We have three kids. The eldest goes to a renowned choir school with music lessons every day, but the active speakers I…
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It's trite to observe that we're doomed to fail to understand the generations that come after us, yet it's true. We are also, apparently, doomed to forget we're doomed. "We have to get a younger generation into hi-fi, or the industry is dead," lament aging men, unable to imagine a traversable path other than their own. Meanwhile, Apple sells 100 million pairs of AirPods every year. That's a guess: Apple doesn't share the exact numbers, but have you been outside lately?
Herb Senior raised me to be a wrench twirler. A problem solver. A mechanic. Not an intellectual. Or an artist. Following his example, I've devoted my life to measuring, cutting, and fastening. To putting things together.
Wherever I travel, I see pipes and wires and steel girders and concrete before I see trees and houses. I evaluate the cultures of the places I visit by what I perceive as the IQ of their infrastructure and the skills of their builders.
My first impressions on my first visit to Germany were amazements: It seemed that everywhere I looked, Germans had designed and…
Over the years, a few Americans have asked me what Copenhagen is like. I'm Dutch. Clearly, although Denmark and the Netherlands are 400 miles apart, the difference isn't always clear to everyone. (I blame the initial D and the sibilant endings: Dutch, Danish.) Honestly, I take no offense, and as a Stereophile writer I may even consider it a compliment: Denmark, with barely a third of the Netherlands' population, has produced so many hi-fi manufacturers, you can't throw a capacitor without hitting an audio engineer. We Dutch have some catching up to do.
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