Putting Curtains in the Man-Cave

November 1975, the Date when Sony opened Pandora's Box! Why would I put a picture of the first Betamax player in an article about how Stereo is in the middle of it's golden age?  The conventional wisdom is that the VCR ushered in the doom ("Doom, I say!") of the home stereo, and we've watched a multiple decades death scene as people lose interest in stereo playback given the new options like home theater, mp3 players, and streaming services on headphones. The golden age of stereo system was from about 1950 until about 1980 where people chose to fill their evenings with glorious music and companies poured their efforts and money into 2 channel playback ... The conventional wisdom was right in its facts - but wrong in conclusion ... The Thing is, the Golden Age, wasn't ... Before the VCR, there were a few simple truths that is easy to forget if you are over 40, and unbelievable if you are under it:  The only commonly available source of prerecorded perfor...

Except, they really are not competitors. Interesting article in the link below.  Says that digital downloads dropped 6% in 2013.  They compare it to the continued rise of vinyl sales. While we're all very happy to see vinyl continuing to grow in popularity, since it really does bring a lot of good sound to the table, we are a little skeptical that MP3 and Vinyl are actual competitors since most of the folks use MP3 and LP's differently. I think it isn't surprising that MP3 continue to fade in the face of streaming services which offer the ultimate in convenience and cost reduction. What would be interesting is to track the progress (or retreat) of LP and high resolution downloads over time.  Since those tend to be more "event" than "sonic wallpaper."  But, honestly, if you are dedicated to music, you will be invested in multiple formats both high and low quality and fill your day with music when you can, and enjoy the silence when you can't...

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...

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) ...

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...