When young and single I didn't care how the rented house looked or what you sat on, I could afford to buy hi end stereo. I'm married now, with 3 kids, and we can afford to buy hi end stereo, only there's about 17.6 other things we have to do first.
When computers came out, I waited many years, and finally spent about 3000 bucks. 3 years later my computer wasn't doing well. So I bought a friend's for a couple hundred until it too died. Then I just went to DEll and bought whatever the market would bear; not too high, not the bottom. I spent 800 and got a reasonable system. It's dead too now. I'm on my kid's bottom rung machine. Life is good down here.
The glorious Carver reciever gave up the ghost last year, and the only tunes I've heard, besides the ones in my head, have been while driving a motor vehicle with whatever the manufacturer crammed into the dash. So I thought I'd go to my local town, and buy a Boom Box. Just a Boom Box. You know? Something to tide me through until we could find a remedy for the dead Carver.
The store had a glorified boom box for 200. They called it a 'shelf system', but I know a Boom when I see one. It did everything. CD, radio, two bay cassette player, and with four speakers blathering all at once bragged 400 watts. Funny how they add up watts like that. There's a government job in accounting, (the IRS could use thinking like that,) waiting for them should the cheap electronics field finally crash and die. Only cheap electronics, like Rock n Roll, will never die. The Carver lasted 20 years through all kinds of brutaiity; broken knobs, dented cover, sonic holography blown out....what a ship in the night it had been for me. A real friend. Cheap electronics won't last 20 years, but they don't need to.
You just throw them away and buy more. That's the rat, and your patriotic duty. Consume, Brethren, add to the Heat Death of the Universe. It's like owning the same machine over and over again, only the head of the Hydra changes, the same beast is always there. And there is something to be said about going cheap, getting what has trickeled down from above and can now be offerred to the masses. What the market will bear. Much like what is on TV.
In the Store there was a 'reciever' for 200, same as the Boom Box. It bragged 150 watts. Now, I knew enough to know a cheap reciever wasn't going to give one clean watts, when a good reciever has a 100 and can barely call it clean. But I didn't want to spend 500 or 800 or this Got Durned Surround Sound nonsense. If I was going to spend that, I'd go up more and get a real power amp, or have the Carver fixed. I wanted...to get by. There's an ominious anthem. I wanted to skate. More watts with Cheap means you keep the volumne down and you'll do OK. I know this brothers....I know....it was just a few years ago, back in another land, another time and space where we were all a little kinder, and the Beatles were singing....
My Dad was an engineer who dragged his family West to the Boom. He had the first series of AR speakers, a Macintosh amp, and an simple stylus turntable. Ahhh. One day, after too many twisted knobs, too many young probing, intoxicated, heat seeking fingers did to his babies what he could not, and oh hell, the Amp just finally got too old anyway....He bought a replacement. Like everything I'd had all my life, it was a 'make do', not even the second or third or fourth rung, but all the way down to the belly of the Rat. The amp had an ungodly amount of Watts, just don't use them all and your speakers will retain their cone shapes. I think it cost 200 or less.
Poor dad. I wrecked his 60's bathtub porsche too....it was a creamy bannana yellow...and after he'd sold the heartbreak away... he got himself a bright yellow thingie...a subaru. In 1973 a subaru was not what it is today. Another story.
Go forward 20 or 30 years and....that amp is in my house now. Only the face changed. For 300 bucks I got five speakers, and a sub-woofer with it's own amp. I know...I know; for 300 bucks you can barely get a decent sub woofer all by itself....let alone with plastic friends like I have in my livingroom this morning.
So what happened when I turned it on? How did ole Townes Van Zandt sound, singing out about the booze, the road, lost life and loves...???!! Well...according to my manual, you get 10 percent total harmonic distortion at 150 watts, but only .7 at 100 watts. Thats what I got. And...Townes was still there...only he was in a box somewhere, trying to get out, in someone's home far away, sounding like a stereo, not like music.
Even my wife, who has a tin ear, noticed the difference in sound quality.
But I actually liked it. I mean, 300 bucks. I can put it on my TV, on that promised day when we jump into High Definition, and have noises coming in at my elbows as I watch Superheroes shoot machine guns at bad guys...or....heh heh heh; I can give it to my sons. They can ream it out, put their X Box through it, whatever.
