Stephen Mejias

My new Rega P3-24 sits atop a Polycrystal equipment rack given to me by Jonathan Scull. Radiohead's Kid A never sounded so good.

I did not find what I was looking for at the">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/jersey_city_record_riot/">the Jersey City Record Riot, but I did find two reasonably priced Tom Waits albums (Blue Valentine and Rain Dogs) and Peter Lang’s debut, The Thing at the Nursery Room Window, on John Fahey’s Takoma label. I had forced myself to be extremely selective, and, though the many kind and interesting vendors were making it difficult for me to hold back from buying more, I did in fact hold back.

While Jon was on">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/jons_rainbow/">on his way home, I was back at Lucia">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/lucia_lodge/">Lucia Lodge, working on “Recommended Components.” Earlier in the day, Jon and I had had a big lunch, but I knew that Tom, the lodge manager, would be expecting me for dinner at Lucia’s restaurant. Though I wasn’t particularly hungry, I shut down my laptop, and walked outside. Funny how things work out.

I had made room for vinyl LPs on my small bookshelf. It worked out alright, except that the shelf only went ten inches deep, leaving a good two inches of my poor, homeless LPs hanging off into open space. I could not continue to subject them to this sort of abuse. They would need a proper home, and soon.

I had made room for LPs on my tall bookshelf, carefully placing vinyl records along the cheap chipboard until the shelf bowed in the center and threatened to collapse. I didn't like this very much at all. I spent days away from home fearing that the shelf would give way. I'd come home from a long day in the office to find The Byrds and Henry Fiol, Herbie Hancock and Sam Beam, all in a jumbled mess of vinyl and plastic and wood and carpet. Yet, more LPs would soon arrive.

I don't know nothing about nothing — I don't even own an iPodhttp://www.stereophile.com/budgetcomponents/934/index.html">iPod; — but when I opened the attachment and scanned the press release, I was absolutely and immediately impressed.