"Phil Allison" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:

** Saw them play live in Sydney, back in August 1971 at Randwick Race
Course, mid afternoon. Not the best venue or time.

The Revox A77 opened the set, reels spinning fast, with a stereo
recording
of a DC3 starting up, taxying and then taking off across the stage from
right to
left at realistic volume.

The band immediately broke into "One of these Days" from their not yet
released "Meddle" album.

Here is a short clip from that concert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mYnfk4EbkE

Interesting how the camera focuses almost entirely on Waters and his
bass,
when all the featured lead is coming from Gilmour ...


** Cameramen generally focus on what will make the best (and most
saleable) images from the position they occupy at the time. Waters blood
curdling screams into his Sennheiser were not to be missed for potential
showing on that night's TV news.

One of my clearest memories is of Gilmour siting cross legged on stage
(next to the left hand speaker stack) with his Fender on his lap - playing
the strings with a steel slide in his right hand while constantly
adjusting his Binson Echorec with the other to get all the sound effects
needed "Saucerful of Secrets" and others.

At the time I had no idea what was inside that little olive green box - a
tape echo maybe? Never saw one here until recently when a customer walked
in with a similar Binson for repair. The damn thing looked brand new,
having been carefully stored since about 1970 in someone's home till they
died and it went to auction.

Mechanically, it is like a small (120mm dia)rim drive turntable running at
about 80rpm with a thin steel band attached to the outside of the platter
and surrounded by tape heads. The valve electronics is very basic and of
course there is no noise reduction circuitry. The big plusses are no tape
to wear out, very low W&F and the ability to produce multiple short delays
with massive repetition using the feedback control.

My customer eventually sold the unit to a local collector for $4000 -
making himself almost $3000 profit. See pic of same model, not on my
workbench.

http://www.hubinet.com/images/BINSON1.JPG

BTW

You can pop a CD on top of the platter and it looks like it belongs.


.... Phil


In all my long bench years, I've seen just one of these, I think. I'm trying
hard to remember what was wrong with it. I have this feeling that it was an
open circuit head, but that might be a memory of a WEM Copycat ...

Arfa