Bruce J. Richman
March 25th 04, 05:12 PM
Michael "confidante to el Presidente" Salmons wrote:
>Washington DC: At a press conference today, President Bush admitted a
>recent shocking revelation that he purchased a pair of pristine Boston
>A40 loudspeakers froma stranger on Ebay, and furthermore, enisted the
>Secret Service to keep knowledge of the purchase from First Lady Laura
>Bush. "Yes, it's true. I had the secret service deliver the packing
>crate directly to my secret listening room." Upon further pressing,
>Bush explained the origins of this heretofore unknown room in the
>White House. "Clinton advised me to check out a certain bust in the
>Lincoln bedroom, and to my surprise, the head began to swivel,
>revealing a switch. Upon depression a wall of the bedroom just opened
>up, and inside I found a fully plush listening room filled with
>awesome vintage gear. There were racks of old Marantz and Macintosh
>equipment, Quads and Dynacos, and some gems from the transistor era,
>too, including brand-new Naim surround sound gear and several products
>by Creek. The speaker selection includes Epos, Dynaudio, even some
>vintage magnaplanars."
>
>Bush went further to explain his own forays into the audio realm.
>"With all that gear in that comfy room, a place where I felt I'd be
>completely uninjured if i choked on a snack and crashed, apoplexic,
>into the thick wall-to-wall shag, I kept going back more and more,
>later and later into the night. Laura became an Audio Widow, I'm
>afraid. it became incresingly impossible to resist trying a variety of
>equipment in the environment, despite the obvious unending sources of
>pleasure available to a man of my authority in the richest country in
>the world. I had the sonex panels adjusted to my own taste and had the
>ambient sound levels checked. I traded the barcolounger in for one of
>those fancy new La-Z-boy recliners. After that, the ebay cash just
>began to flow."
>
>The President explained his most recent, secret purchase. "I had a
>pair of these when I went to Yale. There wasn't much room, and these
>sweet little Bostons really filled the bill. After that there was a
>period of, er, adjustment in my life, and the Bostons were lost to the
>sands of time."
>
>"Recently, while trolling ebay at three in the morning, I found a
>pristine pair of A40s, series I, not II, mind you, with fully intact
>walnut vinyl. I had to have them. After a brief bidding war with a guy
>with the handle resell2u4profit, i bought those puppies for a whopping
>$40. they arrived ony six weeks later. i highly recommend that
>seller!"
>
>And the results? "well, i felt it was unfair to compare a pair of
>fifteen-year-old mass market mini speakers to the speakers in my $50k
>white house dream system, so i just pretended that I was a typical,
>underpaid, midwestern-american lower-middle-class information
>technology shmuck. I used two integrated amps, a late eighties yamaha
>and the venerated eico hf81, the closest the working class can get to
>first-class amplification without a rent-to-own contract. for input i
>used a classic kyocera cd player. all decent components but nothing
>fancy. I didn't want to outclass the little guys right off the bat, so
>I compared them to some newer speakers, the Paradigm Titans (a
>christmas present from Dick Cheney back when dad was in the oval
>office), and some older speakers, the celestion Ditton 15s (Somebody
>left those at my house after a party- the beer stains and anonymous
>bits of hair are still there!).
>
>"I had to start with a little honky tonk, so I put Hank Williams III
>on there. The bass was punchy, not as punchy as the Titans and not as
>effortless as the Celestions, but the kick drum attacked with fullness
>and authority. The only complaint I would have is the topside, while
>mostly very smooth, did have a tiny bit of sound separate from the
>woofers. Now, this is not a problem at all with the Titans or the
>Dittons. And actually, it's not as bad as, say, my obnoxious old pair
>of Rogers Sound Labs monitors- god those are awful. Still for a budget
>speaker, they do damn good. It also depends on the program material. I
>put on a album one of my daughters had lying around by some weirdo
>named Sparklehorse, and I could swear I could read the serial number
>on the Neumann that guy was using on Little Fat Baby. Not bad for
>forty smackers.
>
> Onto the little 18 watt Eico and some Mingus. I was floored by these
>little champs. They have efficiency to spare, so they make a great
>companion for this amp (although the titans match the Eico even
>better). The tweeter didn't sound nearly as out of place. rather, with
>the help of the silky-smooth Eico, they added exactly the right amount
>of sizzle. Among the budget vintage amps, I find the bottom end of the
>Eico to be nearly unrivalled. And the Boston, which is a sealed
>design, not ported, had extremely quick dynamics and offered up just
>the right amount of bass with more authority than my own signature on
>a presidential decree.
>
>"all and all," summed up the President,"more pleasure than $40 really
>ought to give you, unless you hang out in the hallway behind the oval
>office. you never know what $40 can buy you there."
>
>Michael Salmonsm
>salmonsm @ missouri . edu
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
LOL!
Excellent. A much more entertaining and relevant post than recent, endless
political threads. The only thing missing was a notable lack of mention of
vinyl hardware. So what type of turntable was dubya using? My guess would be a
rehabilitated Rek-o-Kut, or perhaps via eBay, a Dual.
Unfortunately, noting the presence of significant amounts of English gear on
his list of goodies, even his audio purchases represent a regrettable tendency
to not buy American! :( No wonder, our trade deficit sucks! :)
It's much more entertaining to read audio fiction that shows some creativity
than political fiction spewed forth by right wing zealots.
