Week Thirty-Six Rage At The Machine.
A loudspeaker reviewer called Alvin Gold (whom they used to refer to as ‘˜god’ somewhat blasphemously, in the trade, such was his power to make or break your brand) once referred to MP3, as the first advancement in technology that represented a step back in sound quality. He was so right. Only now in the digital mid-morning let alone the bloody dawn, are we seeing high definition digital audio formats duking it out for public acceptance.
One of the real indicators of seniority, is the loss of your contemporaries. If you live long enough that’ll be most people you ever knew. But when people are taken too young it hurts. Harry Bo, Alex Butwell, Joe Ajii and now Bob. So I have been to more funerals than in my early years. One of them was for a chap called Steve ‘Bunty” King. He was a sound technician working for ENTEC Sound & Light, killed by cancer and at no age. And I recall sitting in the pew in my ridiculous colourful shirt wincing at the bad sound quality and in particular the crackling noises. Steve would have been livid but I seemed to be the only person who noticed or was bothered.
I have upstairs, in The Loft Of Dreams, a mint in the box Alpine F#1 Status CD player. I had this idea, that I could take my brand-new rig battery, the two £1400 Morel test loudspeaker enclosures and a high-quality amplifier with me to Bob’s cremation. The idea was that Mr Richard Giddings would build a small but neat enclosure, like so many he had done before commercially but this time as a dinky portable high-quality audio unit.
So today I telephoned the crematorium to discover that they use a fully digital system with an MP3 library controlled by the organist and that furthermore my offer of free maintenance for both chapels was met with the entirely understandable fact that it was all contracted out and that nobody except for the supplier could touch it, which did make sense.
What I really want to do is install a relatively minor sound system in the chapel just for Bob. Say about £100,000 pounds worth. That ought to get a result that would make him pull that little satisfied face at good audio, sometimes with the hint of a boyish lopsided grin.
Right in the middle of the SQ mayhem of early IASCA UK sound off era (Hello John Robinson, superhero!) Prestige Audio were still doing ‘˜normal’ cars as well. I recall Bob saying of a car that had had a simple pair of the 6x9s that even back then, were supposed to be anathema but were adored by so very many, ‘He left here, thumpin! Loved it’
But I think that the same headunit that was in Bob’s Cossie all those years ago, with CD, would have been more apposite I’ll be at the crem, as detailed. See anybody Bob knew or admired him even, there
Oh and Wendy said don’t spend money on flowers, send some cash to The British Heart Foundation. ‘If this is something that anyone wishes to do please contact the Funeral Directors – M K Ginder Abbots Langley on 01923 269994.’
Drive carefully, enjoy your tunes, don’t get nicked.
Adam Rayner On Line Editor!