Enjoy the Music.com


July / August 2004
Ramblings
by Karl W. Nehring

 

  Welcome to Issue 100. For this milestone issue, I have asked our contributors to look back over the past quarter-century or so of their involvement with this hobby and reflect on some of the experiences that they have had. As you will see, many of them responded, each in a different fashion.

For my own part, I have some memories and observations to share. I can still recall meeting with John Horan some years back when we were in the process of preparing Issue 50; we were both amazed that the magazine had made it that far. It very nearly hadn't. That meeting does not seem that long ago, but now another 50 issues have come and gone.

My subscription to The $ensible Sound began back in 1977 with Issue #2. I was thinking about buying a pair of DCM Time Windows and when I saw a classified ad in Audio magazine that indicated that those speakers were reviewed in this new "underground publication, I decided to subscribe. One thing quickly led to another, and by Issue 3, my first review appeared (a Garrard turntable, as I recall, was the first piece ever sent to me for review, but my first printed review may have been of a dbx compander that I already owned. I honestly can't remember for sure).

And yes, I did wind up buying the Time Windows. One of the thought questions I gave to the staff for this issue was "what were your all-time favorite speakers." In some ways, the Time Windows were my favorite. I loved the way they sounded, I loved the way they looked, and I can't help but think that if they were plopped in my living room right now, I would still love them.

But were they my most exciting speaker purchase? Probably not. That honor would have to go to the (audiophiles should immediately skip to the next paragraph) Bose 901s that I used a good chunk of my Army re-enlistment bonus to purchase early in 1972. My wife and I had listened to countless speakers, and had nearly purchased a pair of KLHs (5s, I think), but could just not get around the fact that we liked the Bose the best. We liked the spacious sound, and we liked the way the 901s never seemed to spit the trebles at us the way many of the speakers did (we still recall hearing the early Infinity POS 1 speakers - JAH loves to recount the story of how those were so designated - and being amazed that anyone would think of buying a speaker with such an obnoxious, sibilant, tiresome top end).

Actually, at the time we bought the 901s, we already had a nice little system. Not long after arriving in Germany, I had gone down to the Audio Club at Patch Barracks near Stuttgart and purchased a system comprising an Elac turntable, Kenwood receiver, and a pair of small Wharfedale bookshelf speakers. At the time I bought the system, I was not yet married and did not yet have an apartment, so I let my good friends Del and Karen use the system in their apartment. That way, they could have music in their place until they had saved up enough to get their own system.

We brought the system home, set it up in their living room, and put on American Beauty by the Grateful Dead. When I heard the vocal harmonies and Phil Lesh's bass, I simply could not believe how good it sounded -I had hoped to get bigger speakers, but my budget was limited, so I was thrilled that they sounded as good as they did.

These days, I am thrilled by the Legacy Audio Focus 20/20s, augmented by the Point One subwoofer (overkill, but lots of fun). And I still occasionally listen to American Beauty, one of the few rock CDs that survived last summer's purge of nearly all my rock and jazz CDs.

As far as electronic components, the piece for which I have the fondest memories is probably the Sony TA-E86B preamplifier, a beautiful design in terms of both appearance and performance. What a gorgeous unit!

I'm not sure that I could point to one recording as my favorite, but I can easily recall the best recording bargain I ever stumbled across. At the old Sears store in Provo, Utah, there was a display table set up in the record section to hawk some recordings that were part of some special sale. I pawed through the records on display, and suddenly came across the Vox Box of Skrowaczewski leading the Minnesota Orchestra in the complete orchestral works of Ravel, which was a brand-new release at the time. The price for this 4-LP set? Would you believe seven whole dollars? Even three decades ago, that was a heck of a price for a four-LP set. But what this recording really special was that the sound quality and the performances were both treasurable.

If you forced me to pick out my all-time favorite recording, though, I would most likely choose the Klemperer recording on EM1 of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. Each time I listen to it, I am profoundly moved.

One hundred issues have gone by. Silly audiophile fads have come and gone. Silly audiophile publications have come and gone. Silly audiophile ideas still get promulgated, some of them in this very publication, alas; I refuse to let myself be scandalized. In the overall scheme of things, it really doesn't matter.

 

-KWN

One Last Thought: "My life consists in my being content to accept many things." - Wittgenstein

 

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