Putting Curtains in the Man-Cave

As 2013 gives way to 2014, those of us contributing to Putting Curtains in the Mancave want to sum up the year from our perspectives.  We learned quite a few exciting things, but we'll also put on our psychic hat (Sorting Hat?! Hufflepuff?)  and make a few predictions for the year to come! The Venerable DL-103R still kicks butt! Things we learned in 2013: Killer deal for analog:   We found that the Denon 103R ($380 retail) offers a sound that is well in excess of its price, showing you don't have to spend thousands of dollars in order to have top flight sound.  It isn't perfect, but for a large collection of used vinyl, it will do as good or better than pickups that cost multiples of its price.  While there are a lot of other "big bang for the buck" pickups out there, the Denon blew us away in it's overall music presentation. Concert Vault - thousands of live concert performances of artists you know and love! Sonos still is our "go to&

The world of music irrevocably altered c.1880 I have often wondered how music got started in our culture.  I imagine, back in the mists of time, someone, somewhere took the various melodic calls and strung them together into a melody and then taught the various tribes-people the things she or he had done.  And at that point we had actual composed and arranged music.  It is hard to tell if language came first or music - so entwined both are in the way we are wired.  Without getting too romantically colored, it must have made the long nights more pleasant and the unity of the tribe stronger. In the subsequent milennia, music has been used for multiple purposes, and new genres and ways of music distribution have been central to our religions, entertainment, and government.  In fact, to extend the old joke about "death and taxes" I do believe music has always been and always will be with us. But fast forward to the era of recorded music, which began a little under 150 yea

Our top 5 ... what's yours? There are a ton of Christmas Albums out there - and nearly everyone has a collection, or a source of Christmas music that celebrates the Holiday.  These days it seems easier than ever. You find a station on Pandora (or equivalent), press "play" and your Holiday is sorted. Yeah, if you want to celebrate your music with predigested blandness ... So ... we'll list out 5 of our favorite Christmas Albums - and challenge you to go out yourself and find your own. So in no particular order ... 1.  Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas (Vinyl, SACD, CD, FLAC ... ) This is far an away our favorite Christmas album, when we play it, immediately the whole family knows that Christmas is around the corner.  Sure it goes with the TV special, but the Jazz is first rate, and is one of our favorite Jazz Albums of all time.  It is a shame it only fits best only one season out of the year! 2.  A Very Special Christmas (Vinyl, CD) Th

It is that time of year again, and we thought we'd throw together a gift guide of our own that would help bring more music into the family. We focused on things we have direct experience with, that we feel really did bring more music into our family, rather than tweaks to the audio system that may only interest one family member. Whole House Music: Sonos ($199 on up) The current Sonos Family - we're betting your whole whole family will love it! As a family we've enjoyed building our Sonos system over the last couple of years. We heartily recommend it to anyone else who is thinking of a whole house sound system who doesn't want to compromise the sound, and who also wants to feel like a technological wizard since they are so darn easy to set up.  While we don't use it for our main listening, for casual "whole house of music" listening, and as seamless integration into a number of streaming services, we've found this system to be deeply sa

The Wisconsin Chair Company, decided to start a recording company, Paramount Records , to help sell phonographs they were marketing.  If this sounds familiar, this is not entirely unlike Apple launching iTunes in order to sell their iPods over a decade ago.  From 1917 until 1932, they were recording and releasing a lot of inexpensive records, but they were most famous for the so-called "Race Records" - which was early Jazz and Blues performed by African-Americans.  They may have recorded 100,000 78's by the time they stopped, and most of the artists are obscure, though Louis Armstrong, "Jelly Roll" Morton, and others got their starts with the label.  The recording quality, even for 78's, was never high, but the rarity and the excellent music make them a bit of a holy grail for people who collected 78's. A few years ago, a few collectors, including Jack White (of White Stripes fame, and currently the head of Third Man Records ) decided to put toget

Mass-Market Pop music ... but you know what?  It's pretty good. With many "refined pleasures" there is often a "High" and "Low" ... and in music there is as well.  It's hard to imagine, I know, that many of the people who put together stereo systems that rival the price of a really nice car, listen to (and develop tastes for!) music that is as far away from Pop as Pat Robertson is from the latest meeting of Pagans United. But it is true.  In the audiophile world, Jazz is the most "popular" followed by "Blues" and "Classical."  There is special dispensation given for any music that is 20 years old or older.  Which serves a lot of music buffs, since it allows someone license to enjoy the music of their childhood. So it is a big step for us to admit that we both enjoy pop music.   ("Pop... pop... pop music")  We risk having our audiophile card revoked for this admission, but I'm tired of keeping this

"Perfectionist Jazz" - Enjoyable but Not the best.  Sound quality 100% In my experience the journey though audiophilia really went in several stages. The first ones were yearning, and the initial plunge into a high quality stereo, followed by adjustment of components and other ancillary items to tease the most out of the stereo. But for music, there was a long dark period of musical enjoyment that I eventually busted out of.  That part was probably the most important thing I had to do ... Music bought only for sound quality is death to enjoyment ... Yes, sounds great.  "Meh" for enjoyment (Though fallen out of favor in audiophile circles these days) Early into audiophile exploration, I got a list of "demo quality music" - it was a 3 page small type single spaced list of CD's that the author used when setting up a demonstration of an audiophile stereo system.  I poured over the list, and had only heard of one or two out of the several hu

CD, Grado or Denon - which gives her the breath of life? Yes, we're sometimes late to the party, but we have listened to, and known of Florence and the Machine for awhile through the teens in the household.  And of course, they know if they suggest something on vinyl, it usually shows up and gets played.  So we have 2 of her albums on both CD and LP.  She's had one really big hit, "The Dog Days Are Over" and we admit, we love that song. When we listened to the CD through the Ayre C-5xeMP, playing the hit "The Dog Days are Over" - the song seemed like it is ever so slightly compromised in some manner: sounding nearly perfect but lacking a bit of humanity .  You hear forceful percussion, a lilting mandolin, and her voice coming through but not as clearly and as richly as you think her voice should sound - it gives the impression of the voice as another instrument in the band, and trying to argue a point.  We wanted to have a second opinion on the LP to