Friday, August 16, 2013

Swan Song

Once upon a time, two years ago, at the crack of dawn, I helped The Audiophile hoist something insanely heavy out of The Listening Room. To be honest, I wasn't amused that morning, but I decided I could either be lemony about his hobby or I could write a blog and peddle it as lemonade.

One hundred posts later, I've been both sweet and sour. Audiophilia has tested my emotions and probably always will. I love it when The Audiophile spends an entire weekend coaxing perfection out of a collection of components, and I hate it when I'm jealous about the degree to which this hobby consumes him sometimes.

In the last two years, I've learned a great deal from the forum comments about this blog. Some audiophiles think I'm hilarious and want to marry me; some think I'm a disrespectful waste of their time; and some think I'm actually an audiophile -- and a male one at that.

As I bring this adventure to a close, I'd simply like to clarify that although I'm not a humorist, I do crack myself up. Although I have the capacity to be disrespectful, it is only by the Grace of God that I am not. And although I'm not a man, it would appear that I am indeed... becoming an audiophile.

And that, my friends, (who have enjoyed this tagline) is audio winning.

Friday, August 9, 2013

One Trick Pony

After writing last week about my substandard test song, I decided I should pick a new one. Since I am not a member of The Audiophile Test Song Coalition, I spied on them through the World Wide Web.

This resulted in a peculiar list of songs that real people would never listen to. Next, I cross-referenced these songs with The Audiophile's personal collection to see if he was a real person. Let's just say there were enough of these titles in his library to confirm he is a figment of my imagination.

In the end, and at the risk of becoming imaginary myself, I selected one of these songs as my very own. It's the kind of song I can play over and over and not get tired of. Plus, it makes me feel kind of coltish, and that always improves the acoustics and my general willingness to participate in the A/B/C/D/E/F/G test.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Friday, August 2, 2013

The Alphabet Song

During the month of July, The Audiophile officiated more A/B tests than usual. There were two reasons this proved challenging for me:

First, my test song does not conform to The Standards as defined by The Audiophile Test Song Coalition. When I chose this song years ago, I didn't know there were standards. I just thought you picked a song, listened to it, and said some esoteric things about the sound.

Second, I was under the assumption that an A/B test involved an A and then a B. So when he threw in five additional configurations and made it an A/B/C/D/E/F/G test, my head nearly exploded because I don't have a PhD in anything.

Still, I believe I was able to put forth some seemingly intelligent comments about what I was hearing. And really, when you think about it, this is extraordinary given all the ambient background noise that was galloping around the room as a result of my poorly recorded test song.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.