Your Private Audio Museum AKA Audiophile CONFESSIONS....
A few years ago, I noticed a Marantz receiver on ebay in seemingly perfect condition. Now I have no particular thing about Marantz and in fact I think I have never owned a Marantz component.
But then, a stirring of one of my oldest audiophile memories...when I had only a plastic, staticky Soundesign "stereo" in my own bedroom, I was invited over to my neighbors house, circa 1977, where I was at first flattered and excited to be hanging around the older kids, but then I was terrified and mesmerized....
to see giant pitchers of beer being poured....a curious smoke in the air....both mixed with the smell of cedar wood dust and linseed oil from the garage where there had been making tall cylindrical devices....
All of this, accompanied by the sounds of Gentle Giant, Jan Hammer, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock..
WOW this didnt sound like the Beatles! or the Partridge Family?!?!?!?
As I moved closer to the sound, I saw it: the MARANTZ receiver, high on a shelf, glowly softly in blue and white against the silver, perhaps the beginning of my neurosis...
So 25 years later, I just had to have that receiver.
It sat on a shelf in my office for 3 years, plugged into the wall to light up, but without speakers or a source component.
Last year, I moved it to my library, where I now use it with the DVD player and TV. Its wonderful, warm sounding, and the lights are soothing. Even my wife likes it.
The babysitter, thinking she is being polite, turns it off with the cable box and TV when she prepares to leave at night.
I get angry when she turns it off. I confess.
A few years ago, I noticed a Marantz receiver on ebay in seemingly perfect condition. Now I have no particular thing about Marantz and in fact I think I have never owned a Marantz component.
But then, a stirring of one of my oldest audiophile memories...when I had only a plastic, staticky Soundesign "stereo" in my own bedroom, I was invited over to my neighbors house, circa 1977, where I was at first flattered and excited to be hanging around the older kids, but then I was terrified and mesmerized....
to see giant pitchers of beer being poured....a curious smoke in the air....both mixed with the smell of cedar wood dust and linseed oil from the garage where there had been making tall cylindrical devices....
All of this, accompanied by the sounds of Gentle Giant, Jan Hammer, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock..
WOW this didnt sound like the Beatles! or the Partridge Family?!?!?!?
As I moved closer to the sound, I saw it: the MARANTZ receiver, high on a shelf, glowly softly in blue and white against the silver, perhaps the beginning of my neurosis...
So 25 years later, I just had to have that receiver.
It sat on a shelf in my office for 3 years, plugged into the wall to light up, but without speakers or a source component.
Last year, I moved it to my library, where I now use it with the DVD player and TV. Its wonderful, warm sounding, and the lights are soothing. Even my wife likes it.
The babysitter, thinking she is being polite, turns it off with the cable box and TV when she prepares to leave at night.
I get angry when she turns it off. I confess.
