Tag Archives: stereo

The Ongoing Saga of My Stereo

It was just over two years ago that I unearthed my turntable from stor­age and restored it to its right­ful place in the liv­ing room. That streak end­ed yes­ter­day as it went back into the base­ment after recon­sid­er­ing some fur­ni­ture. Fret not, it’ll be back, but in this incar­na­tion I’ll final­ly break down and incor­po­rate it into the home enter­tain­ment unit, tying in the TV, Xbox 360, turntable and Mac­book some­time next month.

Have to say that it was the right deci­sion. We moved our 8‑square Expe­d­it book­case into the base­ment (side­walk sale eli­gi­ble!) in the mean­time and I have to say that the space real­ly works with­out the room divider we felt we need­ed so des­per­ate­ly two years ago. I can only thank our new kitchen for inspir­ing us to real­ly rethink our down­stairs and our amaz­ing handy­man for mak­ing change pos­si­ble. I think our stur­dy, antique coat tree is des­tined to become a robe rack in the mas­ter bed­room. Change everything!

Now if I could just find the spare $600 to buy a 42″ HDTV and hang it on the wall I’d be all set! Of course, if you’re a total A/V nerd and feel inclined to offer sug­ges­tions on how to make this new set­up sound even half decent through a pair of Axiom Audio speak­ers, let me know in the comments!

My Turntable Returns!

My turntable
Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ramsay

One of the things that makes me laugh is the slew of arti­cles that have been writ­ten late­ly about the resur­gence of vinyl. I laugh main­ly because I felt that the vinyl resur­gence had come and gone. I asso­ci­at­ed the trend with Mata­dor’s renewed com­mit­ment to reis­su­ing some of their back cat­a­logue on 180 gram vinyl, some­thing they did four or five years ago.

I chew my friend Mark’s ear off all the time when­ev­er I read a new sto­ry declar­ing that the vinyl LP — the vehi­cle that brought rock ’n’ roll into garages, liv­ing rooms, and base­ments across Amer­i­ca — would rise like a Phoenix, car­ry­ing the music indus­try on its back. It’s a love­ly, roman­tic thought to which I say, “Fat chance.”

Me? I’ve been see-saw­ing back and forth between lov­ing the medi­um and lov­ing it but hav­ing no room for the cum­ber­some equip­ment that can dom­i­nate any Philadel­phia apart­ment or rowhome eas­i­ly if you’re not care­ful.Con­tin­ue read­ing “My Turntable Returns!”