My dear bro-in-law came to visit this week for the 4th. When he first saw the system consuming the living room, his interest was piqued. He was cool at first but on the second day he started asking more about it. Turns out he has a couple sets of vintage British Wharfdales that he bought when stationed in Europe in the 60s. Small pair upstairs for rock and the full rangers downstairs for classical. He listens to Beethoven every Sunday. He was curious about all the audio system machinations going on through the week, so we had some nice conversations. He studied electronics in high school where it was still all tube gear then. At his vocational high school RCA and Raytheon were local mfgs and donated test equipment and educational samples to the school so they had lots of hands on.
This morning I was biasing up the snappers for his Beethoven dose when he asked what I was doing. I told him about biasing to reduce distortion and extend tube life, he said back when he was doing tubes, they cost a buck a piece for tubes for which we would now pay $100 NOS. Bias was set at the factory in consumer audio gear back then, you just chuck the tubes and replace.
So he asked to hear Beethoven 5th for his morning concert, and enjoyed the sweet spot as much as possible with "Uncle Rick" being screamed every 3 minutes. When it was done, he asked me to load up 6, 7, 8, and 9. So I guess he likes it... haha I said Yeah! Let's do it!! My wife grabbed her keys and ran off to work leaving me and her brother in peace to enjoy our 100dB crescendos.
I did play a new Prokofiev piano concerto CD yesterday at my version of normal volume (live from 10th row) just to blow some dust out of the carbs. hehe But he has spent a lot of time in the sweet spot all week listening to the tuner and reading. It is nice to have others enjoy the stereo system after all the hard work goes into getting it just right.
What do your inlaws or relatives think of your stereo system, and/or your stereo obsession?
Rich