A lot of us do say "eh" and use it for emphasis when the need arises and we are known for the occasional hockey riot.
We have a socialized medical system which is the envy of a lot my American buddies. This comes in handy after you have punctured your toe with a very large and extremely sharp speaker spike. Although it can be difficult to explain to the admitting nurse.
I say Canadians are passionate, because the previous post about Vinyl records and their history has caused a stir. Analog lovers have spoken, and I am reminded that Canada has, and has always had, its fair share of audiophiles. Many high end manufacturers are indeed Canadian ( a future post).
Similar to Molson-fuelled hockey arguments, my sanity has been called into question regarding the analog vs. digital debate. Also my writing skills have been dissected. Keep in mind that I am a product of the Canadian public school system where, in your senior year, you was presented with two choices: Typing or wood shop. Take a wild guess which one I chose. The first choice was always met with howls of derision. " Typing ? what are you , a secretary ?". It was an all-boys high school, and being coerced by your peers with all that testosterone floating around was inevitable. Alas, who knew that typing would become a valuable skill to have. Fast forward several years, and I am now relegated to type with the two-finger hunt and peck method. Turns out that I don't like working with wood either.
In Canada we are fortunate to have a site called Canuck Audio Mart. It is truly a wonderful site dedicated to the buying and selling of used high end audio equipment. In true Canadian democratic fashion, it is absolutely free to use.
When I am having my eight cups of coffee in the morning, I like to turn on my computer and see what is going on. Facebook just doesn't do it for me anymore. I have grown weary of seeing posts with pictures of cats, pictures of elaborate meals that are about to be consumed ( and surely getting cold in the process) and left-leaning political debates. Once in a while, when a voyeuristic streak takes hold of me, and I like to look at the free section of craigslist.. The free toilet bowls, piles of dirt, worn-out sofas and canoes that longer float amuse me.
Call me a geek if you must, but I look to look at the ads on Canuck Audio Mart and drool over the pictures of all the high end ( and sometimes esoteric) equipment being offered for sale. Often the photos offer a glimpse of the seller's living room and the equipment set-up. I wish that it were possible to listen to all those audio systems.
When I had first conceived this particular blog, my aim was to reach audiophiles and non-audiophiles alike. It seems that my debates have caught the attention of a lot of audiophiles. I have ( not too unexpectedly) opened a Pandora's box, and that box is the age old analog vs. digital debate. That's a good one and it seems that analog has more staunch defenders than digital at this point. I feel, however, that a few clarifications are in order.
I never flat out stated that I am anti-analog. If kids that are perplexed by carbon paper and rotary phones want to buy a turntable and get into to vinyl, then hell, why not? I have many fond memories of vinyl. As stated in the previous post, that was the format that music was offered in and that was that.
The beautiful thing about records, was the feeling of ownership. They were big ( and relatively cheap back in the day) and that size made it possible to include fantastic cover art, booklets and often , lyrics. Looking at all the cool stuff inside was part of the listening process. They would require a lot of shelf space, but one would feel a pride of ownership just looking at rows upon rows of records.
Some record stores had listening listening rooms in the back where you could listen to your latest purchase. They had speakers setup, but the turntable was at the front. There were lots of beanbag chairs and one large ashtray. Yeah, we would smoke cigarettes in that sealed room while listening to a whole side of an album. With all the beanbag chairs and curtains, it's a miracle that we didn't all accidentally immolate ourselves.
Spending an entire afternoon was part of the process. When CD's came into their own, the shopping process was exactly the same. It would take hours to flip through the various sections, and like the record stores that preceded them, the CD stores had an extensive selection and one could find obscure releases. We had Sam and HMV here in Vancouver, and we also had A&B. The earnest music cats at A&B and I had similar tastes in music, and they would recommend all kinds of cool stuff. They also had CD players set up with headphones and you could listen to you heart's content without necessarily buying the CD you had selected.
Like records, CD's had artwork, albeit smaller, but the pride of ownership was the same. When I look at my CD's ( as I used to with records) I can remember when and where I acquired and often , the circumstances that surround it. Sadly, downloaded music does not have that nostalgia factor.
As stated in an earlier post, my very first jobs were in audio. I was working at a place where we would blow up resistors with large power supplies during our down time ( hell yeah, it was fun). My co worker was older than me and a serious audiophile. His best friend was Linn dealer ( and still is to this day). It wasn't long until we all became good buddies and I was hooked up with my first Linn LP-12. I became a disciple of Linn's "source first" philosophy and continue to follow that doctrine.
