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.

Tis the Season

Seeing as how this is the time of the year where we celebrate the birth of our Savior by stimulating the economy, I thought I would give The Audiophile something related to his hobby. I mean, not his hobby, because I've been told it is not a hobby, but rather his... his... I don't know. If it is not his career, and it is not his hobby, I guess that makes it his passion, which sounds somewhat better than calling it the "love of his life."

The mailbox cooperated with my plan by offering six catalogs peddling everything from tiny underpants to chocolate-covered prunes, which should probably not be partaken of simultaneously. My attention, however, was on the audio catalog whom I selected as my traveling companion for the business at hand.

It took about six seconds with my nose in the glossy pages for me to realize this was not going to be easy or comfortable. I had no idea a power amp needed mega isolation nor did I realize metal connectors were susceptible to oxidation and corrosion. If this wasn't horrifying enough there was a photograph of a $13,000 subwoofer (reduced to $7,999) with a mature gentleman crouched next to it TOUCHING THE DRIVER.

For the record, I would like to say my intentions were good, but the non-audiophile has no business saddling up the hi-fi pony on the Christmas catalog merry-go-round. Fortunately, The Audiophile also likes wool socks and chocolate-covered fruit so I've got that going for me.

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.

Conspiracy Theories

My distrust of subwoofers has been well documented in previous posts, but I may have to add "enormous speaker crates" to the list of the maligned.

Currently The Audiophile has two sets of speakers doing the Cotton-Eyed Joe in The Listening Room. So far; so good. However, the set that is generally referred to as the "body scanners" arrived in crates that could easily hold a dead body or I suppose a live body, but I prefer not to think on that so, redact.

The crates had been living peaceably in our garage, minding their own business, or so I thought, until the day The Audiophile determined they should be moved inside to the storage room. This seemed like a fine idea to me since one of our able-bodied sons had been recruited to assist with the transportation detail.

The problem arose when the lid, JUST the lid, from one of the crates launched itself at The Audiophile's biggest of toes. I don't know if the lid was in telepathic cahoots with the subwoofer or if this was the work of a lone gunman, but the near-death experience certainly gives one pause. The good news is, The Audiophile did not need surgery, stitches, or an amputation. And thank goodness for that because a prosthetic toe would have totally horsed up the acoustics in The Listening Room.

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.

That One Bad Day

A few years ago, The Audiophile and I were entertaining a convivial couple with our witty banter and good looks. When that had run its course, The Audiophile segued to Plan B and ushered us to The Listening Room with a moderate amount of fanfare about our senses being on the verge of pleasures unknown.

He played a couple of songs at normal listening levels to assess whether we could handle the pent-up testosterone of the subwoofer, and then he slowly began to up the volume until he had perfectly synchronized our bobbing heads. Shortly after this, things went awry. It was the aroma that first got our attention. Something was burning, like hair or poultry feathers or forty-five dead cows.

The Audiophile threw himself at the subwoofer to presumably reestablish his position of dominance and then quickly turned his attention to one of the other rectangular things on the forbidden side of the room. After fussing with a couple of screws, he lifted the case on the innocent bystander and unleashed a belch of putrid white smoke that gave three of the four of us permission to run for our lives.

The Audiophile courageously stayed behind to assess the damage and whimper a little, but eventually he joined us outside where God was faithfully making new air. He solemnly reported that the sub had bucked loose from one of its connectors causing a short that had fried the more emotionally vulnerable component.

In the end, the victim of the audio fisticuff was repaired for less than the cost of an alpaca. But more importantly, we all learned a valuable lesson: subwoofers are bullies.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

How does it sound?

Accepting an invitation to join The Audiophile in The Listening Room is mildly intimidating. I know at some point, The Audiophile will turn to me and ask, "How does it sound?" And no matter how many adjectives I have at my disposal, I simply do not have the expertise to apply any of them to this question without sounding like a dope.

That being said, I accepted such an invitation a few nights ago to listen to "an album" which was really "a compact disc." As usual there was some fuss about how I was sitting on The Listening Sofa and whether I was positioned to maximize the experience, but eventually we settled in so I could commence the listening process. Interestingly, after a very short time, I was convinced The System sounded like - pardon my use of a pedestrian adjective - crap.

After a few songs, The Audiophile turned to me and said, "How does it sound?" I squirmed uncomfortably and grimaced a little to hopefully soften the blow before I replied, "Well, I hate to say this, but I think it sounds like crap." Then I waited.

The Audiophile threw his hands into the air and responded with, "I KNOW, IT SOUNDS TERRIBLE. I put these new blah har whos, in the quirp da flanger, and it killed the bass."

Bass. I know that word, and he was right, the bass had gone hasta la bye bye and the sound was not good, but we had turned a corner. Although I had no idea what he was talking about as it related to the unfortunate circumstances of The System, I had, for the first time, recognized bad sound.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

It's Not That Heavy

You've heard it before. "HONEY, I NEED YOUR HELP WITH A BOX. IT'S NOT THAT HEAVY."

In The Audiophile's defense, this is true. These boxes are not as heavy as a piano or an igloo yet they are always much heavier than bread or toasted bread.

The idea of a blog from the wife's perspective began yesterday at 6:20 in the morning when I thought I could devote myself to drying my hair and applying some age-defying cosmetics. Instead I dutifully went to the source of the voice shouting lies to me from the basement.

The box, no, the "double-box" in question contained a subwoofer. My bare toes instinctively retracted.

Upon the command, "One... two... three... LIFT," I lifted. This time, however, I did not lift the box straight into my neck like I did with the last dainty, double-boxed subwoofer that was hauled from the basement. This time I lifted like the UPS professional I've become using my femurs and not my sciatic. Using my arms and not my face. Sure, there were the customary terse words exchanged halfway up the stairs and some lingering confusion about which side of the box was heavier, but we got the thing loaded into the back of the SUV without rupturing anything.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.