Let me hear your body talk.But first a confession: I'm not the hip young man you might like me to be (or the one I might like me to be). I'm actually sort of old-fashioned. While my taste in music is nearly as uninhibited and adventurous as that of anyone I know, I prefer to enjoy that music in ways far more restrained and much less modern. I think I would have been right at home in the 1950s, wearing Ray-Bans and Levi's, listening to (and loving, equally and deeply) the music of both Jack Scott and John Cage, and playing my records on a record player.
I heard from Kelli recently. She said something about moving all of her music into the clouds.
"Huh?"
"Cloud music," she said.
“It’s just fucking amazing,” Roy Hall said simply.
Available this fall.
“Are you enjoying the show?” he had asked.
“Very much. This show has a certain grace and a natural sex appeal that shows in the States seem to lack,” I said.
Roy nodded. “Ah, you get it. So you’re not just a pretty face.”
Then he walked me over to his new MMF-11 turntable (around $4500, including Pro-Ject 10cc carbon-fiber tonearm). First seen in prototype form at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, the 43-lb MMF-11 is a two-motor, flywheel-driven turntable with a thick, acrylic platter, a four-layer plinth, and magnetic feet to further isolate the turntable from vibrations.
“No original ideas here,” Roy quipped.
Just a year and a half ago I walked into the CanJam area of RMAF, and right smack-dab in the middle was Fang Bian, head of Head Direct and the HiFiMAN brand of headphone gadgetry. Fang always has something new going on; I wondered what it would be this time. He smiled, stood, and cheerfully greeted me, then pointed towards center-stage on one of his tables.
"Would you like to hear my new planar magnetic headphones?"
You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought.
“I can still play the speakers,” he said with a straight face.
I thought for a moment that he would employ some powerful new wireless technology; Joseph was an early proponent for computer-based audio.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. What would you like to hear?”
He covered his face with the press release for his lovely Pulsar ($7000/pair) and began to sing.
I can’t remember what song we listened to, but it really was like hearing live music. There was almost nothing separating us from the song.
Genius.
“You two are so hot, you should be illegal,” I told them.
They laughed.
“What did you just say to them?” Rosemarie asked.
“I told them they were so hot they should be illegal.”
“God, you’re such a guy.”
“Danke!”