New York Diary (20-22): Old Dog; In the Small Hours
The Pandemic makes me feel like a looped piece of music, played over and over again. It's the same everyday as days turn into months, hopefully not into years.
I get to bed early, usually around nine, but recently I get into my bed a little earlier and listen to a bit of headphone, falling asleep in the process. I wake up usually in the middle of the night; sometimes I can fall back to sleep, sometimes not.
Comfort Music Today I got up at 4 am, turned on my audio and made coffee. I listened at very low volume. I have done this before, and I did it again: I listened to two CDs of Bach Violin Concertos. The Most Universal of Composers, Played by Two of the Greatest Violinists of all time, Arthur Grumiaux and Henryk Szeryng in old fashioned performances. It is comfort music in the best sense. It is incredible how much microdynamics there is in this newest system iteration: Micromega Stage 2 CDP, Yamamoto CA-04 Preamp, Akitika Amp, Almarro M1A loudspeakers. In the near future you shall be reading about the Micromega and the Yamamoto.
Learning New Tricks Old dogs these days have to learn new tricks! Blog Authors Beware! As soon as I started writing on my chromebook, I got irritated. Since yesterday afternoon, the Blog Editor/Interface got a superficial face lift for no good reason. The draft page border disappeared and is now at one with the white background - how silly can that be? On the draft page, youtube will not display either. Still, I tried to get used to it but was flummoxed when I could not align the picture with the title. I reverted back to the legacy interface and everything was better. Trouble looms ahead as the legacy interface will be dropped after mid August. I expect more trouble with pictures. The legacy interface was not the greatest to start with, but the new one is worse, downright broken. Does that sound familiar? Sure, does that not remind you of the Windows experience? My view is, the earlier the more user friendly. The Brave New World Young People now think they own the world. Free expression is just dandy and I support it, but the problem is, I think old dogs don't matter a whit and are losing out. Consider, old dogs have to learn an increasing number of new words and terms: Cancel Culture (perchance this blog belongs to that, as it cancels most audio "high end" manufacturers), Woke Brigade (I saw a button on TV, "Stay Woke"), etc. In my younger days, there were gays and lesbians, including some of my friends, but now I am afraid even LGBTQ will not be accommodating enough and shall have to be amended again one day. Primary School children now shock their parents with their understanding of "family", "marriage", "husband and wife". That is all fine, even fair but...I Draw the Line at English Although I was aware of the trend, it still shocked me no end the first time I came across in a respectable publication (New Yorker) the line "they is", which of course recurred and needled me many times. Listen, English is not even my first language, but maybe paradoxically that is why I have a stubborn respect for the language. I loved learning it; my teachers, nuns and Irish Jesuits and laymen, worked hard teaching it. I learned it the British (now that term shall be cancelled too) way, which is how our Indian friends write too (and I don't edit the spelling differences). No kidding, I used to read the arcane Fowler's English Usage from cover to cover, and enjoyed it. No, I have spent too much time (even now) learning this language to even think about "unlearning". With all due respect, it will always be "he is, she is, they are" to me. Period. Whether you are John or Joanna, whatever your sexual orientation, you are not going to be a "they" in my book, ever. You have the right to do whatever you want, but don't mess with my English!
Purist World and Purist Audio There is much similarity between the way our world is going and the direction audio has headed. In the good old days, we had the balance knob, tone and loudness controls, filters, sometimes even more. No one would frown upon you when you used the balance knob to center the sound, the loudness to boost the bass at low level and the tone controls to re-equalize the LPs that didn't sound right. Call them Comfort Controls. Everyone used those knobs to balance the sound, and there was no "the only way". Now? Audio, like everything else, has cancelled everything except the volume knob and selector (even that is just hanging by a thread), and become a religion based on a straight wire with gain (kind of Woke).
And now for a Chinese Meme that has been appropriated by everyone.
The snow falls and the wind blowsI get to bed early, usually around nine, but recently I get into my bed a little earlier and listen to a bit of headphone, falling asleep in the process. I wake up usually in the middle of the night; sometimes I can fall back to sleep, sometimes not.
