Boston Area Collector profiled...

Here's an interesting profile of a gramophone/phonograph collector from The Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... _spinning/

Text from article:

Keeping record players spinning
If you are facing a nondigital repair in a digital age, there are a few local repairmen who still know how
By David Rattigan, Globe Correspondent | November 4, 2007

Tim Peng wound the crank on an old record player. He deftly placed the needle on a heavy black-vinyl disk spinning at 78 r.p.m. This Victor Talking Machine with the wood horn was built with no volume control, so the music of Glenn Miller came out loud and sounded like something from another time - complete with the pop and hiss of the needle on vinyl.

"Different phonographs were made differently and all sound different," Peng explained. "This wooden horn sounds very good."

There are machines like this one stacked seemingly everywhere inside Peng's house in Haverhill.

There are floor models and table models, with speakers built inside some cabinets, and horns atop other machines. Peng has set up an Edison cylinder phonograph - first manufactured in the late 1800s and the precursor to the record player - on the coffee table.

Peng, a professional musician, teacher, and piano tuner, has fallen in love with antique phonographs and has become a phonograph repairman and dealer. It is the reason that every room in his house is filled with these pieces of functional art, like a well-polished museum.

"I want to have every kind of phonograph," said Peng, 35, a native of Taiwan who received a master's degree in piano performance from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

He explained that owning a working model of every antique phonograph ever made would give him a point of reference and help him repair other machines.

The machines are from several sources, and many parts were purchased from Ralph Woodside, a longtime dealer from Georgetown who retired.

To afford it, Peng and his wife, Estella Tai, took out a home-equity loan.

"It is something I love, and something I'd like to be doing for a long time," said Peng, who is trained as a piano tuner - he also teaches piano - and self-taught as a phonograph repairman.

"There's no school for this," he said.

Jason Keenan, a collector with an extensive collection, was surprised when he walked into Peng's place. The Billerica resident and native of Great Britain understands Peng's love of the old phonographs and the music that's played from them.

"If they rerecord an old recording as a CD, all of the pops and hisses are taken out," Keenan said. In doing that, however, the sound engineers are failing to replicate the character of the original sound. "In 1924, that was the way it was meant to be played and that's the way it was heard."

Peter Souhleris of Boxford had Peng repair a Victrola Phonograph that he gave to his sister as a wedding gift. "I bought it from [the website] Craig's List and it needed some work," Souhleris said. "He got it running and refurbished it and made it sound nice. If you're not resourceful, you'll never find him, but he charged a reasonable price and did a great job."

The owner of an antique Victrola himself, Soulheris could appreciate the attractiveness of the furniture and the sound of the 78s.

"It's an authentic sound that gives you a nostalgic feeling," he said. "Some say it sounds like crap, but others say that's the beauty of it; just like anything else you collect."

He said he can also appreciate a practitioner of a disappearing art, like Peng. "My father's a cobbler [in Lynn], so I know what that's all about," said Souhleris, a developer who specializes in historic restoration.

For Peng, the music is less about nostalgia and more about having an appreciation for different types of music, including one genre he's particularly fond of.

The early 1900s "was a golden era for classical opera singers, like [Enrico] Caruso, and my favorite, Giuseppe di Stephano," Peng said.

"There were a lot of great singers that nobody knows right now because there are no recordings available other than 78s."

The prices for antique phonographs can vary widely. Although most run from $500 to $4,000, Peng said, some very rare models can cost as much as $20,000.

The price for repairs varies according to the job and the parts needed, Peng said. Replacing a spring for the motor costs $55, repairing a sound box $50.

For two years, Peng and his wife rented space at the Haverhill Antique Market on Washington Street, which was closed.

These days, Peng works from home, and attracts business through his Duo-Art Music Web page (duoartmusic.com), which promotes both the phonograph repair and his piano tuning business.

"My goal is to have a store," Peng said. "I'd like to have a store to sell pianos and phonographs, like in the old days."

Joe_DS wrote:I cringed when I read, "like something from another time - complete with the pop and hiss of the needle on vinyl;" but the writer probably has no idea what a shellac-based 78 rpm record is all about.

I also question this statement:

"Some say it sounds like crap, but others say that's the beauty of it; just like anything else you collect."

I've found that if the record sounds like crap, then the machine has not been properly restored, or the record or needle is shot. I remember playing a good condition Caruso recording on my Victor V for a guest who had a large collection of Caruso CDs from various labels, and his exact words were, "It's almost as if he was standing in front of you, singing to you in person!"

Thanks for the article! I feel the same way, I wish I had the time, money and know how! ...altho my house it starting to get over-run w/these phonos. :-p

...and yes, I agree, some of the things this author has to say are suspect. ...but what do you expect, a journalist to research the topic he's writing?

With the exception of some diamond disc's, I've never had anyone comment that my records sound like crap! Like Joe, most people can't believe just how good these records can sound, and I've often been told they sound as if the artist is standing in front of you. There must be something this guy's doing wrong to get feedback like that. Is he playing vertically cut records on a lateral system???