- Joined
- Jan 3, 2011
- Messages
- 1,947
- Reaction score
- 1,252
It is an old joke: What does the dog do if it actually catches the car, what does the 80 year old do when he actually catches the voluptuous blond he has been drooling for? That is the thing. What does the audiophile do when his system can get no better? That is actually hypothetical as there is always someone with a bigger, more expensive component. That nasty ,Uber snobbish forum WBF is full of 200 year olds who proudly proclaim that they have assembled an "end game system" only to replace it next month with something even more outrageous.
The Kaokoland is that remote area in the northwest of Namibia, Now everyone with a baseball cap, a Toyota bakkie and a 4x4 Megaworld account have been there but was time when you only got there if you were someone or knew someone. Well that is if you were old and rich. If you were poor and young and inherited your father's sense of rightness and your mother's inability to keep your mouth shut, the SANDF sent you there on short notice. So there I sat ,day after day as far west as you could go , hemmed in by a bunker and sand walls. The young kids went on patrols. They went west but only as far as a place called Rooi Drom or Red Drum. Then they turned back. This place became magical to me and all sort of fantasies jumped into my lazy mind. The kids looked at me funny and shook their heads. After much nagging ,they broke the rules and took me with on patrol. And there it was: A bloody 44 gallon drum, painted red! What was I expecting? A spa or Ultra City or what? I still do not know. Still, that red drum in the desert said: " so far and no further" . " But what if..." I said " What if the insurgents crossed West of it? " "Oh they tried once in the 70s " The kid said. " The desert got them" . He narrowed his eyes" There are tracks out there " he said " Made by the Portuguese cars when they fled Angola long ago. Tracks look like they were made yesterday"
When one assembles a system over 40 years or so, you get to point where you are happy. I never thought it would happen but it did. But here is the thing. It won't be the most expensive or best, it is just a feeling of contentment. I have often said that when I got my 40 year old turntable I stopped reading about turntables. It was a funny feeling, I just stopped. So the newest ,most expensive TechDas do not interest me. When Thorens launched it's mega million rand follow up to my table, I just smiled vaguely and paged on. But my digital needed work and ,against my expectations. it could deliver. It may not be the best but suddenly I was content. I fettled and modified and spent vast amounts on the orphaned Studer Reel to Reel machines and they too got to a stage where further expense vs the number of tapes would be stupid. But it was good, way better than any studio can deliver. But this two showed analog can be better. My turntable won't change .Achim said I needed a Brinkmann Edison phono and Leo that I needed an Audio Research Phono 3 SE. The ARC sounded phenomenal but was expensive. I had been around the bush with phonos and ended with a multi buck top of the line tricked out BAT with more name name additives than your TOTL Japanese vehicle. And, it wasn't very good. I tried other cheaper solutions and preferred it. But there were other phonos right there. But they were too tall, too clever, too pretty... No wait that was my wife and that is another story. They were too plain, did not have enough gain and despite that I owned the matching pre at the time,I never tried it. Silly me. 20 years on and I tried it. And, it had enough gain, was dead quiet and if connected to a central earth became ghostly quiet. And it sounds? Well maybe not the best ever but way better than anything I ever heard and there was that feeling. I am not interested in any others. My red drum may not be wow but it is my red drum. Further west there is nothing for me. The dog has caught the car. Its name is Lamm. I have not read a hifi mag in months. Fora no longer interest me, that is why you don't see much of me. "What if ?" my friend Mike used to say, Well if is there and it is funny feeling 'cause way out West is only a sea of music with no ship in sight. Rooi Drom.
