertex. I'm just tweaking the azimuth adjustment. I've just gotten it much much better. You got to really be careful when you do that. If you have an oscilloscope to do it which I use. I use an oscilloscope. There it is. It's in the bright light. But there you can see the modulated channel and the unmodulated channel.

So, the blue is the modulated channel and the yellow is the unmodulated channel. And I ended up getting it up to a 30 decibels of separation and getting it within like uh how far about what 1 dB difference between the two channels, which is very good. Okay. Then, the other problem I had is um you know, I've had this hum this noise this horrible noise when I had the crystal cable and there's some of you know about this, some of you don't.

So, I put the crystal cable in when I changed the cartridges to see what would happen. And the noise was much less. It was still there, but it was way way less. And I'm trying to think, what could it possibly be? So, uh what I ended up doing was going to the back of the um this big Ideon Axiom DAC that's like $200,000 DAC with a server on top of it that I'm reviewing for the absolute sound. And I went back here and I figured I'm just going to I'm going to mess with the grounding stuff that I have back here.

But I really can't There's no ground lug on a balanced cable uh connector back there. So, I started moving other cables with with the ground stuff that's down here. And the hum went away. It turned out that the hum, all the horrible hum that was so loud before, was caused by this digital cable which is not well shielded. And now that I've moved it out of the way the problem is gone. So, that's two problems that are gone.

I just finished an amplifier review of the Dagostino Momentum Z and the preamp. So, I had to move those out of the system and pack them up. My friend Mike, thank God, came over to help me because it's hard to do. The It's a 100-lb amplifier. But I did I did move it. I moved one out. We got the other out and we packed them up and sent it out. So, there's been a lot going on that's prevented me from uh doing a tract de jour.

So, it's been kind of tumultuous. So, uh now I'll get to a tract tract de jour for you. Okay, the first one in a long time. Okay, we're back in business with Trek de Jour. It's been a long hard road to get back here, but all kinds of stuff happened as I explained at the beginning of this video. And I left something out. So, we had a power surge as well as everything else that happened. And in the power surge, the DAC got disconnected from the server and it took a while to get that back together.

So, between all those different things, that's why there hasn't been a Trek de Jour until right now. So, today's Trek de Jour is going to be a track from Dave Mason's one of the late Dave Mason's wonderful record Alone Together. And many of you may bought this one when it was new. And it was one of the first records to have a splattered surface record color. Cool. Still sounded great. This is Oh, of course it sounds great.

It was cut at cut at Artisan Sound. It's got the Artisan Sound logo in there. So, great sounding record. Uh the master tape is gone. Dave Mason doesn't know where it is. And you know what I what I have in here is kind of interesting. I have Dave Mason's um obit is in one of the Traffic records. Um but this is the obit of Bob Krasnow who started Blue Thumb records. He passed away December 18th, 2016. So, 10 years ago.

That was Bob Krasnow. Blue Thumb was a was a great label and and Bob Krasnow was in the business for quite some time. Um Okay. So, there's that. And then I also have in here Dave Mason and his group played at the the Wyckoff, New Jersey YMCA back when they had concerts, which was great. It was 60 buck ticket. Concert started at 8:00 March 4th, 2006. Wow, that was just 20 years ago. And Dave May Every time I've seen Dave Mason, which is many times, he plays it played his heart out.

He He always did a good show. He once did a thing at Consumer Electronics Show. I think it was for JBL. So, Consumer Electronics Show concerts are really >> [laughter] >> they're really a pain. People talk and they're not interested and they're But, he played one of those and he was fantastic. Again, it was a great show. And I met Dave Mason once under not the greatest circumstances. I was in the Cambridge boathouse bathroom taking a leak.

Dave Mason walked in and took the stall next to mine and we talked a little bit, didn't shake hands, but I I told him, "Hey Dave, great to meet you. You know, I know who you are." So, so we're going to play the song "Shouldn't It Took More Than You Gave", but we're not going to play the record, we're going to play from the lacquer. This is the lacquer that I have from the heavy vinyl series that I was involved with with MCA back in 1995.

And this this lacquer was cut on July 17th, 1995 by Kevin Gray. And this is um They sent me What they would do is they would send me these little forms here and they'd ask me to listen to the lacquer and and evaluate it for them. So, this was what it was MCA records. So, it came to me when I lived in Glen Rock, New Jersey and I said I sent back to them uh "Spectacular dynamics, bass, three-dimensionality and weight, clarity, etc. makes the Mobile Fidelity gold CD sound like mud." Which it it did.

"Also, beats original colored vinyl and British pressing by a wide margin, perfect surfaces and concentricity." Of course, I was being really stupid. It was a lacquer. It had to be concentric. You can't can't do that to a lacquer. But, anyway, I must have sounded stupid to anybody who who paid attention to that. And I have sounded stupid in my life. Everybody sounded stupid in their lives. Um anyway, side two I said was not as dynamic, slight lack of sparkle on on the top on both sides.

Um And you know what? After all these years, I think this lacquer sounds phenomenal. And so now you're going to hear it, and you're going to hear a brand new Vertex Ortofon cartridge. It's a $16,000 cartridge. I don't think it's fully Well, it's not fully broken in. I just installed it yesterday. It's just starting to, you know, get its its groove legs, whatever you want to call it. So, anyway, here's what it sounds like now, and Dave Mason's "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave." Great breakup song, the last song on the record, and here it is. >> [music] [music] >> Shouldn't have took more than you gave, then we wouldn't [music] be in this mess today. >> [music] >> I know we've all got different ways, [singing] but the [music] dues we've got to pay still the same. >> [music] [music] >> It's time to change the script for this [music] old play.

You're reading [singing] it not feeling what you're saying. [music] Coming on too strong for me to [music] stay. Oh, yeah. Tell me what you're seeing anyway. >> [music] [music] >> Say it's a simple thing, but harder to explain. Winter's [music] going to come too soon, getting all the fame. Footprints in the snow will show when the things are still the same. Till [music] you get through one, the sun or someone else to live again. >> [music] [music] >> Should have known more than you gave.

[singing] Then we wouldn't be in this mess today. I know we've all [music] got different ways. But the dues they've got [music] to pay still the same. >> [music] [music] >> Hey. Surely you took more than you gave. >> [music] >> Surely you took more than you [singing] gave. >> [music] >> Surely you took more than you gave. Give [music] up. Yeah. >> [music] [music] >> Oh, yeah. >> [music] >> Oh, yeah. Woo! >> [music] [music] >> Yeah.

Yeah. >> [music]