It's fun falling in love again...

Isn't it great when you find a new hobby or interest that suddenly consumes entire days and a substantial portion of your expendable income?

I think so.It's happened before, and I hope it'll happen again, but today, the obsession du jour is vintage high fidelity audio equipment. Or more precisely: high-end audio equipment from 1960's and 70's that used to cost a great deal of money.

Many enthusiastic geeks regard audio equipment built during this time to be superior even to today's all-digital components. These individuals, while knowledgeable and convincing, typically live in their parents' basement and subsist on a diet of Tab and Hot Pockets. Their acceptance is generally not to be sought after.

But in the interest of my personal mantra "Take the Good, Leave the Rest" I am obliged to tell you that despite their refusal (or inability) to acclimate to civilized society, these so-called 'Audiophiles' have hit on something quite special: These stereo systems do sound amazing.

For me, this odyssey was born out of a desire to find a record player that I could use to play a growing number of obscure classical LPs that I was convinced I would never find on CD.
In the words of author Patrick McManus, I lept whole-heartedly into a sequential vortex from which I yet to emerge. Here's how you can follow along at home:

Step 1: Buy insanely cheap vinyl records at your local thrift store. Have some reasonable doubt that you've ever seen Charles Munch's Schubert 9 on CD as reason to splurge that 50 cents. After all, where else will you find this one-of-a-kind performance? ("They don't re-release these things on CD! I can't get this anywhere else!")

(Note: The dangerous combination of words 'one-of-a-kind performance' is the permission slip that a music collector will throw down at any opportunity. Not only does it convince the buyer him/herself that this is an absolute necessity, but it indirectly accuses any other party of trying to stand in the way of one's musical education and development.)

Step 2: Take vinyl home and place in chic-looking pile next to your book case, or on the floor, if you prefer, with the most notorious album on top, so anyone who walks by will think "ooh, that person's really into their music." (I suggest going with something a little of the beaten path - the Beatles are too over-done, even though I keep my Revolver handily nearby anytime a babe visits.)

Step 3: Realize that you actually don't have any way of playing these records. Sure, having them all standing in a row is cool, but your musical prowess is being doubted by those who came by to admire your Revolver and find out that you don't have a record player to play it on. Embarrassing. So, in order to keep your dignity (and that prestige that began when your friends began looking to you as the barometer for 'cool') you must seek out a record player!

Step 4: First things first. Your first Google search tells you that the Hip Kids don't call 'em record players anymore. For the aficionado, these machines are referred to as turntables. You file this information away for future nonchalant conversations with girls. (Guys will just think you're an idiot.)

Thrift shop prowling comes up early in any quest for vintage equipment. Aside from online auctions/sales, it is the best (and often the cheapest) place to find all of the stereo equipment that your neighbor's grandparents left behind in their attic after they moved to Phoenix.
I would recommend thrift shops for your search - not only are you familiar with electronic equipment's location in your local thrift shop, (due to your scavenging for obscure LPs,) but you will quickly learn that the greatest thrill associated with audiophile geeks is the hunt.

There is probably no sadder, more pathetic display than the nerd having triumphantly returned from the Hunt, a dusty amplifier trussed and carried over the shoulder and placed gently on the nerd's bed, awaiting for its meticulous cleaning which will restore the amplifier to it's original specification. The nerd will take great care in seeking out an original operations manual on the internet (supplied by other nerds) and will then spend the rest of the evening gloating to yet more nerds across the globe about his magnificent find. For indeed, the hunt is not only the acquisition of the prey, but also beating everyone else to it.

So, once you have found a record player, you must perform an improvised dance of thanksgiving in the aisle of the thrift store and then greedily snatch it off the shelves and sprint to the check-out, lest another nerd by hiding amongst the shoes (a popular breeding ground) waiting in ambush.
You gleefully drive home, thinking about how fantastic your records are going to sound and how cool you will be and how much your friends will love you. You find some Clapton on the radio, and make a mental note to find some Hendrix on vinyl.

Step 5: comes in two parts. The first part occurs when you get the turntable home, gently clean it and go to plug it in, only to realize that you have nothing on the back of your current stereo that says "plug record player in here." After a moment of agonizing frustration, trusty Google tells you that you must have something called "phono plugs" in order to connect your record player - I mean turntable- to your dinky Aiwa. Your stereo must also be capable of providing the amplification power the turntable requires in order to get the music from the needle, all of the way to the speakers.

After your tantrum subsides, part two of step 5 can begin: the first real step into a calculated obsession with vintage audio equipment.

What begins as the desire to play a recording of William Primrose begins to blossom into a gleam in the eye while you look at photos of Pioneer receivers and Kenwood amplifiers. It is a gradual process, but one moment you are concerned with your reputation with your friends, and the next you have been sucked into a world dominated by the dateless masses who yearn only for the singular experience of hearing Jimmy Page's guitar solo in Black Dog in perfect reproduction. It is normal at this time to lose a bit of hair, gain 30 - 35 pounds and begin eating Chef Boyardee 17 meals out of the week.

