Toys

The above picture is porn to me. This is the inside of my B&K amplifier. Every now and then I dust the inside of it to keep it happy. Those blue capacitors are nearly the size of Coke cans and the heat sink rails on either side get a might too hot at times. That donut thing is a toroidal magnet that weighs about 20lbs.   You'd think with all the care I give my stereo equipment and how I adore music I'd be able to play an instrument as well. I can't.

I tried to learn to play at one time. I watched my brother learn the guitar and play it for years before I approached him for a favor. Teach me! He was up for it and we sat down and he started right off to teach me a riff.

Smoke On the Water by Deep Purple has one of the most recognizable riffs in it's beginning. It's also silly easy to learn on the guitar as well. All you have to do is pick the a couple of strings twelve times and move your fingers just a bit on the fret board. I was surprised when I did it it actually came out like the beginning of the song.

“Great, now stop looking where you place your fingers and do it again.” He advises.

“Well, how the hell can I play it without knowing where to put my fingers?” I tell him in protest.

“You can't learn this by eye, you have to have 'ear memory' in order to learn this.” He finally says.

I went from being all encouraged to frustrated as hell once I realized Smoke on the Water isn't as easy to play from just hearing memory.

I kept at the guitar, oh I'd say for two weeks when I gave it up. You have to be absolutely in love with an instrument in order to learn it well. Or have over-bearing parents who lock you in a room with a clarinet to learn three hours a day. That must be torture!

I was not going to give up on music though. I had a penchant for toying around with the electronics of the stereo equipment I had here plus all that band equipment that was in our cellar. Some of it is there still, huge cabinets with Marshall stacks. I have no idea what to do with them. So there they sit.

My first “stereo” was a Sony shirt pocket 9-volt radio I got for Christmas when I was seven. That did it in a way. I could control what I wanted to listen to and no matter if the fidelity sucked. As I grew older and had access to my own money, I'd trade up and up to better equipment. I finally went as far as building my own speakers for the system I have now. That's what I love about the internet, you can download programs that spit out all the parameters of building a speaker correctly. The other thing is that you have to blow bucks on buying the parts.

Also the internet is great for finding sellers of esoteric equipment that's been rated as A+ by God himself. So I slowly began building a component system with the best parts I could afford. I couldn't afford a Krell amplifier as they cost as nearly as much as $12,000. So I had to pick and choose wisely.

With internet radio available I still listen to FM. I found a Maranzt tuner to do just the job. The problem was that it's signal hungry and wanted a NASA style antenna on my roof in order to pull in every station I could get. I nearly break my neck for this little hobby.

Here's the inside of the Maranzt, after being cleaned and dusted. It doesn't look like much but it's ONLY job is to process an FM signal and nothing else.
 

God, I hope I don't go deaf as I age. That might bite the Big One.