(Unmasking myself from the shadows of maternity leave briefly)

Two years ago, when my grandfather died, the extended family descended on his home in order to empty it of the stuff accumulated in a life spanning more than 98 years. I came away from that with just a few random mementos, one of them this 45-rpm record titled "Man on the Moon," narrated by Walter Cronkite.

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Click to view attachment

With the Apollo 11 anniversary, and Cronkite's death today, and me spending some of my maternity leave wandering through the boxes of random stuff I didn't have time to sort while I was working, and moving, and pregnant, I suddenly remembered that I had this thing, and was overcome with the desire to listen to it; it's meaningful both as a connection to the Apollo missions (which were mostly before I was born) and my late grandfather. He would probably have argued with me about the value of money spent on space exploration, yet he kept this record for nearly 40 years.

Of course, I don't have a record player. So I was wondering if anyone knows if this same recording can be found elsewhere; or if anyone has the capability to digitize this one. I see there's a DVD with the same title available on Amazon. But although I may be too young to remember Apollo, I am not too young to remember the rhythmic fuzzy sound of a record spinning on a turntable; I wish I had one to drop this 45 on today!

--Emily

P.S. reading the text on the back, it seems actually to be a 33-rpm record, it's just the size of a 45.

I went looking, no luck- sorry. Confirmed that it is indeed a 33.3 rpm record despite its size, though.

What I did find was that there's now something called a USB turntable, which at least sounds conceptually easy to use. They don't appear to be too expensive; might be worthwhile, esp. if you've got some other vinyl that's hard to find in a digital format.

I know an audio producer/engineer in New York who has digitized some treasured Bach oratorio records for my father, for a reasonable price. Let me know if you would like his contact information.

TTT

"Man on the Moon" will be coming out on Blu-ray on August 25 (or August 4 according to Amazon). I've gone ahead and pre-ordered it. Should go along with the Criterion collection blu-ray of "For All Mankind" that I should be getting in the mail on Thursday or Friday.

I have a USB turntable for that very purpose. I bought it to digitize rare old Irish folk music my parents used to listen to when I was a kid. If you want to pack it and mail it to me I'd be happy to digitize it and send it back. I'd offer to pick it up, but I don't see myself going to LA in the near future.

How do you like it, Dan?

Got a couple of old vinyl records; a "bootleg" Jefferson Airplane c. 1967 & some promo 70s-80s discs from a radio station I worked at long, long ago being the main goodies. They've been gathering dust in a box for at least 20 yrs.; now I miss them! (But probably not enough to shell out a couple hundred clams unless these turntables work REAL good.)

It does what it's supposed to do. I'm not an audiophile so I couldn't look at the wav tracings and report on the dynamic range and all that. So I'll switch into redneck mode and declare, "They sound purty good to me."

If you were an audiophile you'd be talking about how nothing beats vinyl for audiofantasticness, and you'd probably be wondering if you'd get better results with an overpriced cable of some sort.

And that last point is why I will be happy as a clam with my blu-ray version next month. The audio will sound great even using my $3 HDMI cable from Monoprice as it would on an $130 HDMI cable from Monster. Don't need to worry about cables with crazy prices.