Let It Rain

The Audiophile and I will be immersed in the vocal glory of one of his girlfriends this weekend as she graces the Midwest on her Glad Rag Doll tour. I keep looking at the album cover with a sense of depressed admiration. Sister, seriously, it's hard enough for us common wives to compete with you vocally, now this.

I'm not sure what to wear to the concert besides a rain poncho, which is a non-negotiable item if you want to protect yourself from the spittle of middle-aged men shouting, "LOOK OF LOVE." Perhaps some form of dreadfully uncomfortable lingerie would be a nice touch under my turtleneck sweater as a goodwill gesture of my attempt to stay in the game.

In the end, there is no reason to compete with the mighty fine Ms. Krall. She has her talents, and we audio wives have ours. All that really matters is being completely devoted to our respective audiophiles, a heart-felt desire to lift our end of the sub-woofer, and the ability to feign interest in the modification du jour.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Points of View

The Audiophile has a thing about his feedback points or score or whatever it is Audiothong uses to rank its members' athletic abilities and good looks. If I had a nickel for every time he has referred to his apparently impressive score, I could make myself a suit of armor to be used as a decorative accent in our home. Sometimes I would be in the suit; sometimes not – The Audiophile would never know for sure.

It occurs to me that I should develop my own scoring system to promote desirable domestic behaviors. For example, if he matched his socks to his pants that would be worth 27 points. Or if he failed to flush the toilet that would be a negative 4,785.

If I could figure out a way to load my domestic tally into the Audiothong system, I'm pretty sure his concern for selecting the appropriate socks would rival his concern for carefully packing vacuum tubes and shipping CD players within six minutes of receiving payment confirmation.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Can't Touch That

Earlier this week, The Audiophile said, "I need to use your system to burn in some ICs." I slowly and methodically responded, "I seeeeee." He further explained that his system was presently indisposed and incapable of performing the task to which I again responded, "I seeeeee."

I was hoping for more dialog from him so I could repeatedly respond with, "I seeeee," until he embraced the beauty of my subtle, yet hysterical, sense of humor, but he instead missed the essence of the moment and proceeded to re-engineer my system to burn in his I SEEs.

The disc he chose for the burning in process has probably played through about seventeen hundred times and has likely re-engineered my brain for the worse. Sure, I could probably put in a different disc, but that would involve TOUCHING his CD player, and I'd rather be in need of a neuropsychologist than risk the consequences of crippling one of his rectangles with a distortion-producing fingerprint.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Song Dog

The Audiophile is continuing his conversion to digital, or computer audio, or whatever it is called that requires me to miss my daily class at the YMCA in order to sign for audio packages. These packages, mind you, rarely arrive during the time in which I could have been making a valiant attempt to maintain my less-than-girlish figure.

The new setup in The Listening Room is radically different. Many of the large rectangles have been replaced by smaller rectangles. This makes me happy and afraid. Happy, because smaller rectangles have a higher wife acceptance factor; afraid, because of what will surely need to happen if the smaller rectangles don't make him howl like a love-struck coyote on performance enhancing medication.

These days I'm listening carefully to his audiophile phone conversations in hopes of hearing him use some enthusiastic terms from his coyote-howling vocabulary. Because then, maybe then, I'll be able to spend less time carving my name into the grimy electronic clipboards proffered by FedEx and more time jumping up and down to the beat of fabulously distorted hits from the '80s.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Favorite Things

The Audiophile invited me to sit in The Listening Chair last week. He hoisted me up on a pillow so I would conceivably be at his listening level. Somehow, while I was balancing on the pillow, and trying to think about the music, I instead found myself considering the benefits of brown paper packages tied up with string and whiskers on kittens.

Fortunately, I was jolted back to reality, probably by God, because not only was I ready to make my assessment, but I knew exactly how I would describe the music even though I wasn't really listening.

When he (The Audiophile, not God) paused the track and asked for my opinion, I said with confidence, "It seemed like there was community among the vocals and the instrumentals in that they sounded incredible together and yet you could hear each one distinctly." The Audiophile thoughtfully stroked his goatee and replied, "Yeaaaah, I could see that."

That said, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Academy, God, and Julie Andrews for teaching me everything I know about high fidelity. But most of all, I would like to thank The Audiophile without whom none of these half-baked exaggerations would be possible.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Shower The People

It has come to my attention that some audio wives receive special gifts when their audiophile husbands buy new gear. Flowers, jewelry, and foot rubs have been mentioned as love tokens lavished upon the adoring women who do not complain about their husband's OCD.

I flipped back through the diary that I do not keep and noticed an absence of presents and favors. Clearly I'm doing it wrong. I am not sure where to sign up for this post-purchase pampering, but I'm hoping The Audiophile reads this and gets my order.

In the future, when something arrives in a small box, like tubes or interconnects, I'll gladly take a foot rub. If the box is medium-sized and contains a regular amplifier or a premillennial amplifier then flowers would be nice. If, however, a forklift delivers an item that requires my back-breaking assistance either up or down a flight of stairs, then I'm thinking a puppy of my very own would probably be the only possible way for The Audiophile to maintain his status as a gentleman among gentlemen.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Mixed Tape

The Audiophile has been selling, selling, selling now that he's convinced he no longer needs his old analog equipment. In order to accommodate all the boxing and shipping of gear, he took me on a date to buy packing tape.

The problem with packing gear is there is an audiophile code of conduct that requires all the tape in the nation be used to wind around and around and around the box until infinity. Every time he completes one of these ready-for-shipping masterpieces he presents it to me with the same look of achievement as my sled dog of yesteryear when he deposited the head of a small mammal near my back door.

If you, as an audiowife, are ever responsible for opening one of these tape bunkers you'll want to have your phone nearby with emergency personnel on speed dial, because the odds of getting into one of these babies without severing an artery are slim. The alternative, however, is busted gear so obviously a few days in intensive care is a small price to pay to avoid that catastrophe.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Basket Case

The Audiophile has decided to go digital. There have been plenty times in the past when he has said he is going digital, but this time he has purchased the necessary server, backup server, and backup to the backup server, so I am convinced he is really doing it.

The problem, as you who have gone digital know, is ripping the never-ending parade of CDs into digital format. This requires a reservoir of sanity that is typically not found in the average audiophile. Not that audiophiles are insane, but, yes, actually they are.

So far, I have successfully ripped 180 CDs, which leaves approximately one million hundred to go. At this rate, I would expect to lose my sanity sometime around mid April. You will know this has happened if I begin to obsess over the sonic accuracy of the telephone cord and hoist the washer and dryer up on Stillpoints.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

Natural Woman

The Audiophile emailed me from the road this week with instructions to send some capacitors to a couple of people. This should have been easy enough, except one of the recipients seemed to be a woman. He gave me no information about this woman except her address, so I was forced to spend the better part of the day considering the following:

Are she-philes indigenous to Maryland? I don't know.
Are men ever named Colleen? Doubtful.
Rather than being an audiophile herself, is Colleen the best audio wife EVER? Maybe.
Are Duelund capacitors really the world's best? What?

I may never know the answers to these questions, but I performed my postal duties as assigned. Between that and ripping a good portion of The Audiophile's CD collection for him this week, I should be in second place, behind Colleen, for being nominated The Audiophile Wife of the Year.

And that, my friends, is audio winning.

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.