Does the beard settle?

Messages
193
Does the beard settle to a particular combination of razor, blade and lubricant? I am beginning to think so.

For over a year I used a Slant with Swedes and Palmolive Cream or my own mix of Palmolive Shave Stick and Wilkinson Blue tub soap grated, mixed together and pressed into a bowl. That produces a very similar lather to the cream.

When I ran out of Swedes I used the Feathers I had in stock - they were as sharp but rather harder on the face.

I have been experimenting with Iridiums and Yellow 7 O'Clocks. That combination gets better with every day.

Does anyone else think the beard settles to a particular combination?
 
hunnymonster said:
I think you make ultrafine adjustments to your technique that make it appear so. Your face doesn't know what's hitting it - it's just being hit....

That is the other possibility, or it could be a combination of both.

Did you know that a bowed string instrument (Violin, Viloa, Cello) has to be played in?

Musicians will say that even and old instrument will degenerate if not played regularly, and will improve with regular playing.

Violinists will say that if an instrument is badly played (bad technique) it will suffer, but recover if well played again.

Now why should that be?
 
Did you know that a bowed string instrument (Violin, Viloa, Cello) has to be played in?

it's the same for high-end audio equipment ;)
 
hunnymonster said:
Because they're mostly pretentious luvvy types? (This based on a sample of 1 violinist and 1 cellist of my acquaintance)

Possibly.

My son is a Cellist (But first he is a Chemical Engineer, so not a luvvy-type)

A long time ago I promised him a full size cello when his teacher said he was big enough to play one.

He was desperate and nagged her so, age 10 (he's now over 6 ft like me) I was dragged off to a big Violin Shop in Bristol. With the help of teacher he chose a cello. I had been told the choice of a bow made all the difference. I was very sceptical about this. Why should the construction of the bow make a difference - the cello is the resonator.

Well, we moved to the bow room. The salesman pulled out four bows he thought might suite the cello. My son, (ten years old) playing blind, tried them all, and then lined them up in rank order by price.

Why should that be?
 
hando said:
Did you know that a bowed string instrument (Violin, Viloa, Cello) has to be played in?

it's the same for high-end audio equipment ;)

So it is. That is to do with the "forming" of electrolytic capacitors, and the loosening of the loudspeaker cone suspensions.

Playing in must have an effect on the resonances of an instrument, but why should bad playing impair the instrument? I don't believe in "bad karma"!
 
Labarum said:
Well, we moved to the bow room. The salesman pulled out four bows he thought might suite the cello. My son, (ten years old) playing blind, tried them all, and then lined them up in rank order by price.

Why should that be?

That's a quality thing... having said that - the price tag doesn't necessarily reflect the quality in many walks of life though.
 
hunnymonster said:
That's a quality thing...

Again your analysis is too simple.

The body of the instrument is the resonator which is excited by the string. The string vibrates because it is snagged and released by the rosined horsehair of the bow. How does the wood of the bow make difference? And there is one exotic wood from which the best bows are made - pernambuco - nothing else comes close.

Why should that be?
 
My analysis is simplistic because I'm not a musician... I know that plenty of things happen that shouldn't logically happen due to small quality changes in apparently unrelated items.

Why do valve amps invariably sound better than transistor amps? (Obviously except when you use crappy Russian valves lol)
 
hunnymonster said:
Why do valve amps invariably sound better than transistor amps?

Well, they don't to my ears!

They sound "comfortable", like old slippers.

(It would be best if I retired to bed now.) :D
 
hando said:
Did you know that a bowed string instrument (Violin, Viloa, Cello) has to be played in?

it's the same for high-end audio equipment ;)

I played classical guitar for a few years and when I bought my first 'proper' instrument my teacher told me that this would be the case(bedding in of the sound so to speak)She told me that the more you play the guitar the better the sound becomes.The wood of the body definitely makes a difference to the sound of the instrument.A guitar with a cedar body has a warm mellow sound while the same instrument made with a spruce body produces a tighter almost harsher sound.Apart from the fact that different types of wood produce different quality of sound the more you play the guitar the more the instrument changes.I could hear a change in mine six months after purchase, it is hard to explain but the wood responds to you playing the instrument,moisture,humidity I can't say what causes it but I believe in it and have witnessed it.The guitar also changes sound slightly between winter and summer seasons.I can't agree with the statement about an instrument being played badly will affect the way it plays but I can understand that if a stringed instrument is left in an out of tune state for too long this will affect it (incorrect tension of the strings etc).Saying that I don't believe that the same applies to shaving.I think your skin will react different to certain products but don't agree that it would become used to a combination to the exclusion of others.Maybe you hit on your perfect combo and in comparison to that no others match it.
 
hando said:
Did you know that a bowed string instrument (Violin, Viloa, Cello) has to be played in?

it's the same for high-end audio equipment ;)

When I first got interested in decent audio, I scoffed at the notion of burn in as just so much pseudo science. I'm now convinced that it's a real phenomenon for amps, whether valve or transistor, but in particular for headphones: my AKGs are still getting better and better.

Back to matters facial. My informed guess is that one develops a technique to suit the combination of razor and blade, and that the important variables are grinding and cutting angles. All three of my Gillettes cut at slightly different angles, and in the case of the Fatboy, there is a decided difference between the angle on either side of the head. Since I've been using the Aristocrat Jr. for years, that one falls into place just fine every time, but I have to do a little conscious adjustment for the others. Again with blades: Wilkinsons always work sweetly for me because I'm very used to them, whereas I still have to treat a new Feather with respect (or suffer the consequences). I'd wager that the apparent sharpness of the latter has to do with a reduced included grinding angle compared to other makes, much like the difference between say a paring chisel honed at 15 degrees and one at 25 degrees. There should be a pay off in terms of edge durability, and my experience is that when a Feather is over the hill the deterioration is unusually sudden and obvious.
 
the notion that valve amps sound better than transistor ones is, well, bollocks.
some people say that opera and classical music is best on valve's and heavy rock lends itself to transistor

now i'm no expert (my mate is) but until you actually have a demo of different systems you won't know what suits YOU.
my lugs are different to everyone else's and therefore a particular sound suits me.

i've listened to Meridian digital active speakers that cost £1000's are were awful but there little F80 sounds awesome

i took along a vast variety of music styles to listen to and found the system for me, within my budget of course.

so it takes 100's of hours to run in a system - source, amp, speakers etc

i didn't really understand why, but it's true and it works, so i get the concept and for those of us that can see a symbiosis in things that need to work in harmony the shaving analogy in the original post makes sense

:shock: DEEP
 
hando said:
the notion that valve amps sound better than transistor ones is, well, bollocks.
some people say that opera and classical music is best on valve's and heavy rock lends itself to transistor

There's a different (warmer) sound to a valve amp - the reason behind that is that transistor amps are heavy on odd harmonics (so 1st, 3rd, 5th etc) - valves are more even between all harmonics - unless of course it's a crappy Russian one or worse a Chinese copy of a Russian one :?
 
Back
Top Bottom