Step 6: Begins when you finally decide upon which piece of audio equipment you require in order to continue living. Without it, you are a vacuous tomb of a human being, incapable of thinking about anything else for more than 27.6 seconds. If you can only hear the records, you know everything will be okay.

Because of their ready availability, most blossoming nerds will decide upon a receiver, which not only includes an amplifier, but also a radio tuner, capable of dialing in not only the standby AM stations, but also the new-fangled luxury known as FM.
There is much to consider: Date of manufacture, reputation of the brand, wattage rating, reliability of hardware, ease of repair/replacement, etc. Finally after all of this, you will settle on an object of your desire. For me, it was a Pioneer SX-424 being sold with original manual and packaging by the original owner. (Packaging and manuals will earn serious nerdpoints.)

A handsome unit with simulated woodgrain finish and a sleek array of knobs across its face, the Pioneer SX-424 made its debut in the mid-70's. Right in the golden age for audiophile consideration. A hefty 20-something pounds, the face lit up whenever the power was on, and when the receiver was searching for signal, little needles would licker back and forth inside different meters, letting you know that it was deliriously happy to be doing its job. A modest 15w per channel, but capable of driving speakers much larger than that. Sold as a 'bedroom' or 'secondary' receiver, it was intended for smaller rooms.

I had come into possession of a pair of large stereo speakers from the 80's that had been used and abused by fellow college students. As such, I wasn't expecting too much from their performance, but when I hooked it all together, I was not prepared for how much volume 15 watts apparently produces.

Gleefully, and with a minimal loss of hearing in my upper dynamic range, I plugged the turntable into the phono plugs on my new beauty and turned everything on. At last! To hear the first strains of Thickfreakness pouring out, or the bombastic first chords of Toscaninni's Eroica!

...yet after a few seconds you start to hear something uncomforting: distortion. A lot of it.

This can't be right. The nerds never mentioned in the midst of their adulation of vinyl recordings that the recording quality actually sucked! No, this can't be right. So a frantic inspection of cable connections ensues, and eventually you resign yourself to the fact that something is simply wrong with your equipment. And even more depressing: you are incapable of fixing it.

Step 7: is a mild depression, usually lasting a few days, but it can endure if the nerdling has very little else to do in life. It's best to just take a few deep breaths and barrel through.

Step 8: You do research. A lot of it. You discover that the average level of education amongst audiophile nerds is post-doctorate studies, with at least 4 years being devoted to electrical engineering or astrophysics.
You discover why your LPs sound bad, (an infinte list) and what remedies you can try (an even longer list.) Audiophile-nerds show no lack of ingenuity when confronted with a problem with their stereo equipment. Everything from a $2,300 LP washing machine (for reals) to a stylus repair kit using nothing more than a tampon, four rubber bands and a philips screwdriver.
But after all of this research you only learn one thing: your old stereo and your hastily acquired turntable suck.

Step 9: Involves a lot of waiting. Whether its waiting for money to spend on solid wood speaker cabinets or waiting for the exact model of pre-amp to come up for sale, once you know what you want, there isn't much you can do except wait for one to arrive. Of course if you know of an elderly couple who happens to own one of these particularly rare stereo systems, they should know that brake lines have been known to sever randomly if not checked regularly.

Step 10: is something they should develop a support group for. If one can be addicted to shopping, it can be no less true for audiophiles. A full-blown case of Audiophilia (a soon-to-be diagnosable disorder) will consume thousands of dollars annually, not to mention the late nights spent up online sniping last-minute auctions on a set of foam rings for the 15" woofers on a set of Cerwin Vegas you found at the Salvation Army last week. It is a traumatic existence which can be controlled by one with exceptional self-discipline or a small pocketbook.
It would not be unusual to find an audiophiliac acquiring a pair of KEF Celestes in the morning and by the evening have traded them away for a Sansui G9000 and a NM copy of Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. Obsessive, yes, but arguably a fantastic trade.

It is an entire underworld built and controlled by those living in it. Scavenging over the left behind electronic remains of yesteryear, searching for the elusive component which will complete their collection and bring fulfillment to their soul. When this most impossible of goals is achieved, those select few are taken to the high chamber to assume a place amongst the uber-nerds, where they govern in benevolence over the rest of nerd-dom.

It is a slippery slope that quickly spirals out of control into a dusty, forsaken wasteland of musical and technological history, explored only by those with the fortitude (and enough time on their hands) to learn and exploit what these magnificent machines were capable of.

A testament to how the audiophiles got it right: Some of the most expensive audio equipment you can buy today has nothing to do with high-definition digital surround 7.1 puffery. They are turntables that will cost you thousands of dollars - just for the table. A quality stylus will cost you thousands more. Despite decades of unuse, vinyl recordings are seeing a resurrgance, not only from current musicians, but new pressings of old recordings so that your old worn-out copy of Live from Folsom Prison can be enjoyed brand-new again.

There is a very legitimate reasoning behind this style of music-listening. But we'll save that for another time. There's a set of Dahlquists that someone just posted on craigslist and I want to see if they'll take my SX-850 in trade... and my Hot Pockets are done in the microwave.

T.