By Juan C. Ayllon Listening to great music on high fidelity equipment is a sublime pleasure in and of itself -- of this there is no doubt. Quiet moments alone in the morning, late night listening sessions or simply playing in the background while working remotely from home -- it's all good. However, there's something to be said for to sharing the magic with younger generations. Yesterday I was prepping our deck for repainting while Belle entertained our daughter, Colleen, and granddaughter, Savannah, who were visiting for the day, in our living room. Several hours later after a little patching and arduous scraping, I slipped downstairs onto a couch to take in high res music on my system, which recently took a bump up in performance with the addition of Pass Labs XP-12 preamp, X250.8 amplifier, Torus Power AVR 2 ELITE 20 Isolation Transformer, and some new Straight Wire Crescendo 3 Speaker and interconnect cables for upcoming reviews. The sublime treat of organic and detailed music enveloping me was refreshing.
After a while, I returned upstairs to catch up with Colleen and Savannah. "We've been enjoying listening to your music," Colleen said, reminding me of a conversation several years ago; a friend in audio, Joe Jurzec, noted that our stairwell acts as a passive speaker horn to our living room upstairs. Colleen offered that Savannah seemed to be enjoying the sound quality, as well, adding that she looked up and tilted her head as song notes swirled about her. "Could you play something for me?" Colleen asked. "Sure." She requested a song, "Sparrows," by Cory Asbury, a contemporary Christian artist. Thumbing through my Qobuz, TIDAL and ROON Labs apps on my iPhone, I found it and, moments later, played it for her. "Wow. That was fast!" she marveled. My wife, Belle, beamed at me from across the room. We chatted and listened, the music providing a sumptuous backdrop for our time of bonding. some 20 minutes later, Colleen noted that what was playing at the moment wasn't from Asbury's album. I explained that ROON goes into "Radio mode" after an album has ended and, using excellent algorithms, selected other songs closely matching it. "It sounds really good," she concluded. Too soon, it was time to call it a day and after we said our goodbyes, Belle and I reflected on the joy of having Colleen and Savannah over. "Savannah really seems to like it here," Belle noted. "What's not to like?," I say. Our house is full of love and with all the great gear, the music sounds amazing, "After all, they listen to tablets and sound bars," I quipped, "While we have excellent equipment to listen to," We have great memories of our grandson, Conley, dancing to children's Youtube videos this past year, staring up at the woofers and tweeters of my Usher speakers. Reflecting on this, it occurred that if we all shared our systems in moments such as these -- not foisting our audiophile recordings, but inviting friends, family and grandchildren to enjoy their own favorites on our systems -- wouldn't that be grand? Less Miles and more Top 40 and "Baby Shark", and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if many more of our latest generation grew up to become audio lovers like us. Wouldn't that be nice?
1 Comment
3/30/2022 10:02:29 pm
I very much appreciate it. Thank you for this excellent article. Keep posting!
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Juan C. AyllonA writer, artist, educator and owner of Prairie Audio Man Cave, he lives with his wife, Isabel (AKA Belle), and their Goldendoodle, Liam, enjoys listening to high fidelity music and all things hi-fi at their home in the greater Chicagoland area.. Archives
March 2024
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