[78-L] When a garden variety cartridge just won't do

[fnarf at comcast.net]

From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc at interlinks.net>
> Meanwhile, the potential purchasers are trying to figure out
> how to get the Magna Carta abrogated, and recreate the
> concepts of "peasantry" and "aristocracy"...?!

I think it's more a case of a member of the peasantry figuring out a way to relieve a member of the cash aristocracy of ten grand for nothing. Pretty much everything in modern high-end stereo catalogs is designed to lighten the wallets of the rich and stupid. Directional speaker wire, thousand-dollar Tuscan granite turntable mats, magic green CD marker pens, solid iridium RCA plugs, ionized air-pillow tweeter mounts.... 

I have a friend who invested in a set of speaker wire lifts, that keep his wires a few inches off the floor, which prevents some sort of harmonic something-or-others. I asked him if he'd like to build his own nuclear power plant in the basement, to provide perfectly smooth waveforms to tittilate his tube amplifier with. Shame he only listens to terrible music. 

I have another friend who likes to take his battered Herman's Hermits records into posh listening rooms. "This is what I listen to", he says. "ANY stereo can make direct-to-disc 1024-bit jazz breathing sound good; but if you can bring this thrashed trash to life, I'm interested". 

The guys who have figured out how to sell this stuff to tone-deaf millionaires are geniuses, in my view.

-- 
Steve