let's start something new
posted 25 march 2009
Over the last few months I have become
re-infected with the desire to listen to music. My previous four
years have been absorbed by finding ways to create music, as evidenced
in my beavis audio research
site.
This newly rekindled interest in listening to music has dredged
up all the great memories of my youth. I remember that whenever
I moved somewhere new, the first order of business was to hook up
the stereo. All other considerations were secondary. I remembered
one of the few bonding experiences with my dad was hooking up stereos
and learning what he knew about tube amps, speakers, great old reel-to-real
decks, phonograph players and all that great shit.
And I rediscovered my love of non-audiophile hi-fi.
Wait, WTF does that mean, non-audiophile hi-fi...
To me, the term audiophile defines the pursuit of high-end gear
for its own sake. The desire to acquire gear where cost is a secondary
consideration. To listen to the golden-ear oracles spout off about
imaging, sound-stage, oxygen content in copper, cable directionality
and all the other drivel that irrevocably takes the fuckkin fun
out of listening to music.
Steve Martin once said "Talking about music
is like dancing about architecture." And that quote, to me, absolutely
nails the idea of listening to experts tell me how stuff sounds
good.
So my term is hi-fi. Hi-fi is setting up various components,
sound sources, speakers, and other stuff in ways that makes music
sound good to me not to a reviewer who gets a free set of
1,000 dollar speaker cables and feels compelled to gush about them
by using hackneyed and tired terms.
Hi-Fi to me is getting the best bang for the buck out of non-high-end
gear, and often finding that a $100 dollar preamp will not only
sound better, but be better built than some $1,000 mystery box that
is very often comprised of cheap components arranged according to
a pilfered open-source design.
Hi-fi to me is openness and sharing. Schematics are free. Everything
I learn is built on the shoulders of others, like-minded fanatics
who share instead of conceal.
Hi-fi to me is How Does This Sound to Me?
Now I don't want to sound like some bitter tone peasant. Really
I don't. It is just that the Great Audiophile Circus does nothing
for me, it is boring and somewhat pointless.
So enough of the ranting. What is this site about?
In simple terms, it is about the fun of figuring out what gear
sounds good. It is about learning more about the innards of our
hi-fi gear and dispelling the bullshit that creeps into so many
subjective conversations. And the really important part: it is about
DIY.
DIY means that everything I learn, I share. It means that every
design I come up with gets a full published schematic, and in a
lot of cases, a thorough how-to project article. It is about sharing
the mistakes and successes that happen as I spelunk through the
joys of good old fashioned hi-fi fun.
But most importantly, it is about building a two-way community
of like-minded people. Folks who are just as crazy as me, who aren't
afraid to wire something up wrong, who aren't worried about always
following the conventional wisdom. Because as non-linear crazy bastards,
we a) have more fun, b) learn more, and c) share more. I'll post
stuff and you can try it, but you should also make a point of telling
me what you are up to: what did you hack today? What have you learned?
The beauty of the interwebs (well, besides all the great porn and
LOLcats content) is the huge open-house of fun and knowledge we
can share.
So there you have it, my first post here and hopefully something
of a chaotic, loosely-defined mission statement. Let the tone debauchery
commence!
Your humble servant,
-beavis (dano)
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My name is dano and I build and hack
Highly unusual and
questionable CD player from partz.