There's a high end, pretty swell music forum I know, and I'm sorely tempted to show and list my new...lemme see....Kenmore, Kenright, Kenwell, oh...it's h here somewheres....Kenwood. Of course. Beloved name from my childhood that used to stand for something....now bright and shiny out of a chinese sweat shop. In the High End forums, it is customary to list your equipment as identification of your pure blood. It's the badge. You're in the know. You've arrived. Man, how I would arrive if I listed my 'Kenwood'.
Hey. It looks just like the higher priced Onxyo. That's important to a society based upon appearence. I know these things. I know these truths because I have lived amongst you, and because I watch TV. And sound? What is Sound? Over twenty years ago a youngish engineer named Carver listened to high end amplifiers, listened closely, and was able to design relatively inexpensive amplifiers that sounded about the same He was, and is a genius. Enter the digital age, where sound does not exist...but is put into a blender and recomposed like the transport beam of the Star Ship Enterprise. I've got all kinds of 'choices' in my new Rat system. Stadium...Dolby blaa blaa blaa, gazebo, foot rest, urinal behind the park wall, everything...the sound is morhped, changed, processed. Why, it even has a stereo setting. Sort of like a mixing board only with presets...the kind of presets you'd get if music were a fast food burger for a buck.
In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson is cruising through town and see's a sign; five tacos for a buck. He's frightened. HE wouldn't mind paying a buck for a single taco, but the idea of getting five of them rattles his gut. What kind of taco do you get when it only costs 20 cents?
Exactly. When CD's first arrived that's what we got; a cheap taco. The sampling rate of the blenders back in the early days were like 16 bit.....
They've improved them. I'll agree. But the philosophy has taken a downward turn. What is 'surround sound'? How did this get sold to the public? Was I asleep? Why was I not notified of this change?
Yeah. Who do I think I am, anyway....someone who could hear you? Who could listen? Who would know the difference? Naw.
We want more channels....and we got em. What they put through them is another story. Brittany knows. These kids see the writing on the wall. They know these things.
What would Townes say if he could hear himself now through my system?
Just keep singing the blues, sure he would.
munk
When computers came out, I waited many years, and finally spent about 3000 bucks. 3 years later my computer wasn't doing well. So I bought a friend's for a couple hundred until it too died. Then I just went to DEll and bought whatever the market would bear; not too high, not the bottom. I spent 800 and got a reasonable system. It's dead too now. I'm on my kid's bottom rung machine. Life is good down here.
The glorious Carver reciever gave up the ghost last year, and the only tunes I've heard, besides the ones in my head, have been while driving a motor vehicle with whatever the manufacturer crammed into the dash. So I thought I'd go to my local town, and buy a Boom Box. Just a Boom Box. You know? Something to tide me through until we could find a remedy for the dead Carver.
The store had a glorified boom box for 200. They called it a 'shelf system', but I know a Boom when I see one. It did everything. CD, radio, two bay cassette player, and with four speakers blathering all at once bragged 400 watts. Funny how they add up watts like that. There's a government job in accounting, (the IRS could use thinking like that,) waiting for them should the cheap electronics field finally crash and die. Only cheap electronics, like Rock n Roll, will never die. The Carver lasted 20 years through all kinds of brutaiity; broken knobs, dented cover, sonic holography blown out....what a ship in the night it had been for me. A real friend. Cheap electronics won't last 20 years, but they don't need to.
You just throw them away and buy more. That's the rat, and your patriotic duty. Consume, Brethren, add to the Heat Death of the Universe. It's like owning the same machine over and over again, only the head of the Hydra changes, the same beast is always there. And there is something to be said about going cheap, getting what has trickeled down from above and can now be offerred to the masses. What the market will bear. Much like what is on TV.
In the Store there was a 'reciever' for 200, same as the Boom Box. It bragged 150 watts. Now, I knew enough to know a cheap reciever wasn't going to give one clean watts, when a good reciever has a 100 and can barely call it clean. But I didn't want to spend 500 or 800 or this Got Durned Surround Sound nonsense. If I was going to spend that, I'd go up more and get a real power amp, or have the Carver fixed. I wanted...to get by. There's an ominious anthem. I wanted to skate. More watts with Cheap means you keep the volumne down and you'll do OK. I know this brothers....I know....it was just a few years ago, back in another land, another time and space where we were all a little kinder, and the Beatles were singing....
