Soundesign was my reality, but Krell was in my dreams. It was the early 1980s. I researched and made up lists of equipment and riddled out how long I would have to save the two dollars an hour I was making before I could afford to own the objects of my acoustic desire. I soon dismissed the whole idea.
I love music, and the intervening years saw me going to more live performances than I can recall and amassing a record collection that at one point numbered well over 5,000 but now stands at just this side of 1,000. Between working more than I should, not going to live performances anymore and my wife wanting to know what I was going to do with, "all those old records," I sort of just stopped listening to music.
I forgot all about it. I listened to NPR in the car - I did work on my computer at home. I still owned a turntable that I've had for years and every blue moon I'd pour some Chimay and spin some tunes, but not while anyone was around, and that happened maybe twice a year.
Our housekeeper rang in 2009 by accidentally tearing the needle off of my old turntable. Do they even sell needles anymore? I started looking around online, still undecided if I wanted to get the old deck up and running again or just chuck it and the remainder of my records in the trash.
Well, I ended up finding much more than I anticipated. Over the course of a couple of months I found that not only are there plenty of cartridges available, but a vibrant two-channel analog industry still going strong. I found forums like this one and other repositories of audio information that have taught me more than I ever knew, which puts me at knowing enough to know that I don't know much about it at all!
Armed with a modicum of new found knowledge and a growing curiosity, I sauntered my way into one of the very few high-end audio shops in my area wanting to have a listen. Up to that point I had never heard a properly setup, so called, "high-end," system. What I heard that day blew me away. I'm sitting in my first listening chair with Dire Straits seemingly in the room with me when the very nice proprietor asked what I thought. I said something elegant like, "fucking right on, man."
That's when my long forgotten love of music found me. Like a jealous lover wielding a frying pan.
After much auditioning of equipment, discussion, budget creation then budget-expansion, a few weeks from now I'll be setting up a trio of audio components in my home. A pair of Dynaudio Confidence C1 speakers, a Simaudio i3.3 integrated amplifier (with a DAC and phono stage) and a Pro-Ject RM-10 turntable (with a Sumiko Blackbird cartridge) are going into a 10' x 20' room in my basement that I use as my office.
The deal is done, the trigger's been pulled, now I'm just biding my time like a six year old waiting for Christmas. I think I'm ill or something but I don't feel bad at all!
Soundesign was my reality, but Krell was in my dreams. It was the early 1980s. I researched and made up lists of equipment and riddled out how long I would have to save the two dollars an hour I was making before I could afford to own the objects of my acoustic desire. I soon dismissed the whole idea.
I love music, and the intervening years saw me going to more live performances than I can recall and amassing a record collection that at one point numbered well over 5,000 but now stands at just this side of 1,000. Between working more than I should, not going to live performances anymore and my wife wanting to know what I was going to do with, "all those old records," I sort of just stopped listening to music.
I forgot all about it. I listened to NPR in the car - I did work on my computer at home. I still owned a turntable that I've had for years and every blue moon I'd pour some Chimay and spin some tunes, but not while anyone was around, and that happened maybe twice a year.
Our housekeeper rang in 2009 by accidentally tearing the needle off of my old turntable. Do they even sell needles anymore? I started looking around online, still undecided if I wanted to get the old deck up and running again or just chuck it and the remainder of my records in the trash.
Well, I ended up finding much more than I anticipated. Over the course of a couple of months I found that not only are there plenty of cartridges available, but a vibrant two-channel analog industry still going strong. I found forums like this one and other repositories of audio information that have taught me more than I ever knew, which puts me at knowing enough to know that I don't know much about it at all!
Armed with a modicum of new found knowledge and a growing curiosity, I sauntered my way into one of the very few high-end audio shops in my area wanting to have a listen. Up to that point I had never heard a properly setup, so called, "high-end," system. What I heard that day blew me away. I'm sitting in my first listening chair with Dire Straits seemingly in the room with me when the very nice proprietor asked what I thought. I said something elegant like, "fucking right on, man."
That's when my long forgotten love of music found me. Like a jealous lover wielding a frying pan.
After much auditioning of equipment, discussion, budget creation then budget-expansion, a few weeks from now I'll be setting up a trio of audio components in my home. A pair of Dynaudio Confidence C1 speakers, a Simaudio i3.3 integrated amplifier (with a DAC and phono stage) and a Pro-Ject RM-10 turntable (with a Sumiko Blackbird cartridge) are going into a 10' x 20' room in my basement that I use as my office.
The deal is done, the trigger's been pulled, now I'm just biding my time like a six year old waiting for Christmas. I think I'm ill or something but I don't feel bad at all!