Days Like This

It is well documented that The Audiophile has a one-sided bromance going with Van Morrison. He wants to vacation in Ireland where he fancies running into Van in some off-the-beaten-path pub that caters to aging musicians and their stalkers. For these reasons, I was not surprised this week to pull in the garage and hear Van gargling quite loudly from inside the house before I even shut off the engine.

It is also well documented that I have my own dainty system for my own listening pleasure on my own floor of the house, so you can imagine my shock and appall when I realized The Audiophile had queued up Van on MY system and was playing it loud enough to blow the topsoil off the garden we don't have.

I found The Audiophile downstairs, clad in his ever-so-sexy lighted magnifier glasses, working feverishly on some part of his own disassembled system. I don't know what was broken, and I'm not an expert in these matters, but I'm guessing maybe it had something to do with a blown subwoofer.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

If I Had A Million Dollars

The Audiophile has an interesting method of measuring the cost of something. If, for example, the SUV needs a couple thousand dollars' worth of repairs, he'll say, "I could have bought a pre-amp with that." Similarly, if he needs some dental work done, that might be the equivalent of, "I could have upgraded my interconnects with that."

I do not have my own method of measuring the cost of things. It doesn't occur to me to think, "Gosh, instead of going for groceries this week, I could buy an entire litter of puppies." Or, "Hmmm, if we didn't pay the utilities, I could add rhinestone belt loops to all of my pants."

On the upside, I suppose if I die first, and The Audiophile finds himself stranded on the side of the road with a broken-down SUV and rotten teeth, at least he will have a killer system waiting to console him if he ever makes it back to the house.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

T.B. Sheets

The Audiophile's flirtation with death continues, but that did not deter him from hauling a crate from the basement to the SUV. One minute he was shivering under a pile of blankets with vowel sounds as his only means of communication, and the next he was heaving his end of the crate up the stairs without regard to his spleen or mine.

This crate was particularly heavy. So heavy, in fact, that it caused me to think 666 evil thoughts as we inched it up the stairs and out the door. That I only verbalized four of these thoughts is a God-blessed miracle. If you have ever wondered who invented particleboard, the answer is: Satan, SATAN, I tell you.

The Audiophile and his dread disease then left for a few days on a business trip, which was excellent timing because it took me 48 hours to take the remaining 662 evil thoughts captive. All I know is the next time I say, "For better or for worse," I'm reading the small print in the contract so I know what the "worse" piece of that equation will entail.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Healing Has Begun

The Audiophile came home ill this week with a variety of symptoms including chills, headache, and general difficulty speaking above 25 dB. My only remedy for this and all other injuries is liquids and plenty of them. I made hot tea and homemade chicken noodle soup to which he sighed deeply and uttered a barely audible, "thank you."

Given my desire to stay above the weather, I tucked him in that night and tiptoed to the guestroom for my sleeping pleasure. I was a few pages into a book when I detected him having a healthy, animated conversation. I assumed he was delirious with fever, but then I distinctly heard him say, "You could always sell your pre-amp and get the Dude."

In summary, when an audiophile is on his death bed, the road to recovery is best charted, not by the administration of liquids, but through what is commonly known as audio banter. Now I know.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Share It Maybe

The Audiophile is back in the saddle after our glorious time in the sun. Aside from getting a fair amount of sand in our subwoofers, everything was excellent and praiseworthy.

Immediately upon our return, The Audiophile scheduled a play date with one of his local audio friends. He asked if I wanted to tag along.

I paused before responding to imagine the friend's wife and I escaping to the kitchen where we would enjoy warm chocolate chip cookies and cold glasses of milk. I could see us making pleasant conversation about the wife acceptance factor of the panel speaker and chuckling about the subtle differences in power cords. It was tempting.

In the end I politely declined, leaving that wife to enjoy the afternoon doing whatever she normally does during Audiophile Playtime. If she's like me, she retired to her private quarters with a good book and an embarrassing pile of cookies, grateful not to be in the A/B hot seat for a change.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Beach Baby

If all goes as planned, The Audiophile and I will be doing some basking at the time of this post. For purposes of clarification "basking," as defined by me, involves being immersed in the warmth of something other than vacuum tubes.

