Fair enough; the Neil Young album Erik started this about is an amazing recording, should sound good, right?
Maybe this ‘magic’ teleportation thing IS limited to certain albums and maybe a system that can pull this off doesn't necessarily equate to something you’d want to live with for all your records. I get this, and certainly find myself passing by certain LPs because, hell, they aren’t worthy of passing under that several thousand dollar cartridge…
So had I become one of those picky audiophile guys? Maybe; because I started thinking about ‘that box’.
That box was one I had stuck away in storage, one I had forgotten about, one I now feel a little guilty about. A box of records given to me by a dear friend I grew up with during one of his frequent, hasty moves out of a living space. We were very tight friends from 5yrs old on up, through the punk era into recent times, and although we’d drift apart for a time, we always reconnected. I went one way and he went down the dark path – music, bands, the rough crowd, world experience and problems with substance abuse – right up to the end where Todd’s huge heart rebelled like he rebelled.
I remember these actual records, always thrown around his places haphazardly, and always present – they were truly the background to our lives for many years. They are beat up, ratty, an off-beat collection of stuff you just don’t see in many people’s record racks – and they weren’t in mine recently either.
So I grabbed a couple and figured it was time for a test – can I play these on this system and get into them the way I used too, does this ‘system’ help the experience or have me putting them back in storage (sorry Todd).
The 3 I grabbed randomly off the top where these; UB40 – Present Arms, a Buzzcocks EP - Parts 1-3 and The Undertones – Positive Touch. All appear to be UK imports, are from around 1981 and are in BAD condition – at least on the surface. Because I don’t know (or want to know) WHAT is all over these, I gave them a very good scrubbing on the record cleaning machine (that expensive cartridge…) and settled in for a listen.
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DAMN – this was fun! OK, they were noisy at times, some badly recorded and I wasn’t into all the music as much as I might have been when younger, but I enjoyed the hell out of this, especially the UB40 album – even had my teenage daughter come down and ask what it was I was playing – she loved it. Pretty damn cool, and thanks Todd – finally! (he knew I’d get to this eventually...)
Not saying this system is the universal shit or anything, but for me, it kind of is. The noise was there, but it was very easy to listen around it, maybe the Altecs on old tubes are technicolor and inaccurate, good, because they also make music. This brought me back to when the music was ALL that mattered. On that measure, I remain ‘done’ on the gear front.
Now back to that nasty box of records.