base 10 by jamesspada on WeGIF

I haven't been posting much these days. Some of you may have even noticed. It's been a month of musical technology, or rather, listening technology. First, I lost my hard drive with over 5000 songs on it, and I found out today that it's probably not recoverable.

Then we rearranged the stereo speakers trying to get better sound, and in the process my friendly Hi Fi Centre stereo salesman, of whom I am a "client," loaned me a pair of $300 speaker cables. These were pretty nice, but in the process of listening to my music I discovered just how much emotional position plays in what I hear. I was told they would make a huge difference, therefore, I heard a huge difference. Except that by the end of the trial week I was hearing no difference at all between the old ones and the loaners.

So we went back to the store and arrived just as they were doing a demo of these cables' big brothers. I was told about another "client" who just purchased $85,000 worth of these things. I had to listen. So there we are locked in a sound room with the cable salesman playing a Jackson Brown tune, first through one set of cables and then through another. We're on the couch between two of the biggest set of McIntosh loudspeakers I've ever seen. And off in the corner is sales guy directing with one hand, eyes closed, as if to say "this is amazing isn't it?"

I have to admit I did hear a slight difference. not in clarity so much as in depth and sound stage. But at $85,000 it wasn't that good. Besides, I like my home too much to start taking mortgages out for new speaker cables.

But I did buy a new component stand. On sale from $800 to $200. Understand that before this I didn't know a component stand could cost more than $100 at Circuit City. But there you go. I now have bragging rights for an $800 piece of furniture designed solely to place my amp and CD player on. Is there decadence in this?

The thing is, after pushing and pulling my speakers around the room in every conceiveable configuration over the past month, I think I finally like what I'm hearing. And I could have spent thousands, but got away with a deuce.

At one point we decided to alphabetize our CD's. That's when I discovered dusty copies of artists the wife had smuggled into the collection at some distant point in the past. Or of which I otherwise had nothing to do with the purchases. Having raised two boys and now understanding the gap that can exist between us and them when it comes to music, it's interesting just how much of it is now called mine. And I like it.

Like these guys.