Speak for yourself

Saturday January 12, 2008

Graham’s latest projects have been the tarting up of the living room–a dab of paint here, a dab of paint there–and the refurbishment and reinstatement of our old unused record deck, connecting it to the ‘new’ hifi. The living room is now ready for the sale all bar the final deep clean and ‘dressing’.  We’re sort of aiming for an Easter marketing but the punch seems to have gone out of us a bit. All down to b*****y January, like as not.

The record deck needed a new cartridge and stylus, and a dedicated preamplifier. The first is easy to understand but I refuse to return to RIAA/digital/analogue conversion thinking so I sighed, and let it all pass over my head.

It’s odd to be listening to vinyl again.  There are people who say that it’s superior to audio CD but that’s not truly the case. It’s different, that’s for sure, but comparing the two is such a complicated process that by the time you’ve done the analysis you’ve forgotten why you started.

It sounds good. It sounds fun. Graham and I did a little 1970’s disco dancing to an original Grace Jones pressing yesterday evening. That was fun, too, if you allow for my slow and gentle approach to what used to be a rather more vigorous affair. You don’t go bumping your hips carelessly at my age and in my condition, not even when you’re dancing to the rhythm.

“Where’d you find this record?” I panted.

“eBay.”

“But I’m sure we had it way back when.”

“We did. It fell foul of some persistent Welsh mice in the first cottage.”

“Ah.” Pant. “That explains it.” Huff. “I think I’ve had enough disco dancing for now if you don’t mind.”

“No. I don’t mind. I’m finding it a bit of a strain myself. We’re getting old.”

“Speak for yourself.”