How does one get off the merry-go-round?

Trelja, Leafs, and other “recovering audiophiles”:

Have you checked to see if your region has a local AA (Audiophiles Anonymous) chapter? Our group meets every week at the local Radio Shack where we listen to MP3, boom boxes, but mostly just talk about downgrading.

Many of us were normal folks, you know -- nice people – good job, loving family, close friends and decent power cords. With me, it started with interconnects. One, two, and then sometimes three a day! After a month or so, I just couldn’t start my day without de-oxidizing that Golden Cross one more time. It was real bad.

But I am happy to say I’m getting better now. I now only reach for that hidden box of Black Diamond Racing Cones when I just can’t get to sleep without a tweak.

At our chapter of AA, we follow a proven 10-step program.

1. The First Step is Admitting You DO have a Problem: I remember my first meeting -- real scary. I had to stand up before the entire group of recovering audiophiles and admit I had three preamps! And that sometimes I couldn’t face the day until I tried mixing tubes and solid state just one more time. Clearly, I needed help. So I embarked on the 9 other steps to recovery listed below:

2. Always Attend Your Local AA Meetings: Last meeting, there was this one guy who came wearing his Stax Lamdas and just couldn’t take them off. Another guy lashed out at other group members with a PowerSnake he had brought along when the group leader suggested that he try unfiltered AC for a week. Poor guy, we had to restrain him with #12 gauge speaker wire and forcefully remove the Bybee filters from his Maggies.

3. Gradual Downgrading – A Sure Way of Getting Off the Wagon: Start slowly. Try cutting your Nearfield Pipedreams in half, or removing the “Martin” from your ML’s so they just say “Logan”. That’s a start. But don’t be too rash -- I once put a Redbook CD in my Sony SACD player and was so hung over with digital grain that I missed the next two meetings.

4. Help Other AA’s Recover: Tell your fiends to resist those Revel Salons, say “no” to that pair of Merlins up for auction, and give the new 10 ft. Nordost Valhallas to their daughter to skip rope with. (Remember, to remove the spades, as kids prefer bananas)

5. Abstain and Stay Clean: Go to eBay and bid on anything Bose. After you’ve set up a surround sound system connected to a Circuit City source, invite your friends over for a “Bose party” Start by hooking the 901’s to your 1000-Watt Classe Omega. Slowly, slowly turn up the volume, and then remove your earplugs. It helps if you are standing next to glass or any other reflective surface so you can really catch those 2nd order harmonics. Did I mention itis beneficial to remove all carpeting and put mirrors on the ceiling?

6. Limit Exposure to Those who Would Corrupt Us: When visiting the CES in Las Vegas, stay in the hotel hosting MP3, visit the “worst of show”, car audio, and Bose (maybe the same as “worst of show”). See if you have the willpower to stay out of any good sounding rooms. Be strong: you can fight temptation!

Last show I spent an entire day inside the Kenwood Van -- the one with the 22” woofers. After that I couldn’t hear anything, so I was immune to the temptations of Levinson, Red Rose, Lamm and some of that strong sounding German stuff, Burnmester, I think it was called.

7. Avoid Relapses: If you must visit a friend with good equipment, bring your Jensen headphones and a hidden MP3 player. If you wear the in-ear design, no one will ever suspect you are “wearing a wire” and not really listening to the Accuphase that your host is hopelessly hooked on.

8. Counsel Your Fellow AA Members: Remind other recovering audiophiles that 2 channel is dead, SACD and 8-track sound about the same, with a slight edge in hiss to 8-track, and that it’s OK if your amp clips now and then.

9. Gradually recover: Crank up that subwoofer, move your system to an all glass room, go back those Chinese tubes. Hell, I even downsample my 24/96 CD to 16 bit by hooking up my DAC backwards. It really works – the graininess is back, soundstage folds up like a tent in a high wind, and my wife says I’m less spend less time fiddling with wires in the back.

10. Stop Temptation Before it Starts. Begin by visiting only the HT section of audiogon. Then abandon audiogon altogether. Stop all subscriptions to Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and especially those highly addictive British mags. Shop by reading the classified of local newspapers, set your browser to search “Realistic”, or buy your speakers from the famous white van man when he visits your local supermarket parking lot.

Congratulations! You’ve reached the Final Stage: You’re off the wagon; now stay off!