Nice job.
Bruce J. Richman
>Washington DC: At a press conference today, President Bush admitted a
>recent shocking revelation that he purchased a pair of pristine Boston
>A40 loudspeakers froma stranger on Ebay, and furthermore, enisted the
>Secret Service to keep knowledge of the purchase from First Lady Laura
>Bush. "Yes, it's true. I had the secret service deliver the packing
>crate directly to my secret listening room." Upon further pressing,
>Bush explained the origins of this heretofore unknown room in the
>White House. "Clinton advised me to check out a certain bust in the
>Lincoln bedroom, and to my surprise, the head began to swivel,
>revealing a switch. Upon depression a wall of the bedroom just opened
>up, and inside I found a fully plush listening room filled with
>awesome vintage gear. There were racks of old Marantz and Macintosh
>equipment, Quads and Dynacos, and some gems from the transistor era,
>too, including brand-new Naim surround sound gear and several products
>by Creek. The speaker selection includes Epos, Dynaudio, even some
>vintage magnaplanars."
>
>Bush went further to explain his own forays into the audio realm.
>"With all that gear in that comfy room, a place where I felt I'd be
>completely uninjured if i choked on a snack and crashed, apoplexic,
>into the thick wall-to-wall shag, I kept going back more and more,
>later and later into the night. Laura became an Audio Widow, I'm
>afraid. it became incresingly impossible to resist trying a variety of
>equipment in the environment, despite the obvious unending sources of
>pleasure available to a man of my authority in the richest country in
>the world. I had the sonex panels adjusted to my own taste and had the
>ambient sound levels checked. I traded the barcolounger in for one of
>those fancy new La-Z-boy recliners. After that, the ebay cash just
>began to flow."
>
>The President explained his most recent, secret purchase. "I had a
>pair of these when I went to Yale. There wasn't much room, and these
>sweet little Bostons really filled the bill. After that there was a
>period of, er, adjustment in my life, and the Bostons were lost to the
>sands of time."
>
>"Recently, while trolling ebay at three in the morning, I found a
>pristine pair of A40s, series I, not II, mind you, with fully intact
>walnut vinyl. I had to have them. After a brief bidding war with a guy
>with the handle resell2u4profit, i bought those puppies for a whopping
>$40. they arrived ony six weeks later. i highly recommend that
>seller!"
>
>And the results? "well, i felt it was unfair to compare a pair of
>fifteen-year-old mass market mini speakers to the speakers in my $50k
>white house dream system, so i just pretended that I was a typical,
>underpaid, midwestern-american lower-middle-class information
>technology shmuck. I used two integrated amps, a late eighties yamaha
>and the venerated eico hf81, the closest the working class can get to
>first-class amplification without a rent-to-own contract. for input i
>used a classic kyocera cd player. all decent components but nothing
>fancy. I didn't want to outclass the little guys right off the bat, so
>I compared them to some newer speakers, the Paradigm Titans (a
>christmas present from Dick Cheney back when dad was in the oval
>office), and some older speakers, the celestion Ditton 15s (Somebody
>left those at my house after a party- the beer stains and anonymous
>bits of hair are still there!).
>
>"I had to start with a little honky tonk, so I put Hank Williams III
>on there. The bass was punchy, not as punchy as the Titans and not as
>effortless as the Celestions, but the kick drum attacked with fullness
>and authority. The only complaint I would have is the topside, while
>mostly very smooth, did have a tiny bit of sound separate from the
>woofers. Now, this is not a problem at all with the Titans or the
>Dittons. And actually, it's not as bad as, say, my obnoxious old pair
>of Rogers Sound Labs monitors- god those are awful. Still for a budget
>speaker, they do damn good. It also depends on the program material. I
>put on a album one of my daughters had lying around by some weirdo
>named Sparklehorse, and I could swear I could read the serial number
>on the Neumann that guy was using on Little Fat Baby. Not bad for
>forty smackers.
>
> Onto the little 18 watt Eico and some Mingus. I was floored by these
>little champs. They have efficiency to spare, so they make a great
>companion for this amp (although the titans match the Eico even
>better). The tweeter didn't sound nearly as out of place. rather, with
>the help of the silky-smooth Eico, they added exactly the right amount
>of sizzle. Among the budget vintage amps, I find the bottom end of the
>Eico to be nearly unrivalled. And the Boston, which is a sealed
>design, not ported, had extremely quick dynamics and offered up just
>the right amount of bass with more authority than my own signature on
>a presidential decree.
>
>"all and all," summed up the President,"more pleasure than $40 really
>ought to give you, unless you hang out in the hallway behind the oval
>office. you never know what $40 can buy you there."
>
>Michael Salmonsm
>salmonsm @ missouri . edu
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
LOL!
Excellent. A much more entertaining and relevant post than recent, endless
political threads. The only thing missing was a notable lack of mention of
vinyl hardware. So what type of turntable was dubya using? My guess would be a
rehabilitated Rek-o-Kut, or perhaps via eBay, a Dual.
Unfortunately, noting the presence of significant amounts of English gear on
his list of goodies, even his audio purchases represent a regrettable tendency
to not buy American! :( No wonder, our trade deficit sucks! :)
It's much more entertaining to read audio fiction that shows some creativity
than political fiction spewed forth by right wing zealots.
Nice job.
Bruce J. Richman