Comfort Music Today I got up at 4 am, turned on my audio and made coffee. I listened at very low volume. I have done this before, and I did it again: I listened to two CDs of Bach Violin Concertos. The Most Universal of Composers, Played by Two of the Greatest Violinists of all time, Arthur Grumiaux and Henryk Szeryng in old fashioned performances. It is comfort music in the best sense. It is incredible how much microdynamics there is in this newest system iteration: Micromega Stage 2 CDP, Yamamoto CA-04 Preamp, Akitika Amp, Almarro M1A loudspeakers. In the near future you shall be reading about the Micromega and the Yamamoto.
Learning New Tricks Old dogs these days have to learn new tricks! Blog Authors Beware! As soon as I started writing on my chromebook, I got irritated. Since yesterday afternoon, the Blog Editor/Interface got a superficial face lift for no good reason. The draft page border disappeared and is now at one with the white background - how silly can that be? On the draft page, youtube will not display either. Still, I tried to get used to it but was flummoxed when I could not align the picture with the title. I reverted back to the legacy interface and everything was better. Trouble looms ahead as the legacy interface will be dropped after mid August. I expect more trouble with pictures. The legacy interface was not the greatest to start with, but the new one is worse, downright broken. Does that sound familiar? Sure, does that not remind you of the Windows experience? My view is, the earlier the more user friendly. The Brave New World Young People now think they own the world. Free expression is just dandy and I support it, but the problem is, I think old dogs don't matter a whit and are losing out. Consider, old dogs have to learn an increasing number of new words and terms: Cancel Culture (perchance this blog belongs to that, as it cancels most audio "high end" manufacturers), Woke Brigade (I saw a button on TV, "Stay Woke"), etc. In my younger days, there were gays and lesbians, including some of my friends, but now I am afraid even LGBTQ will not be accommodating enough and shall have to be amended again one day. Primary School children now shock their parents with their understanding of "family", "marriage", "husband and wife". That is all fine, even fair but...I Draw the Line at English Although I was aware of the trend, it still shocked me no end the first time I came across in a respectable publication (New Yorker) the line "they is", which of course recurred and needled me many times. Listen, English is not even my first language, but maybe paradoxically that is why I have a stubborn respect for the language. I loved learning it; my teachers, nuns and Irish Jesuits and laymen, worked hard teaching it. I learned it the British (now that term shall be cancelled too) way, which is how our Indian friends write too (and I don't edit the spelling differences). No kidding, I used to read the arcane Fowler's English Usage from cover to cover, and enjoyed it. No, I have spent too much time (even now) learning this language to even think about "unlearning". With all due respect, it will always be "he is, she is, they are" to me. Period. Whether you are John or Joanna, whatever your sexual orientation, you are not going to be a "they" in my book, ever. You have the right to do whatever you want, but don't mess with my English!
Purist World and Purist Audio There is much similarity between the way our world is going and the direction audio has headed. In the good old days, we had the balance knob, tone and loudness controls, filters, sometimes even more. No one would frown upon you when you used the balance knob to center the sound, the loudness to boost the bass at low level and the tone controls to re-equalize the LPs that didn't sound right. Call them Comfort Controls. Everyone used those knobs to balance the sound, and there was no "the only way". Now? Audio, like everything else, has cancelled everything except the volume knob and selector (even that is just hanging by a thread), and become a religion based on a straight wire with gain (kind of Woke).
And now for a Chinese Meme that has been appropriated by everyone.
The song Yi Jian Mei first became one of most popular song on the Viral 50 playlist in Finland, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand, and it spread everywhere, taken up even by hip hop artists. It seems the lyric “XUE HUA PIAO PIAO BEI FENG XIAO XIAO” is a new catchword. It was an old song sung by an almost forgotten singer, For how it got to be like that read about the Chinese Eggman in SCMP. The youtube below is an amalgamation.
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Where's the "LIKE" button ... LOL
ReplyDeleteGreat post! A lot of echoing. Am glad my posts are being proof read by DJ!
Yes, it's a HiFi sin to see more than 4 buttons on the display of the preamp and one on Power Amp.