My goal for this vacation is to zipline my way through some Jatoba trees to ensure they have recovered from The Audiophile's amp-building project that required the sacrifice of one of their species. I can only hope there isn't a bounty on his head for the slaying, because his fear of heights mixed with the dodging of bullets would probably not be as funny as I imagine.

My other goal is to avoid any street vendors that deal in electronics. Sure, I had five years of Spanish back in the day, but I have no business trying to translate The Audiophile's wheelings and dealings over a some nuevo viejo tubes that he just can't live without.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Reunited

Several imaginary readers have inquired about The Audiophile's birthday and whether or not he read last week's blog in which he would have learned about his birthday gift ahead of time. The answer is no, he had not read the blog.

It seems he was waiting for an opportunity to politely correct the record about a post from several weeks back that may have wrongly implied that audiophiles do not clean toilets or decorate cookies or make lasagnas. After listening to his eloquently crafted concerns, I would like to publicly apologize for the hyperbolic inaccuracies and insubordination of said post. Furthermore, I would like to point out that audiophiles are superior in many ways including, but not limited to, their ability to take out the trash, clean up after dinner, hand wax the cars, and open a never-ending array of jars that have tight-fitting lids. 

In summary, audiophiles are just as good as regular people, and probably better, because they can also hear when the toilet has a leak, the washing machine needs to be re-balanced, and the cotton-picking furnace is running more than usual. 

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

The Girl In The Other Room

The Audiophile celebrates his birthday this weekend, and that means a gift is in order even though he says he wants for nothing. Since I have no business buying him anything for The Listening Room, I ordered him a pair of concert tickets to see one of his girlfriends.

At this point, the savviest among you have realized I have publicly announced his gift ahead of time making this yet another test to see if The Audiophile is still reading my blog. Not that he has to read my blog, because I would never use that as a means of measuring his love and admiration of my typing skills.

These concert tickets, by the way, are good but not so good that Ms. Krall will see him slack-jawed and drooling from her piano bench. Which will assuredly be the case if she is wearing the same outfit that she's sporting on the cover of her most recent release.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Winter Wonderland

It's that time of the year when The Audiophile enjoys extended periods of time in The Listening Room. Listening, as you know, is an art form that requires special powers of concentration and immobility. Here is a helpful Q&A to assist audio wives in navigating the holiday season:

Should an audiophile frost cookies while listening to a system?  No.
Should he wrap packages?  Definitely not.
Clean toilets?  Bad acoustics, no.
Prepare a lasagna?  No.
What should an audiophile do while listening to a system?  Nothing. 

The more important question is, "What should an audiophile's wife do while an audiophile is listening to a system?" In my personal experience, she should cheerfully frost the cookies, wrap the packages, clean the toilets, and make the lasagna. And then, in order to remain cheerful and altogether fabulous under circumstances such as these, she should blog about her heroism.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Electric Avenue

The Audiophile, as you know, has been building his own amp with his bare hands. In anticipation of turning on the amp for the first time, he took a long-handled wooden spoon from the kitchen. He told me he was going to use it as a way to distance himself from the unit and thereby reduce the chances of killing himself when he flipped the switch.

Now, because we are practicing to be old and feeble, we typically go to bed sometime between 8:00 and 9:00, even on the weekends. This allows us to watch some news about the economic end times before we call it a day. So you can imagine my concern when I awoke at 2:00 in the morning, realized I had dozed off, and further realized The Audiophile had never come to bed. Naturally I assumed he was dead.

I padded down the stairs very quietly, sniffing the air for evidence of his demise. I slowly opened the workroom door, fully expecting to find his charred remains still clinging to the handle of the smoking wooden spoon. Instead, there he was, alive and well, doing what he loves while happily inhaling the recommended daily allowance of soldering fumes.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.