Get a job a Circuit City. If there’s no Circuit City, then a Best Buy will do. (Ask to work in the car stereo or portable audio section.) Trust the good advice of your fellow workers and learn from their knowledge. But remember, when you become Manager, you must immediately fire any staff member who tempts you by uttering the words “SACD”, “separates” or “tubes”. And be sure to train your co-workers to tell customers “the bigger the woofer the better”, and “you can’t hear anything above 10KHz”, so why bother, “just hook everything up to your PC”.

All in good fun --- however, the last sentence contains, believe it or not, actual quotes from Future Shop employees (Canada’s equivalent of Circuit City).

Have a great weekend --Lorne

Lorne: Are you a friend of Bill W's? My wife once attended a meeting of the Beverly Hills chapter in the 80's at which a young gentleman who once attempted to rob "The Saloon" in BH's while dressed up as a cowboy (think "Rhinestone Cowboy") and high on cocaine, got up to speak. Nobody took him seriously during the robbery attempt and he was arrested without mishap as he had no intention of firing the six-shooter (which was not even loaded).

Dekay... I got na fends on "de outside" and my pawole offiser only lets mi out once a weak. The Wardun does however let mi keep my Grado headfones on wheneber my cel mate starts a swear'in and a cuss'in.

Actually, I think here it would be friends of Bill J(ohnson).

Until a driver in one of my speakers developed a small tear near the surround, I had not changed anything in my system for over ten years. This was partly due to career and family pressures, so I take no credit for it; it was not some sort of Pentecost. As I have mentioned before in this forum, I stopped reading the zany, wacky audio press all together around 1991 or 1992, taking peeks at the mags on the newsstand now and again only to convince myself that the insanity had, indeed, progressed beyond the critical stage. Because of the damaged driver, I decided to replace my speakers and only then started looking again and, with this newfangled web thing, found Audiogon. I admit that there is a fun factor involved in audio. However, at its outer limits (which I find are reached much more often and much more quickly now days!) the whole thing makes me cringe, seeing as though it has lost sight of what the whole process is about in the first place: the music. If I have developed one credo over the years, it would be something like this: buy the best system you can realistically afford, now and again if you really think that a major development has improved the reproduction of music, shop carefully and buy the component, bringing and keeping your system at a good level of competence, but through it all concentrate on the music, preferably by attending live events as much as possible. If you feel like buying hardware, make a quick calculation of how many recordings you could buy with that money or which live event coming up in some city within striking distance from your home you could attend. Read about music and musicians, not equipment. Remember that any change in a system, (whether real or brought about by the placebo effect) is almost invariably thought to be an improvement on first hearing. One thing that I did learn in coming back to the audio marketplace after being out of it for such a long time is, at least insofar as speakers are concerned, but I am sure this holds true for other components, that you get a lot more for your dollar these days and that spending double or triple (or even greater multiples for that matter!) will not double or triple your enjoyment. Don't feel you are missing out by not buying the most expensive component. I can attest that there are real value leaders out there. I replaced Thiel 3.5s with Paradigm Reference Studio 100s. I wanted Thiel CS 6s or Dynaudio Contour 3.3s. Thiels are not really available locally and with the current exchange rate would be exorbitant. I auditioned the Dynaudios and, although great speakers, could not justify spending 12Ks on them when the Canadian made Paradigms were a little over 2Ks. I heard Vandersteen 5s at 18Ks locally and was mightily impressed, inter alia, with the bass. I am thinking of adding a Paradigm subwoofer to approximate the experience, it may or may not work, I'll see. There's always two ways (well at least, but let's keep things simple here) to look at things: I could feel that I am missing out on the subtle differences the costlier speakers may provide or that I am getting the best deal out there. Actually, the choice is also yours. Remember, the ego thing can pave your way to the poor house. If all else fails, you can do like I did and at the ripe old age of 47 try to learn to play an instrument. I can honestly say that I have no discernable musical talent, but that, as a result of picking-up the guitar and literally plodding forward, I have improved my appreciation of music and musicians to a very great degree. When I listen to Django Reinhardt or Charlie Christian, I don't mind the thin sound of older recordings as much and am only beginning to understand what such men have meant to music. I could multiply the examples, but I don't wish to bore anyone. By the way, now I am hooked on collecting guitars, but that's another story...