That One Bad Day - Part 2

There was an incident this week that caused The Audiophile to become ill-tempered and incapable of speaking for a short period of time. It seems he was in The Listening Room scrabbling around on all fours connecting and disconnecting the connecting things when he inadvertently knocked over one of the speakers.

Let’s take a moment here and thank The Lord God Almighty that I was more than two miles away from The Listening Room when the incident occurred.

The speaker that took the direct hit was formerly in pristine condition, but now it has a blemish that will require a furniture surgeon and divine healing to repair. Additionally, I noticed his pants had a conspicuous tear in a location that could have taken him from being a tenor to being a soprano. I don’t think it would be wise for me to ask if the two mishaps are related to one another, so I’ll just nurture the slow-motion picture I have in my mind of him sailing through the air in a valiant attempt to catch the speaker before it hit the ground at the five yard line.

Surprisingly, The Audiophile recovered from the incident fairly quickly. I don’t know if that is because he has found a ten-step program to process his audio emotions in an appropriate manner or if it is because he has decided it is time for new speakers. Either way I, by the grace of God, was more than two miles away from The Listening Room when the incident occurred.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

I Got You Babe

Last Saturday I was blessed with another field trip to an audio store.  This particular store dealt exclusively with a line of speakers that comes with a unique feature.

I am embarrassed to admit this, but at first I thought the unique feature was a high-tech maraca – which is a very cool idea if you ask me. However, upon closer inspection I determined the maracas were, in fact, attached to the speakers and not maracas at all but rather microphones.

Karaoke has never appealed to me as a means of entertainment because of the Las Vegas odds of it being a positive experience, but I was thinking if audiophiles wanted to indulge themselves in a little Sonny and Cher action in the privacy of their homes, then who am I to judge.

That being said, I was squinting at the microphones wondering exactly how they slid out from the top of the speaker when I was interrupted by The Audiophile who shattered my little dream with, "Those are the tweeters."

Oh. Tweeters. Of course. I didn't tell him this at the time, but The Audiophile saved me from performing a classic "testing... one... two... three..." sound check that would have been difficult to gracefully recover from without deploying an "I'm just kidding" lie or going all the way with my half of a karaoke duet. 

 And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Big Babies

A while back The Audiophile and I were enjoying a weekend trip to a heavily-populated city which, if I'm lucky, guarantees a visit to the local stereo shop. Par norm, I was wandering aimlessly about the store thinking about how high one could stack boxes of components before they would crash to the ground in a suicidal melee, when I overhead The Audiophile and the proprietor having an animated conversation.

The discussion centered around drivers and whether they could handle the load. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but with all the fuss about NOT TOUCHING the drivers, I'm thinking these namby pamby babies won't be able to handle ANY load because they ARE a load.

Of course, I did not shot-put my opinion into the conversation since it would have betrayed my appearance of chocolate-covered patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Instead I wandered off to one of the listening rooms to see if I could hold Tree Pose until the conversation ended.

In the end, my yoga practice was cut short because The Audiophile wanted my professional opinion on the wife acceptance factor of a pair of speakers that were, in my estimation, absolutely gorgeous. I do not know if there is any fame or fortune to be made in offering my seal of approval, but I should probably have some stickers made up just in case.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Walks Like a Woman

Once in a while, when The Audiophile is at work conducting official business, I sneak down to The Listening Room to conduct some official business of my own. I do not touch anything because I understand randomly punching at buttons can initiate a launch sequence that leads to global destruction; instead, I look at the merchandise with my eyes and not my hands.

This brings me to the new speakers. They needed to be given a name and christened as being boys or girls. At first blush, I would have said they were girls. After all, in last week's post I referred to them as being part of the harem. However, after careful meditation and thoughtful stroking of my chin, I remained confused about the precise gender of the new speakers.  

I hate to divulge the make and model of components because manufacturers might then be tempted to send expensive gear to me for my unbiased review, and I'm not sure I can carve out the time for that. So let’s just say the biological name of these speakers rhymes with Lola, as in L.O.L.A. Lola. Lo lo lo lo Lola. And from what I’ve heard, they may walk like a woman, but they definitely talk like a man.

All I know is The Audiophile is one of the world’s most passionate guys, and I think he has fallen for the Lolas. Hopefully he also likes Ray Davies because I’ve taken to singing an improvised version of his song regularly. Very regularly.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

The Honeymoon

It happened again. The Audiophile left on one of his covert business trips and returned home with a new pair of speakers in the back of the SUV.

Being nearly as sharp as most tacks in the tool shed, I was not surprised by the arrival of the new speakers because the half-naked skeletons and the body scanners that had formerly occupied the role of mewing melodious music into air had been gone for several hours – maybe even several days – leaving the remaining collection of rectangular components lonely, voiceless, and on the verge of clinical depression.

