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matthewb.eth
@matthewb
here is the story of the first time I heard Hotel California on a hi-fi system: * hi-fi and ramen I caught the hi-fi bug while still in college, meaning that I had no money and had chosen a terrible hobby for my circumstances. nevertheless, I persisted and was determined to buy a pair of passive speakers and an integrated amp. I found a pair of Totem Rainmaker bookshelf speakers on marketplace for $465. this was way more than I should have spent at the time but it wasn’t anything that ramen for a few months (or years) couldn’t solve. the speakers were made by a local company not far from where I lived in Montreal and featured black ash wood cabinetry, paper woofers, and metal dome tweeters. and, most importantly, they were $465.
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matthewb.eth
@matthewb
* Speaker Dads I sent the seller a message and arranged for a brief demo at his home in a quiet residential area of the city. I rang the buzzer and a very normal looking middle-aged man answered. I didn’t realize it but at that moment I was meeting my first Speaker Dad: middle-aged fathers who have basements and living rooms full of speakers, amps, and other components, often much to the chagrin of their wives. we walked through his beige wallpapered living room which had an enormous tropical fish tank full of colourful fish. flanking the TV he had a pair of enormous Paradigm floorstanding speakers worth at least $25k along with two or three pairs of small bookshelf speakers. there was a mess of electronics and cables in front of the TV.
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matthewb.eth
@matthewb
* Hotel California much to my surprise, he brought me into his kitchen for the demo. on the table was his old clunky PC laptop which came as no surprise when he revealed that he was an accountant. accountants always have shitty laptops. he installed the speakers beside his makeshift kitchen table desk full of messy papers and blasted Hotel California. the speakers sounded HUGE and they had so much bass. was there a subwoofer hiding somewhere? you could hear precisely where every instrument was located, floating in the air like magic. I was hooked. he went on to lecture me about mp3 files vs. FLAC and even played me the same Hotel California track with an mp3 file instead. it did actually sound worse, even though I was told by reddit that you couldn't tell the difference between 320kbps mp3 and lossless.
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matthewb.eth
@matthewb
* can't buy a thrill after showing me his basement full of at least three more sets of speakers and electronics ("do you want to buy some stands too??"), I left Speaker Dad's home with my new (to me) set of bookshelf speakers and a newfound obsession. I sold those speakers after a couple years but I still listen to Hotel California every so often to bring me back to the feeling I had in that weird kitchen.
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Chris Carlson
@chrislarsc.eth
No Pet Sounds next
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