The official thrift/discount store bragging thread - Part II (May 2015 - Sept. 2018)

[Shoeluv]

Who is from Raleigh area? In town for a few days and hit a thrift store and was shocked at how cheap stuff was there. I normally never carry cash and got to the counter with a pair of shoes and 3 mediocre ties. Total was $8.07 I only had $8 on me so had to put a tie back since they only took cash or check.

Churches Custom Grade and 2 Charles Tyrwhitt ties - left a BB tie that was .07¢ more than I could afford and a Dunhill shirt that looked very fake to me.








Is that a 9D shoe?

 

[richnet12]

Are those Church's? Good luck with deciphering. You might measure the sole and compare with some auction listings to figure out the size.

 

[My Main Man]

Haven't done much research yet but anyone have any idea what this is all about?

 

[TheNeedMachine]

Also, to add to the vinyl debate. My brother is an audio engineer that makes equipment for some pretty famous musicians, and swears most people cant tell a difference between vinyl and high quality digital. He's also a vinyl collector because he likes having an object that can last much longer than cds.

Depends, in my unprofessional opinion. I was involved in having some LP's digitized for a re-release on CD because the masters were lost, done by The Cortical Foundation (Gary Todd [prior to his accident]), and had the opportunity to listen to some other stuff side-by-side - LAFMS, LaMonte Young, John Cage etc - all over the spectrum insofar as silence vs. sound was concerned...and on some stuff, nope, could not tell...on other stuff, yup, difference was obvious. It was several listening sessions, analog vs. digital, digital to vinyl vs. digital to CD etc - we were auditioning this guy's previous work for the project.

As for CD's, I can't remember exactly what the hype was when CD's came out but they were supposed to last 100 years or something ridiculous like that (I bought a CD player in 1983, about a year after they were made available commercially), and have had several CD's rot or go bad. Most disappointing were several discs from PDO that suffered from "disc bronzing", which really sucked because a lot of that stuff was never re-released in the same format / track list.

On the other hand, I had a house fire when I lived in Chicago, and while the fire kind of went down an adjacent hallway, all the vinyl melted from the heat...but CD's probably would not have fared much better.

The object that is a vinyl record, though, cannot be replaced by a CD, and certainly not a digital download.

Anyhoo...buy vinyl if you like vinyl. Buy CD's if you like CD's. Buy downloads if you don't like to have a lot of physical stuff. Just don't steal it.

 

[Koala-T]

Hi all.

 

Good to hear that you're doing well. This thread needed a dose of the old guard. Too many youngins round these parts now.

Very Cool, @LooknGr8, and good for you! I'm sure the advice helped you land the job by looking, well, great, but it was all you that made it work for you and owned it.

 

[jamesmkeart]



Spoiler: opinionationisms

Depends, in my unprofessional opinion.  I was involved in having some LP's digitized for a re-release on CD because the masters were lost, done by The Cortical Foundation (Gary Todd [prior to his accident]), and had the opportunity to listen to some other stuff side-by-side - LAFMS, LaMonte Young, John Cage etc - all over the spectrum insofar as silence vs. sound was concerned...and on some stuff, nope, could not tell...on other stuff, yup, difference was obvious.  It was several listening sessions, analog vs. digital, digital to vinyl vs. digital to CD etc - we were auditioning this guy's previous work for the project.

As for CD's, I can't remember exactly what the hype was when CD's came out but they were supposed to last 100 years or something ridiculous like that (I bought a CD player in 1983, about a year after they were made available commercially), and have had several CD's rot or go bad.  Most disappointing were several discs from PDO that suffered from "disc bronzing", which really sucked because a lot of that stuff was never re-released in the same format / track list.

On the other hand, I had a house fire when I lived in Chicago, and while the fire kind of went down an adjacent hallway, all the vinyl melted from the heat...but CD's probably would not have fared much better.

The object that is a vinyl record, though, cannot be replaced by a CD, and certainly not a digital download.  
  
Anyhoo...buy vinyl if you like vinyl.  Buy CD's if you like CD's.  Buy downloads if you don't like to have a lot of physical stuff.  Just don't steal it.

Well said. You obviously have a well trained ear for this sort of thing. A lot of it is in the recording process or how it was transferred to the media you're listening. I personally think digital is fine because I have too many collections of stuff already to own that many records. Paying artists is also amazing. Even if you thrift a record you really like try to find done way of supporting the artist if you can.

 

[horse's_ass]



****... Alabama won. Now, I will have to deal with non-college educated super inflated redneck egos for another year. Something tells me that @horse's_ass
 will not get any sleep in Tuscaloosa tonight.

You ain't kidding. These people have a hard time differentiating "personal accomplishments" from "accomplishments of a bunch of 20 year old kids who play for a team I happen to root for." What makes things worse, for me personally, is that this whole CTE thing has really turned me off from the game as a whole. Got better things to do than watch folks cut years off their life.

In related Alabama news, a woman come up to me in a thrift store today and, without solicitation, informed me that v-neck sweaters were for queers and not for regular people. #nice.

 

[dad2bandm]

Lets see if this works....not too skilled on making youtube videos. Sorry about my heavy breathing, I had an asthma thing earlier and I should have waited a little longer once I hit my inhaler.

Thanks for sharing this. Nice setup.

 

[dukedishin]

Adding to the audio quality discussion, it's also important to understand the lore around the opinion of MP3 as a format. Most influential people (engineers, producers, and artists) formed their opinions in the early days of the format. They were listening to 96/128kbps encodings done by early lossy algorithms. Most MP3s nowadays are 320kbps and the algorithms used to encode them are way, WAY better than the first few iterations where they hadn't pinned down how to make choices on the lost data. So MP3 as a format itself has improved dramatically in both bitrate and encoding, and the format is still fighting the reputation that early influencers created.

I've talked to several very well-known engineers about this, they have changed their opinion of the format pretty drastically from the early days but the lore endures.

I had a year of critical listening training during my college program and we would compare listening formats often. I could only accurately and legitimately tell the difference between high quality MP3s and lossless formats about a third of the time without guessing. My professor, who is a grammy-winning recording and mixing engineer in the classical music realm (the most discerning of listeners), could only tell without guessing about 2/3 of the time.

 

[AlexHold]

I don't get out to thrift much at all these days, but had time for a quick stop the other day. Finds like these deliver such a pure rush. N/A for now.

 

[MikeChevelle]

New guy here.....

Quite the dress shoe thrift store whore here, can tell Im going to like this place

 

[Jompso]

I don't get out to thrift much at all these days, but had time for a quick stop the other day. Finds like these deliver such a pure rush. N/A for now.

That price tag is just ******* cruel. Edward Greens for only 6 dollars?! Jesus Christ...

Edit:

 

[the2ndhandman]

John lobby Capri in blue suede size 9 unfortunately.

Barbour

Nice incotex cords

Is this a thing? I don't buy north face much or i would be drowning in it.

 

[double00]

@My Main Man

well i think that robe is pretty interesting!

1980 moscow summer games. of course the US led a boycott and so didn't participate but Levi's was the official outfitter for those games. so there were things produced and i'm actually wondering if that's not a robe for one of the aquatic events - water polo, etc? it looks like US colors to me...

one of the most compelling things i've copped lately is an vintage adidas yugoslavia national soccer team shirt, right when they had a great team but the yugoslav wars preempted their tournament. sad, interesting piece of history that never was.

 

[MikeChevelle]

I don't get out to thrift much at all these days, but had time for a quick stop the other day. Finds like these deliver such a pure rush. N/A for now.

...and my size as well. Ill triple your investment lol