My Dad was an engineer who dragged his family West to the Boom. He had the first series of AR speakers, a Macintosh amp, and an simple stylus turntable. Ahhh. One day, after too many twisted knobs, too many young probing, intoxicated, heat seeking fingers did to his babies what he could not, and oh hell, the Amp just finally got too old anyway....He bought a replacement. Like everything I'd had all my life, it was a 'make do', not even the second or third or fourth rung, but all the way down to the belly of the Rat. The amp had an ungodly amount of Watts, just don't use them all and your speakers will retain their cone shapes. I think it cost 200 or less.
Poor dad. I wrecked his 60's bathtub porsche too....it was a creamy bannana yellow...and after he'd sold the heartbreak away... he got himself a bright yellow thingie...a subaru. In 1973 a subaru was not what it is today. Another story.
Go forward 20 or 30 years and....that amp is in my house now. Only the face changed. For 300 bucks I got five speakers, and a sub-woofer with it's own amp. I know...I know; for 300 bucks you can barely get a decent sub woofer all by itself....let alone with plastic friends like I have in my livingroom this morning.
So what happened when I turned it on? How did ole Townes Van Zandt sound, singing out about the booze, the road, lost life and loves...???!! Well...according to my manual, you get 10 percent total harmonic distortion at 150 watts, but only .7 at 100 watts. Thats what I got. And...Townes was still there...only he was in a box somewhere, trying to get out, in someone's home far away, sounding like a stereo, not like music.
Even my wife, who has a tin ear, noticed the difference in sound quality.
But I actually liked it. I mean, 300 bucks. I can put it on my TV, on that promised day when we jump into High Definition, and have noises coming in at my elbows as I watch Superheroes shoot machine guns at bad guys...or....heh heh heh; I can give it to my sons. They can ream it out, put their X Box through it, whatever.
There's a high end, pretty swell music forum I know, and I'm sorely tempted to show and list my new...lemme see....Kenmore, Kenright, Kenwell, oh...it's h here somewheres....Kenwood. Of course. Beloved name from my childhood that used to stand for something....now bright and shiny out of a chinese sweat shop. In the High End forums, it is customary to list your equipment as identification of your pure blood. It's the badge. You're in the know. You've arrived. Man, how I would arrive if I listed my 'Kenwood'.
Hey. It looks just like the higher priced Onxyo. That's important to a society based upon appearence. I know these things. I know these truths because I have lived amongst you, and because I watch TV. And sound? What is Sound? Over twenty years ago a youngish engineer named Carver listened to high end amplifiers, listened closely, and was able to design relatively inexpensive amplifiers that sounded about the same He was, and is a genius. Enter the digital age, where sound does not exist...but is put into a blender and recomposed like the transport beam of the Star Ship Enterprise. I've got all kinds of 'choices' in my new Rat system. Stadium...Dolby blaa blaa blaa, gazebo, foot rest, urinal behind the park wall, everything...the sound is morhped, changed, processed. Why, it even has a stereo setting. Sort of like a mixing board only with presets...the kind of presets you'd get if music were a fast food burger for a buck.
In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson is cruising through town and see's a sign; five tacos for a buck. He's frightened. HE wouldn't mind paying a buck for a single taco, but the idea of getting five of them rattles his gut. What kind of taco do you get when it only costs 20 cents?
Exactly. When CD's first arrived that's what we got; a cheap taco. The sampling rate of the blenders back in the early days were like 16 bit.....
They've improved them. I'll agree. But the philosophy has taken a downward turn. What is 'surround sound'? How did this get sold to the public? Was I asleep? Why was I not notified of this change?
Yeah. Who do I think I am, anyway....someone who could hear you? Who could listen? Who would know the difference? Naw.
We want more channels....and we got em. What they put through them is another story. Brittany knows. These kids see the writing on the wall. They know these things.
What would Townes say if he could hear himself now through my system?
Just keep singing the blues, sure he would.
munk
My first receiver was a 2-channel KLH rated at about 10 watts/channel. I bought a second 8" driver from Radio Shack and built another cabinet for it - now I had true stereo. After using the speakers in the Rambler station wagon which my twin brother and I were allowed to drive in high school (the cabinets took up a big chunk of the cargo area), I took them to college. I later built another couple of cabinets (sealed, 8" full range drivers plus separate tweeters). I have since moved on to various other "entry level" components. Would love to have a dedicated music/home theater room one day. By coincidence, I retrieved my first speakers from my Mom's house just last month and am planning on replacing the old drivers. Then I can blast out the Skynyrd, and maybe some Kiss, just like old times. 