According to custom, I helped The Audiophile unshackle the crates from the vehicle, responded accordingly to his outstanding navigational commands, and earned an A+ for maneuvering my end of the bargain down the stairs like a man. Even though I am not a man.

The icing on the stereophonic cake came about two hours after The Audiophile had introduced his new brides into the harem and taken them for a leisurely stroll. He beckoned me to The Listening Boudoir and imparted the following verdict: They. Sound. Great.

Now begins my sporting desire to do everything subliminally possible to nurture the afterglow of his purchase. My personal goal in this independent competition is to stretch the ownership of this particular pair of great-sounding speakers to, oh, let's say the 4th of July for the fun of it.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Configure This

I know I am belly-flopping into sacred territory with this post, yet I feel I must. After all, honesty is the best policy if you are not married, never intend to be, or simply enjoy the act of throwing caution to the wind.

The Audiophile came home from work a while back with a big grin on his face. Many things went through my mind regarding the impetus for the readily apparent joy joy joy joy down in his heart, but it wasn't until he said, "I've got an idea for a new configuration," that I was brought into the inner sanctum of his effervescence.

Super, I thought, hopefully this will not require more than one or two post-configuration trips to the chiropractor because that guy is the only one who will be profiting from this endeavor if history repeats itself. Sure, I knew when I married The Audiophile that his hobby, I mean passion, would come with some risk, but I didn't know it was one of the excluded activities on a life insurance policy along with skydiving, non-commercial aviation, and acts of war.

Fortunately, the new configuration did not deliver the five moves of doom, and The Audiophile rearranged whatever it was that needed rearranging without insulting his spinal column. Additionally, the act of pushing and shoving helped him to determine the real issue at hand was not related to the configuration at all but rather his need for a new amplifier and a different pair of speakers.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Boxing Day

There is a holiday coming up on the 26th of December in which some people in some countries graciously present service workers, like the kindly delivery truck driver, with a gift for their death-defying service. I think this is a spectacular idea given the conditions these fine folks work under when tasked with carting unwieldy speaker crates and surly subwoofers around the globe and back again.

The Audiophile, however, observes Boxing Day a little differently. Sometime after Christmas, when he thinks I'll be looking to pole vault the tree back into the storage room, he will retreat to said room to privately celebrate his collection of original boxes. These boxes "which MAY be needed to ship a component and are NOT to be used by other members of the household" will be rearranged and organized like a nested community of belligerent Russian dolls.

When he is finished I will hear a muffled, sweaty shout from the basement beckoning me to come from afar and admire the man skills that were required to slay the corrugated dragon. Although it will be difficult to contain my excitement, I will calmly approach the victory ring while rehearsing my carefully crafted response which is always, "Wow, honey, that is incredible." This, according Dan Webster himself, is the precise word to use in a situation which is so extraordinary it seems impossible. Roger that, Mr. Webster, Roger that.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Speaking in Tongues

Here's something that may not apply to all audiophile's but certainly applies to The Audiophile with whom I am most familiar. It is the nature of how his brain functions when it comes to recalling basic information.

If you ask The Audiophile to name the speakers he had during the Reagan administration, he will instantly fire back with, "That would be the Hydrobobonic PR67's." Further quizzing about any of his ever-rotating inventory of components will reveal a freakish capacity for total recall. This is clearly a handy skill for those times when he is on the phone with another audiophile who speaks his language because it makes for scintillating conversation.

Yet if you ask The Audiophile to bear witness to our children's dates of birth, things get a little dicey even though we only have two or three kids. So, being the unconditionally loving wife that I play in my own mind, I have devised a plan to refer to the fruit of our loins with a helpful nomenclature.

It will go something like, "Honey, SM328 called and he and SP404 will be here for Christmas. Oh, and before I forget, a 'bedroom system' may seem like a great gift idea for MegaWife 2.0, but she would really prefer bubble bath and a lifetime supply of never moving a subwoofer again."

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Gender Confusion

It seems there are a couple of readers out there who believe I am a man. Perhaps this is because I have not devoted sufficient airtime to the discussion of birthing children or divulged a weakness for designer shoes. To authenticate my gender, I conducted an unscientific survey in which two out of two people unanimously agreed I have the necessary anatomical coordinates to be classified as a woman.

That being settled, there needs to be some consensus on whether stereo components are male or female. In my opinion, the following are all male: subwoofers, components housed in austere rectangular cases, and speakers that flirt unabashedly with the ceiling. That leaves speakers that do not flirt with the ceiling for closer examination.

The smaller more demure speakers, which do not rupture one's spleen when moving them from Point A to Point B to Point A, could be mistaken as female, but I propose most are actually male. The defining characteristic that separates the he's from the she's, if I'm not mistaken, is the slight taper in the midsection, which creates the womanly silhouette. These rare and exotic creatures, as mentioned previously, can be found in the workshop of the Denmarkian elves who handcraft these lovely ladies while maintaining a high degree of sensitivity to their cyclical highs and lows.

