needed more Yellow
Here's the thing - all of the old and out-dated gear I have to play the various types of 'media' formats my music collection is comprised of was designed for one purpose - to play (lol, parse) the media type it was designed for. There are no modems built-in, no functions that double as data-scrapers, no extraneous bullshit detracting from its function. If you wanted to real-world it and compare this sort of function, that will outlast me, to something you may know, then: linux.
There is a whole thing to playing an album, say, that makes all of it appealing. In order to drop the needle, there must be a device that has a needle - and what of the sound from there? Certainly it's delivered to an amp, or, integrated amp, or, receiver. One of these is a central hub - stuff connects to it for purpose and then sound exits out of it - to another device, or, to the speakers. Glorious. I still have 2 receivers and a integrated amp. One receiver for home theater currently occupying space in the hall atop an album cabinet. Works fine, but, I'm in a dinky apartment surrounded by other apartments, so, I don't use it. Stuff like a dvd player connects to it, cable, it's also network'd and supports usb and satellite radio and a slew of other stuff. Home theater receivers can become convoluted. This one is simple and has just the features and perfect sound that I demand. Also, it's a Yamaha.
There's an HK 430 that I use daily and is wonderful. A receiver has a tuner built-in for AM and FM (stereo) radio, but, I'm not using the tuner on the HK and have plug'd a sansui tuner into the 'aux' jack for the FM stereo. FM is traditionally the weakest link in a system and the worst sounding source. Since maybe 20 years ago FM has also been compressed and largely from digital sources, which, you know, makes it sound like ass. The one station I listen to sounds uncompressed, it's a public radio station and it's friggen awesome. Sounds better than other stations, but, is still - FM. Of course I have an antenna hook'd up to it. Which, is a whole 'nother thing'.
Atop the HK is a turntable, glorious, and in a barely-working state. The (grease - some kinna highly viscous fluid) has hardned (dried-up) and the cue button must be worked in order to drop the needle. Heh, I'm working for this music over here...It works enough for me not to take it apart and repair it. Which, is a whole 'nother thing, but, integral because if you don't love all this stuff then it can be maddening, and by all this stuff I also mean getting up off of your soft ass to flip the album (tape) over - all part of the physical interaction - the buttons and dials, weighted and smooth. The touch result, yo.
So, I think I still have 200 or so tapes, too. Glorious carrying an inescapable routine. Funny, you don't have to 'clean' mp3s. I can't help but mistrust a little a thing that I don't have to maintain, give a little love to. WHat prompted this writing was a thought I had looking up in the hall and seeing a VCR; I thought, I have cleaning and maintenance goodies for every type of media in my collection, and then I imagined some 20-something chica telling someone else about - yeah, he popped in a tape to a friggen VCR and then we had 8 hours of music that sounded amazing....because that's why I still have a VCR, to play those tapes I made years ago. Still, there are 3 cassette (tape) decks around here, too, and a 'boom-box'. They all work, but, only the boom-box is reliable at this point. I already fixed the pioneer C7-F900, but, it was wurbly while playing a tape a couple years ago. The Denons are box'd-up.
3 tape decks, a boom-box, a VCR, 1 blu-ray player, 2 receivers, an integrated amp, 2 turntables - KLH 6's for audio and Energy for movies. All of this stuff takes up a lot of room. And then, the actual 'media': ~2k albums, ~200 tapes, ~300 cds, ~2k dvd/blu-ray. Land sakes!
Back in the day you know we wished that all of our 'music' could be on a little device you carried with you. Of course we did. Lol, someone even put a turntable into a car. Woot!! We have had little devices to carry our music around since the '70s and only some of it has been any good. I love the idea of having all of my collection in my back pocket, and I can, but when I go from its output into an amp and out some wicked speakers it sounds like ass.
Complete ass.
And that's the kind of shit that hurts me in my soul. Also, where's the tactile sensation - the care and storage, which, is devoted, which, negates poser, which, gfy, poser. Coming up the idea that music was disposable was not at all a thing. Nobody thought that. We all knew music was personal, a gift, a soundtrack and an inspirational spere of being by which we could communicate or withdraw with or into anything. This means care. Care is an energy and when you put an energy into a thing then you expect a thing in return, or, at least try for it. This is why all the gear. I wanna touch that dial and turn it ever so and feel its weight and hear its immediate effect. I wanna do that this way because of responsiveness and it not arguing with me about needing an add-on or subscription. This device I carry does a thing and does it very well and I can enjoy what it produces in a more holistic way than from the tin-can from my ass-pocket can produce.
Just the other day I took advantage of the cd-player function the 35 year old 'boom-box' has to listen to some Concrete Blond and it was exhilirating and even that boom-box sounded 10 times better than the mp3s on my laptop. I mean, I have speakers and a sub-woofer plug'd to my laptop, still, it's ass.
I look around, though, and don't wanna carry all this stuff anymore - my collection and supporting gear is now, aside from bedroom furniture, 72% of what I own. If I could get it down to just: tools, pots/pans, bedroom, clothing, crap I don't throw out - it still wouldn't all fit into a '76 sedan de ville, and I'll tell you what, when everything I own'd would fit into that land-shark, well, those were the days when I could still fly.