[Gary Eickmeier]

Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , KH
wrote:


And the biggest problem? It's "who cares?". We are a dying breed if
you hadn't noticed, and IMO high-end music reproduction likely won't
outlive us. There is simply no market for "better stereo" that would
have to be re-imagined, and would have to start at the recording
stage.

I'm afraid that you have hit the proverbial nail on the proverbial
head with that statement, Keith. I suspect that High-End audio will
largely die with us baby-boomers and older folks. Apparently, except
for a very few, the younger generations don't view music the way our
generation views it. They might say that they love music, but what
they actually do love are the songs that belong to their generation.
W'se all do that to a certain extent, But I have friends in their
40's, 30's 20 and I know some of their teen offspring. They don't
understand my love of music. "How come you spend tens-of thousands of
dollars on playback equipment when all you need is an iPod and a pair
of ear-buds?" They don't get the idea of playback quality at all. One
friend, in his 40's, once told me that while he could appreciate the
sound from my system, he felt that he didn't need that because he
could hear what he was *interested* in with his little pre-packaged
video surround system. Depressing.

When I was a kid I got my first tape recorder, a stereo one, I was maybe 15.
We messed around with playing our voices backwards, doing skits, recording
some of our 45s Then I found out about stereo tapes and wanted to try that.
My uncle willed me his "hi fi" console, which had an RCA jack input, so I
used that as one channel and the speakers in the recorder as the other. All
I knew was that there were some sounds over there, and some over here, and
that was stereo. Maybe the louder you played it the more real it sounded.

Later when I was in High School, one fine lunch period a couple of musicians
came into the gym and started playing some examples of some jazz pieces. I
don't remember but I think it was a bass and some drums. I just remember
that I was transfixed. Couldn't move, couldn't go on to lunch or class. I
guess our family didn't go to good, live music much, or didn't take us kids.
Later yet, I remember going up to the record department of J.L. Hudson's and
listening to Ahmad Jamal for as long as they would let me. Everyone else was
listening to Elvis and the new Rock 'n Roll, and I was discovering Ella
Fitzgerald on the radio. Didn't know who she was, didn't even know she was a
black woman, just recognized her voice every time and sat transfixed. I
thought "who is that?" and had to seek her out and find some tapes. Made a
fool of myself trying to give a speech about her in speech class. But one of
my friends was taken with my enthusiasm and went with me to a concert in the
Ford Auditorium in Detroit, on the evening of our graduation. We sat in the
front row. All she had for accompaniment was a piano trio. She had the
audience in the palm of her hand for an hour and a half. When it was over,
we exited around the back of the stage after the curtain came down, and as
we walked out there she was coming off the stage. Her eyesight was not the
best and of course she didn't need to wear her glasses to sing, so she
thought we were just some backstage people, and we heard her gushing "They
were so kind, so kind." We were so kind! She sang some of the Gershwin
songbook for us! It was at the peak of her career, 1962! I saw it, I heard
her live right in front of me! OMG!

Later in my many musical episodes I met and got autographs from Ella, Oscar
Peterson, Ray Brown, Count Basie, McCoy Tyner, Nat Adderly at his home here
in Lakeland - he helped me find a trio to play at my wedding 16 years ago.
He bemoaned the state of jazz appreciation in this country. So do I.

Gary Eickmeier