Revelation Song

If The Audiophile ever questions why I continue to throw him under the imaginary bus it is because he continues to provide me with material, and I’m publicly passive aggressive when properly provoked.

Case in point:

Last Sunday was Easter, and while I almost never request a song of The Audiophile, I asked him to play a specific piece in the spirit of the occasion. Just one song, mind you. Not a gaggle of songs or a flock or a quintillion—just one.  

The Audiophile was feet-up lounging on the entirety of The Listening Sofa, but he kindly queued up the song.

I stood in front of The Listening Sofa to occupy the general area of the sweet spot so I could fully immerse myself in this single, one to the power of one, song.

The Audiophile, still lounging directly behind me, picked up his iPad and began to play a narrated tutorial on how to soundproof a wall.

I did not have a measuring device to calculate the distance between my right ear hearing his iPad tutorial and my left ear hearing the requested song, but he can tell you the hypotenuse of that equation is equal to one arm's-length bap on the head.

TAW

The Quiet One

The Audiophile has not been listening to anything lately because it has been too loud to listen. Why too loud? Depending on who you are, “planned communities” will be perceived as one of two things: A) a cacophonous warzone of never-ending noise, or B) a delightful opportunity to mingle with friendly neighbors who live six feet away in every direction.

You be the judge of who is perceiving which of the above in this fairytale gingerbread house in which we live. Instead of competing with circular saws, pneumatic hammers, and the sound of boulders being crushed into smaller boulders, we are spending every day of our lives looking for a house in the quiet where there are no neighbors or dogs or birds or overhead flight patterns or tectonic plates that might need to shift in anyway whatsoever amen.

Fortunately, we will soon be headed to AXPONA for a little R&R. That is IF we define R&R as having a room sandwiched between two other rooms occupied by all manner of rectangular objects that can project sound at very high volumes into the wee hours of the night.

TAW

P.S. If you are at the show, and you are a spouse, I hope to see you at the meet-up for the victims of sound. It will be on Saturday evening at 5:00 in the hotel lobby. If we're lucky, the audiophiles will pick up the tab. 

 

Bicycle Built For Two

The Audiophile has a second system in his workshop so he can listen to music while inhaling soldering fumes. I’m not sure if that’s legal or not, but until someone from the DEA shows up in a hazmat suit with a warrant for his arrest, I’ll assume it’s permissible even if it is not beneficial.

I pay no attention to this second system, and it pays no attention to me even though my Peloton is basically in the sweet spot. It’s worth noting that I call it MY Peloton, and I’ll know precisely when The Audiophile reads this post because he will shout something like, “IT’S NOT JUST YOUR PELOTON.” To which I will respond, “I guess that explains why it is in the sweet spot.”

Anyway, I am pretty sure this second system suffers with insecurity issues. It is much smaller than the main system. It has far fewer rectangles hooked up to it. And there isn’t a single thing hanging on the walls to absorb, diffuse or otherwise make it feel like the center of the workshop universe.

To add insult to injury, I use my Airpods when I saddle up the bike for a ride. As I write this, I feel kind of bad about this situation. Maybe I should apologize to the system or at least give the speakers a clever name. I am also wondering if I should wheel the Peloton out of that room so it isn’t dominating the sweet spot for no good reason. If nothing else, I’ll be able to ride without breathing the secondhand soldering fumes, which apparently leads to anthropomorphizing audio systems and blogging about it.

TAW

P.S. If you Peloton, add #audiophiles to your profile and send out the high fives!

What A Fool Believes

Today is April 1st, and audiophiles located in the United States get to celebrate by saying crazy things like, “Preamp A is more resolving than Preamp B,” even if it’s not true. Sadly, there are other countries that are limited to pranks involving fish. This makes it difficult to rib an audiophile in France without turning their preamp into a rank smelling toaster oven.

I mention all this to clarify the following statement is not a joke or a prank. It also has nothing to do with cooking fish in a preamp even though I think that could be a nice selling point.

Here’s the statement (also known as a confession): The Audiophile is no longer the only person in this house who can hear the difference between the A and the B. In fact, during this week’s A/B of two DACs, I easily detected which one cost as much as a nice vacation and which one cost as much as two nice vacations.

This presents a conundrum: A) I continue to play the fool, or B) I grow a nicely trimmed beard and stroke it while pontificating such things as harmonic distortion and room reverberation.

I chose A. There’s not nearly enough tomfoolery in the world, and while I might be able to grow a beard if I really let myself go, I do not know how to describe sound like The Audiophile. With that said, the DACs we tested this week do have me wondering whether we even need a vacation this year let alone two of them.

TAW