TAS. The Absolute Sound?

Remember in the Matrix how the operators could visualize the scene by watching green symbols raining down the computer screen?  Apparently, Jason doesn’t need to listen to the music, he watches a graph of the music.  A $300 bluetooth amp should generate some great looking charts for you.

I still laugh at how we were all caught up in amplifier specs in the late 70s/early 80s.  % THD and power output seemed so important.  Then one day I heard a good amp without negative feedback which is how they got such great looking specs.  The lesson is measurements are a tool for the designer.  How it sounds is for the listener.

The presumption being that reviewers must have the ultimate in gear to be qualified  to write about lessor offerings affordable to mere mortals?  And in this case affordable means equivalent to the cost of two or three high powered luxury automobiles.  

Robert Harley and Micheal Fremer are the ying and yang of stereo reviewers.  One has this pristine, perfect room for listening optimized to the point of being in the middle of a desert to preclude any outside noises or risk of any spurious sound reflections bouncing back from adjacent homes while the other is in a cramped, messy room full of gear and more records than the library of congress.  The design and construction of Mr. Harley’s perfect listening room is fascinating.  In contrast, watching Mr. Fremer chronicle the revamping of his house’s old electrical system was equally fascinating.  

I’m a neat freak myself and could not relax in my listening room if so much as a CD case was out of place.  Could that be why I find Mr. Fremer so charming?

That is a very clean, sweet setup @corelli 

I recall in the mid 80s two articles in an issue of Stereophile.  One article raved about a Radio Shack 1 bit portable CD Player how good it sounded when connected to a stereo system via a mini-plug to RCA adapter.  The other article discussed the virtues and sound quality of using dental floss versus the OE belt on the Air Force One Turntable.  It was the everyman’s stereo magazine back then.  

The best part:  Curious, I stopped by my local Radio Shack one day to see this now famous portable CD player.  They were selling them above MSRP due to the recent notoriety complements of Stereophile Magazine.