Wow And Flutter

Long and short pieces on music you should listen to; audio gear; and pop culture.

Tag: Sonos

I need a 12 step program for vinyl

March 14, 2019 /

I was not always such a voracious music consumer (shocking, I know.)  Yeah, I’d always been immersed in the music scene and had lots of bands that I loved, followed and went to see, and I DID work in a record store for a couple of years.  But collecting?  That was for those Goldmine nerds chasing a mint condition Beatles butcher cover.  Nope, I bought stuff to PLAY.

Then, this happened:

1000 songs!

Yes, the iPod.  1000 songs in your pocket!  For the first time I could carry around all of the music I owned and listen to it, any time I wanted.  Problem was, I had way more stuff on vinyl than I did on CD.  So the bulk of my collection (maybe less than 100 LPs) was essentially languishing on its shelf. 

So I got working.  If I know how to do anything, it’s research stuff, so me and the Google figured out how to record LPs to WAV files with my audio rig, split the tracks, convert them to MP3s, stuff them into iTunes, then sync them to my iPod.  And for a good couple of months, I was on Cloud 9, walking around with my shiny white iPod and my Koss PortaPros, shunning the radio.

After a while, that little box got too small.  So as soon as iPods with bigger hard drives became available, I upgraded.  And after a while longer, those pops and clicks on some of my records weren’t so cute, so I found the magical Burwen noise reduction units (hiss and pop-and-click) on eBay and put them in my tape loop.  And once those iPods got big enough, I switched over the superior Apple Lossless format.  And all those files needed a bigger house in which to live, so I got them a nice NAS drive.  Which came in handy when I got a pair of Sonos speakers.  Etc. 

Now, I wasn’t afraid of those garage sale finds anymore!  But there’s something about garage sale records: they’re generally, um, pretty filthy.  And people, some of those dirty records are worth taking a chance on.  I wasn’t going to let a little dirt and dust keep me away from checking out those 50 cent treasures!  So, the thing that really turned me into a vinylvore was this little game changer, the Nitty Gritty 1.5 vacuum record cleaner:

CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN those records.

This was the portal to the Land Of Vinyl.  Now everything was in play (so to speak).  If a record can be cleaned (and it’s astonishing what a good cleaning will do), it’s playable, and nothing is off-limits.  You see something cheap that’s interesting?  (I’m looking at you, old-ass John Renbourn album.)  Dollar bins?  Yes please!  And, it’s liberating.  I’ve gotten into so much great music that I would have otherwise have passed on because noisy=unplayable.

But I’m not obsessed.  No.

Holding On To That Teenage Feeling

February 21, 2019 /

I’m lucky enough to have a dedicated listening room.  After I got married, my stereo bounced around to a bunch of different places, even (horrors!) getting boxed up for a couple of years.  Most of those rooms weren’t optimal – usually a place where the TV was always on, hence little opportunity to really listen, so it was off to the iPod.  Which wasn’t bad at all – certainly better than nothing, but not the same as having a space where you could settle in and just LISTEN.  Then, about 15 years ago, we did the basement over so the kids (and their friends, TBH) could have a place to hang.  Part of the plan included a room that was perfect for listening, where I could put my speakers exactly where they should be, and LOTS of wall space for vinyl.  And yeah, you could crank it up without any complaints from everyone else.

Recently, though, I had a chance to do the same thing upstairs in a room off the kitchen.  My kids are out of the house, and it became more convenient – and nicer – to walk down the hall rather than down to my underground lair.  Basically.  This room was a blank slate – it wasn’t as private as my old listening room downstairs, but I was able to turn it into a comfortable place that could double as my home office as well as a music room.  However, as part of the deal with my wife, the bulk of my vinyl collection had to remain downstairs 🙁 but all of my vinyl has been digitized to my NAS drive, I can access that over my Sonos. 🙂 

The whole experience has been a revival of my yearly back-to-college ritual – pack up the stereo at the end of the summer, set it up in the dorm room, get everything where you want it to be, tweak things here and there.  There’s that sense of newness, the promise of an amazing year, and the social bonding around music (parties, late night listening) that never gets old.  The vinyl revival taps into those very human feelings, which is why it’s lasted longer than the most jaded techies thought it would.  It’s easy to just call up a Spotify playlist and listen, and that (still) is an amazing feat, but the ritual of putting on an LP, or even a CD, and sitting down to listen is something that, once experienced, never leaves you.  Now, please excuse me as I slip into something more comfortable…

“Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.”  – Miles Davis

 

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