As for the gender of the elves, my feminine intuition tells me they are probably men because women would question the necessity of green tights and pointy wooden shoes to obtain an accurate frequency response.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Reading Pleasure

The Audiophile subscribes to several magazines devoted to the obvious. I had never paid much attention to these periodicals because I assumed from looking at the covers that they were not written in my native tongue.

This all changed recently when I decided to thumb through an issue of what I will call "The Sound Pile." I didn't read any of the articles because that could have compromised my ignorance on this subject, but I did notice an advertisement featuring a physically enchanted woman posing with a pair of speakers.

The shocking part was she appeared to have been granted permission to actually touch the audio equipment. I looked carefully in the background of the image to see if I could make out an audiophile in the periphery shouting at her to NOT touch the drivers, whatever those are, but she seemed to have carte blanche over the photo shoot.

All in all, these magazines seem harmless enough as long as you wear a head-mounted magnifier to read the minuscule font used in the layout. Not that I'm complaining about the minuscule font because from a cost-benefit perspective we are definitely getting our money's worth out of these subscriptions with or without the speaker candy.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

His and Hers

The Audiophile doesn't always do so right away, but eventually he reads my weekly post. He astutely likes to point out where I've stated something incorrectly, which is pretty much all of the time given my proclivity for ignorance and hyperbole.

Recently he read the Hello Dolly entry in which I bemoaned the loss of my favorite speakers that departed our mud hut several years ago. THEN he used the departed as a swinging pocket watch to convince me we needed a Second System for MY living space.

As soon as I gave him my hypnotized go-ahead, he dashed to the www and began to quiz me on which speakers I wanted. I responded that I wanted them in rosewood. He peppered me with many other irrelevant questions all to which I replied, "I want them in rosewood."

A few days later some guy in Texas was packing up my rosewood furniture while his inconsolable wife was probably choking out a eulogy. I imagine her clinging to the ankles of the apologetic FedEx guy as he dragged both her and the crates down the driveway.

This post is dedicated to that wife. Dear wife, thank you for relinquishing parental rights to the twins. Rest assured they will be regularly polished with a free-range diaper, and, if necessary, I will puff myself up like a cat to protect them from the delinquent subwoofers that swagger through on occasion.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Big Boys

The Audiophile was out of town on business again this week. Or should I say "business." Call me old fashioned, but I like to make sure he has what he needs before leaving on these trips. You know, clean socks, hardtack, and a pile of American currency which leads me to why this was a parenthetical business trip.

There will be, and I quote, "A stop on the way home to pick up a pair of speakers." Now, understand, I don't care about the stop or the speakers or the departure of the currency, but I am concerned about the "on the way home" part of that statement because Kansas was definitely not on the way home, Toto.

When he pulled in the garage he was very excited to see me. And by "me" I mean me on the receiving end of the 100-pound twins that needed to be birthed from the back of the SUV.

After some fretting over cables and compatibility, his new-used speakers were up and running or at least slow jogging in their place of submission behind the body scanners. In my opinion, the new additions to the family look normal enough from the front, but when you glance at their backsides it is like seeing a pair of half-naked skeletons. Not that skeletons regularly wear clothes, but they should.

All I know for sure is the arrival of new gear is like a holiday because it turns The Audiophile into a kid on Christmas morning who has come downstairs in his footie pajamas to find a poopless pony tethered to the tree.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Hello Dolly

Once upon a time there were a pair of beautiful speakers in The Listening Room. Saying I loved them would probably make The Audiophile feel bad for having cold-heartedly boxed them up and sold them to some incredibly lucky human being in a far-away land. Instead I'll just say I thought very highly of these beautiful speakers. And I miss them. And I think they miss me.

It doesn't seem prudent to mention brand names so let's just say they were probably made in Denmark where fastidious Denmarkian elves rubbed their cabinets by hand until the cherrywood itself sang just as eloquently as Carol Channing or Babs Streisand. I don't know why The Audiophile decided to get rid of these beauties, but that is not my business. My business is to nod in agreement as things move in and move out of The Listening Room in order to maintain my status as The Perfect Wife, I mean, The Audiophile's Wife.

Sadly, the speakers that currently live in The Listening Room have been called "body scanners" by an astute visitor who could not help but notice their unaesthetic qualities. Maybe, to be fair, they are simply more akin to modern art than, say, impressionism.

According to The Audiophile these body scanners produce fantastic sound. He says they are more transparent with a sound stage that... that... that... I don't know what he said after this because I drifted off a little during the explanation. Anyway, sometimes if I close my eyes and remain awake while listening to the body scanners, I can almost imagine they have the impressionistic beauty of the speakers of yesteryear.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.