Over the years, I acquired later iterations of the LP-12 . You might scoff and say that have remained virtually unchanged over the years, but there have been many upgrades, such as main bearings and suspensions. I installed my own tone arms and tuned the suspensions myself. Linns don't agree well with large pieces of furniture that store low frequency energy, so I designed and welded my own wall-mounted support because I thought that the similar ones made by Target ( the furniture company, not the store that Canadians didn't like) were ugly and crappy. I eventually mounted my CD player on this shelf and it worked great. The landlord was still pissed at me for having a big black thing mounted on the wall however. Yeah, yeah, yeah.. I fixed the drywall when I moved.
Unfortunately vinyl ( like all other formats ) had its shortcomings and flaws. Not all records were perfect or sounded good. as one astute reader pointed out, record companies would use record stampers until they were worn to a nub, almost to the point of being useless. This is what they were stamping your favorite records with and what you were spending your hard-earned cash on. There were then, as there are now, many people willing to take advantage of consumers. Many hucksters got into the record business and sold inferior products. Discount compilation albums on no-name labels, drugstore xmas albums, and "record clubs" that tried to buffalo you into buying truckloads of bad music that had been mailed to you unsolicited. And I'm sure everyone remembers K-Tel ( ask your dad). It didn't get more lo-fi than that and the artwork seems to have been commissioned to some monkeys with sharpies.
Another reader asked about the analog process. Analog can have great potential, lots of dynamic range and impressive resolution if it's done properly. Direct to disc recordings were not mainstream, but dang, they sounded good. The problem with analog is that every step reduces resolution, not unlike a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy ( like all photocopies of hands that almost everyone has inevitably made at one time or another). Even though analog master tapes were two inches wide and running at 30 I.P.S., something was lost when mixed and transferred to the cutting lathe. Even so, there was potential to extract a lot of information from the final product. The main problem was, and unfortunately still is, that the majority of music consumers listen to vinyl on shitty turntable. I don't need Linn to tell me that the better the source, the more detail and resolution it will extract. Simple.
Digital doesn't miss a thing however, but there can be downsides. The first generation ADATs were cold, analytical and somewhat lifeless. Even producers of Techno music would do their mix-downs through tube consoles just to restore an organic feel to the music. These digital artifacts were addressed over the years and I would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't think that a 24 bit recording run through a high quality DAC with today's advanced chip technology sounds spectacular.
When CD's finally took over the market, I had to make some decisions. Sure I had a lot records, but I still wanted to acquire more music. LP's were simply not available, even in the music that I liked. Touring bands would still sell cool t-shirts at the merch table, but if you wanted to get the music, it was on CD ( admittedly more convenient, as LP's or even 45's are difficult to stick in your back pocket).
One reader erroneously assumed that I thought that a NAD 502 sounded better than a Linn LP-12. I just got that CD player to see what all the fuss was about and also to play the scant collection CD's that I had at the time. Most of them were promos given to me by bands. At first, I didn't even know what the hell these were. " A CD?.....er ...OK thanks". " What am I supposed to do with this thing now ?".
CD's started to become enticing and becoming , for me at least, a viable alternative. They were so damned convenient. Dealers usually kept silent about the fact that a laser pick up had an average lifespan of about 5000 hours, but that's a whole other post. In all honesty, it made vinyl tedious by comparison. Cleaning records before playing was a pain in my butt. I would rather gargle with gravel than replace a brutally expensive stylus. LP-12's needed regular tuning,and to me, it was about as much fun as tuning a sitar in a subway station. Maybe I was getting a bit lazy, but damn, you just plop the CD in that black box and away you go. Audiophiles might argue that a well taken care of record shouldn't have and pops or clicks, but nevertheless it happened. Anyone remember this bizarre gizmo ?
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| Power source is a Rice Krispies bar and a squirrel. |
Bottom line was money pure and simple.We all know what high end equipment costs ( Linn being right up there with space shuttle spare parts) so I came to the conclusion that I simply could not afford to support two formats . Lucky for me my buddy is a Linn dealer, eh? After some finagling, horse trading and promises of mopping the floors in his shop for the next 35 years, I traded my venerable LP-12 for a Linn CD player. I traded for a Genki at first, but then a Karik/Numerik became available. Even though it was used, it offered superior performance. I haven't looked back since.
I recently attended the Vancouver audio show. First one in 15 years and it was awesome. I was surprised how many demo rooms were using turntables as source components. A friend of mine was showing a Wilson Sacha/Devialet combo fed by a Nottingham Audio turntable. It sounded great. As a side note, my off the cuff comment about the Devialet fitting inside pizza boxes went down like a lead balloon. I thought it was hilarious, but I was the only one it seems.
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| Seriously. tell me that doesn't fit in there. |
Apologies for indulging in a lot of techno-babble, and it's perfectly OK if you don't agree with me. What we can all agree on, audiophiles and non-audio folk alike, is that it's time to listen to some music.
As for myself, my eighth cup of coffee is ready. Yeah, I got the shakes, but I don't have to go anywhere near a stylus.
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