First off:
Sweetbeats, thank you for a fine and well-worded post, and it was all taken exactly as intended. Posting here on this thread, and reading the responses, it is interesting to see how one's outlook can be viewed and how you see yourself in turn. And that is from the bottom of my heart. It is educational in the true sense, and your honesty is appreciated.
I know that if I decided to go 'in a big way' and to write a will that dictated conditions that reflected my hobbies, I would have the most rocking Mausoleum on the planet
My Xenon film projection, 5.1 surround sound and excellent walk-in music at 15ips would maybe guarantee that the gravediggers would stick around after work, but getting a regular audience, let alone selling popcorn in that setting, might be a bit of a PR chore...
Ok, how about this:
I started breaking down the things, in terms of "honest" and "dishonest" enjoyment. This is just me, something I am exploring to get closer to the core of what we are all saying.
"Dishonest" doesn't mean deliberately bad; it means things I acquired along the way, with pure intent, but with on other, deeper feelings showing up along the way to point to why I bought it.
"Honest" can mean that you/I got it at a time when "all the elements were right"; that is my definition of it. It may mean a golden moment when a certain piece became available, or when you decided to "jump" and simply get it. But you have to be able to think back on it with harmony, even today.
The most honest electronic thing I own is my turntable. It is a Luxman 131. Having gone through a couple of arms, now with a Sumiko, and with its current pick-up a Grado Signature, it was paid for by my father.
It turned out he and I both wound up in the same line of business, without me knowing he had been in it until years later. His alimony checks funded my turntable back in 77 when I was 17 years old.
I had ordered the table after a lot of lobbying for the money, and when it showed up, it turned out to have the more expensive arm/preamp combo with it.
My local dealer, a real gentleman, said: "This is what you ordered; they screwed up. So be it; enjoy."
I love the Lux dearly, for all those reasons, and for all the musical memories.
My Studer is dishonest, as I mentioned. After loving all the good reel-to-reels of the 70es and never having one, and after getting a Tascam 2488 multitrack in a box that does plenty for me as a home musician, the 'tape thing' kept nagging at me.
I went with a Tascam 1000X initially, and after paying $700 for it, I scrambled its memory board by walking around in rubber-soled shoes and then touching its frame. Zap. Static. Now it is a beauty that won't run. It sits in my storage, a mute victim, everything working, except its brain.
I felt (and this is the retribution part) like I wasn't destined to own a good reel-to-reel after all these years....you know where this is heading.
So, one night, all the frustration came up at the same time as a six-pack of beer and a "buy it now" button. Studer 807, killer condition, about $3300 including shipping from Canada. Done. Including all the anger that the past 30 years had brought, imagined or otherwise, regarding being "left out" of recording on tape.
Getting Even With The World Through Equipment.
I not only had a reel-to-reel; I had a reel-to-reel to die for. 7.5/15/30 IPS....hello
One curious fact remained: I wasn't using it.
It sat there, in its glorious, aluminum-faced Swiss perfection, while I was busy gettting a set of $200 "Genuine ReVox" aluminum hubs (even though I had 2 sets of the regular Teac hockey pucks) and hoarding some boxes of bulk tape in the last days of Quantegy. The latter, I think we all did in some form.
It took until about a year ago that I finally started treasuring the Studer as a working piece of gear and not a gleaming exhibit to my own desires and insecurities.
I was worried about the heads....they are so new you could shave by their reflection, and they are some of the hardest-surface ones you can get, and here I was already nervous about wearing them out before I even started using the machine.....state of mind is everything.
I now roll it regularly, with fine transfers of 180-gram LPs reminding me of the luxury of being able to still have an all-analog recording chain to listen to. Sometimes I plug a mic in and strum my guitar, and that too is sweet.
So...rambling again, but I feel the posts that make up this thread are truly valuable. So often we are "shooting up" on our memories to make us high, and god knows it can hurt the wallet and many other things in our lives. But when it hits right, it sure feels good, like any addiction
C.
