donger need food.

The Law of Diminishing Returns

So, it's late...I can't sleep.
Somehow I find myself meandering through the many halls of eBay on this shopping spree for used audio gear that I've dreamed about since I was in high school reading old issues of Stereo Review and Audio magazines. I blame my cousin...we used to sit around perusing the Audio magazine's Annual Equipment Buying Guide and build our separates system. Not to mention that unforgettable experience of listening to music on his Polk Audio SDA CRS bookshelf speakers. I can only dream of what the sound was like from the top-line 6 foot tall SRS.

So, like the crazed materialistic consumer needing his fix, I did some looking around. Check this out...

Martin Logan Statement E2 speakers. Buy it now priced at a reasonable $40 thousand dollars. You read that right. 40 large. But hey, you're getting 16 12" subwoofers, 16 7" woofers, and a bad-ass crossover network. And the whole system weighs 1,800 lbs. That's almost 1 ton. I still have to know what electrostatics sound like...Did you ever notice the Martin Logan electrostatic speakers -- dunno which model -- in Joey & Chandler's apartment on Friends? I never understood how a data entry person and a struggling actor could afford such nice speakers. Eh. It was Must See Thursday; like they knew anything about reality.

Mark Levinson No. 336 power amplifier. Forty-five hundred bucks. I wasn't able to find the $20K top of the line Levinson amps (and you needed two)\; doubt if anyone is selling those. But crap...This thing will pull 50 amps out of the wall, and deliver 1400 watts continuous power. That's right kids, not peak power, continuous.

Sota Star turntable. Currently at fifteen hundred bucks. With a vacuum hold down on the platter. I can't remember if this was the turntable that was driven by a thread (to eliminate the hum of the electric motor from being picked up by the cartridge). There was one turntable, I can't remember brand/model, that actually had like a 100 lb marble flywheel attached to the platter (to reduce wow & flutter). It supposedly took about 10 minutes to get up to playing speed. Crazy.

Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. Sold for fourteen hundred bucks. Man, I still remember seeing one of these things at Stereo Sound Company in San Diego and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. Oh wait, I take that back...second coolest thing -- the unidirectional autoreverse RX-505 was way cooler. Hmmm...it's only going for around $300. And I need a tape deck... yeah, riiiight.

Magnum Dynalab tuner. Currently at twenty three hundred bucks. Jeezus. Who da hell has that kind of money to burn on a freakin' tuner?!? An FM/AM radio...and you still have to buy an amplifier to hear anything.

But really though, I can't complain. To each his own...I cringe when someone spends $300 for a pair of (insert your brand here) shoes or $750 for a Louis Vitton purse or $2000 for an Armani suit just like people cringe when I tell them I blew $6/gal on gas or $150 a piece on tires that only last 1000 miles. You gotta love this country. Yay, capitalism.

posted by VirtualErn @ 2:07 AM

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