1. I have never ever bought anything from the numerous Audio Advisor, Elusive Disc or similar audio catalogs that get delivered to my house en masse at this time of year. I also don’t enjoy looking through them because they don’t have a single thing that I want. BUT… I still get a small tinge of excitement when I see them in my mailbox.
2. Instead of a very suspect Chet Baker Riverside box, can someone call up Kevin Gray and RTI and the whole audiophile reissue squad and get a Charlie Byrd 2×45 Riverside box in the quiver? I’d pay mucho dinero for that. Not a bad record in the bunch and Blues Sonata is an unheralded masterpiece. Plus they are all very well recorded, which (much like the wonderful Bill Evans set) will give them a lot to work with sonically.
3. There are a lot of records prized by audiophiles comprised of mediocre music that merely sounds good. At the top of this list for me is Soular Energy. I don’t honestly even think it sounds that great.
4. I like ECM. I’m a huge fan of many of their artists and records and Mannfred Eicher’s recording prowess is inarguable. But sometimes it all seems like one long new age jam session to me, everything that’s ever been released on the label. And sometimes I put an ECM album on and after five seconds something in me says “ah fuck this,” and I turn it off.
5. A friend of mine and I have a long-running joke centered on the idea that the faces on Mount Rushmore should be replaced with Max Roach, Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones. For the life of me I don’t know who the fourth should be. Roy Haynes? Shelly Manne? Gene Krupa? Kenny Clarke? Art Taylor? Mick Fleetwood?
6. I had a system with an AR the Turntable with a V15xMR on the stock tonearm, a Pioneer sx850 and a pair of KLH 23 speakers. I’m really not sure I’ve ever done any better than that.
7. There are audio brands that I’m sure make incredible gear but their aesthetics are such that I simply can’t imagine ever owning any of their stuff because it offends my sensibilities. It’s usually pretty high end shit too that I have this response to. D’Agostino and Dartzeel are at the top of the list.
8. I’m way down a digital rabbit hole now and I love the sound I have from my TotalDac, bests the best vinyl sound I ever had by quite a margin. BUT… the one thing vinyl always does a little better than any digital is cymbals. Even on the TD125 I’m running right now (with a Soundsmith Otello cart no less, entry level piece and a compliance mismatch for my Jelco arm) cymbals just sound a little more pleasing and believable to me on vinyl.
9. Eliane Elias is the Brazilian Diana Krall. Don’t believe me? Check the album covers. One of these ladies is seriously ripping the other lady off. Someone should look into this.
10. The plastic outer sleeves that we all have to put all our albums in now are fucking annoying. I still do it and it makes them seem “fancy” in a way that pleases me (it’s just Boston’s first album for chrissake… but then you throw it in a plastic outer and it’s like, ooh, collector’s item) but man what a pain in the ass when you’re sliding records in and out of your record rack.
11. On that note, the person who invents a truly ingenious, easy to use, modular record storage system is going to become a multi-thousandaire.
12. It is good to be an audiophile at Christmas because when people know this about you there are all sorts of stupid little gifts out there that they can get you instead of the meaningless disposable things they would usually resort to. Like, say, a box of chocolates or an expensive pen.