Getting Your Daily Dose Of Hi-Fi

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For sure on a blog for us "men of a certain age" you could think a post about Hi-Fi to be about the value of a High Fiber Diet. But this is about the good old Hi-Fi we talked about in college--the all important High Fidelity sound system. Need a refresher on what qualifies as high fidelity?

Seems the kids-these-days are discovering what we've known for a long time: headphones are a great way to enjoy high fidelity without busting the bank account. Of course their main criteria for choosing a pair seems to be about celebrity rather than quality. Now let me clearly admit I've yet to put on a pair of "Beats" (although I would be happy to give them a go, if the good Dr. Dre would like to send me a a trial pair.

For me almost all of my music listening these days is done through headphones. When I'm in the car the radio is always on NPR, if it's on at all. Headphones give me the ability to sit anywhere in any room and still get a great listening experience.

I have three sets of phones: Sony MDR-7506, Sennheiser HD 280 Pro, and Grado SR80i. Although I like them all, my favorites are the Grados. The are the only open concept of the three, which works great for me. Being open gives a sense of actually hearing the music in the room so to speak as opposed to in my head. Also, by being open I can hear my Amazing-Missus when she is reminding me to take out the trash. Being present is important.

I won't give you a full review here, you'll do your own research and believe me there are plenty of great reviews out there for the Grados. Click for reviews.

I do want to point out though that Grados do a superb job across all frequencies whereas so many of the newer phones seem to want to accentuate the bass like the subwoofer-heavy systems out there today. Also I love the fact that they are an old family-owned company and the phones are built in Brooklyn, New York.

When you give in and buy those Grados, be sure to give them a workout with some headphone worthy songs like these:

Chicago -- 25 or 6 to 4

Steppenwolf -- Magic Carpet Ride

Santana -- Black Magic Woman

Ray Charles & Nora Jones -- Here We Go Again

Crosby, Stills & Nash -- Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

Blood, Sweat & Tears -- God Bless The Child

The Beatles -- While My Guitar Gently Weeps

So what are your favorite tunes for listening through a great pair of phones? Feel free to take a stand for your favorite headphones.

 

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Product links in this post are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I may receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value for others. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

 

The Real McCoy

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““Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.””
— Woody Allen
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  • Quintessential
  • Authentic
  • Classic
  • Genuine

I have a good friend who's an attorney in Atlanta. I don't mention that he's an attorney in Atlanta as any kind of qualifier, in fact I realize it could cause you to jump to stereotypical conclusions. So let me quickly say that the wit and wisdom I love about Gene supersedes his vocation and location. This good friend is in fact part of the inspiration of this blog. He's the one that reminded me of the now gone TV show ,"Men Of A Certain Age" with themes similar to what we're exploring here at About POPS.

Not long ago he made a visit to Italy. It was a honeymoon trip. It doesn't get much more romantic than that, right? I asked him after his return if he found that a bottle wine and a bowl of pasta tasted better in Italy than it does here. His insightful reply: "Yes, in the same way that bacon and eggs taste better cooked in an iron skillet over a campfire while camping out." Don't you wish this blog was a scratch'n'sniff?

Why is that? What is there about things like reading an actual printed book, preferably hardback, in a good, deep leather chair near a wood-burning fireplace? Why is a baseball game at Wrigley a great experience whether the Cubs win or not?

Somehow these things just seem more real. Thank you Gene for making the case so vividly.

Words like real, authentic and genuine get thrown around these days in ways that aren't very authentic or genuine. So it set me to thinking; what are some of those things, you know, things that endure, things that are above the passage of time, trends and pop culture?

Please add your thoughts to the conversation by posting a comment here.


P.S." In case you're wondering... 

The phrase "The real McCoy" is a corruption of the "The real MacKay", first recorded in 1856 as: "A drappie o' the real MacKay," (A drop of the real MacKay). This appeared in a poem Deil's Hallowe'en, published in Glasgow and is widely accepted as the phrase's origin. -- Scottish National Dictionary

We All Need A Catcher

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News of J.D. Salinger’s death a while back set me thinking of Holden Caulfield and "Catcher in the Rye." I remember well the first time I read the book. I understood and shared Holden’s distaste for “phony” people, and I hoped I wasn’t one. 

I think too, I could feel Holden's calling or compulsion to catch people–to save them; not just in an evangelistic sort of way, but from being hurt in this life. Teenagers seemed so innocent and vulnerable to me and so many of them were hurt and thrown away by selfish, phony adults. Looking back I think that was the core of my motive for much of my life's work.

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I’m pretty sure “catching” was the main motivator for me, because to this day, I am sorrowful about those I tried to catch, but missed. Anyway… if you’re not familiar with the book, here’s Holden explaining:

You know that song, “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye”?…

His little sister Phoebe interrupts

It’s “If a body meet a body coming through the rye”!’ It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.

Holden continues,

Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.

J.D. Salinger defies understanding but people keep trying. There's a new book and movie called "Salinger" that promises to give us a glimpse, finally, of the man and author who lived in isolation. A read-worthy review of the new book and movie is in the current New Yorker.

That Salinger was wounded, like many of a generation, by combat is obvious; that it “explains” everything he wrote after is the kind of five-cent psychiatry that gives a bad name to nickels. (In any case, as the authors admit, Salinger already had six or so chapters of the book finished before he set foot in France, while the Holdenish sensibility—if not Holden’s sweetness and essential helplessness—was shared by hundreds of artists of the period, most of whom had never held a rifle.)

In the review is a statement that made me say, "Yes!" out loud. Why is that so many times we can't just let a life lived be a life lived, or a song sung or a poem written? Here's the statement:

The subject of the book and documentary is not Salinger the writer but Salinger the star: exactly the identity he spent the last fifty years of his life trying to shed. Cast entirely in terms of celebrity culture and its discontents, every act of Salinger’s is weighed as though its primary purpose was to push or somehow extend his “reputation”—careerism is simply assumed as the only motive a writer might have.

I will probably read this new book and will probably see the movie. I will do it with the same cynical eye and ear, that are dominate for me. And then I am sure I will say something like, "Why do we try to figure out who Salinger really was. He gave us Holden Caulfield. And he didn't feel like he needed to help us figure Holden out, he just let him be who he was.

Holden was important to me in sorting out adolescence and he is important to me in this second coming-of-age at 62.

Here’s one of my favorite parts of the book, Holden is remembering the Museum of Natural History. Read it and see what I mean.

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different.The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you’d be so much older or anything. It wouldn’t be that, exactly… I mean you’d be different in some way — I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.

Oh, and to those I should have caught and missed: I am sorry.