Capitalize on your son's curiosity. Boys are by nature fixers and builders. I know this site is about audio but most of us just buy our gear. Show him how to pound a nail, cut a board with a handsaw, check the oil, etc. If you don't know how to do these things yourself then find someone who does and let that person (grandpa?) show him. It's really sad that most of todays youth needs to get out the owners manual when they have a flat tire. Change the oil?? No way. Fix anything? Unlikely. Besides lessening the demands placed on our environment the skills of repair satisfy a deep need most of us have. I had many such mentors in my youth and consider myself fortunate. Whenever I feel really down I start some new project to sidetrack my thoughts. It's great therapy plus the pride of accomplishment is a great boost to self-esteem. Some of my best memories are of Dad and I building something. This is the glue that binds.
The miracle of the turntable?
This afternoon I was finishing up reprogramming my Proceed AVP after the AVP2 upgrade, and I was playing an album to check that I had set up the analog pass-through correctly. As I did, my 8 year old son was watching. He gazed in wonder at the spinning black disc and said:
"I still don't understand how that can make music."
I started to explain the principle of the mechanical movement of the stylus in the grooves, and how the cartridge turned that into electrical signals, and then I stopped and asked: "Do you know how a CD makes music?" He shrugged his shoulders to indicate "No."
It got me to wondering...how is it that a new generation just accepts the fact that they can feed a shiny plastic disc into a tray on a black box and get music, and yet they are dumbfounded by the technology of the LP?
Am I just getting old, or what?
"I still don't understand how that can make music."
I started to explain the principle of the mechanical movement of the stylus in the grooves, and how the cartridge turned that into electrical signals, and then I stopped and asked: "Do you know how a CD makes music?" He shrugged his shoulders to indicate "No."
It got me to wondering...how is it that a new generation just accepts the fact that they can feed a shiny plastic disc into a tray on a black box and get music, and yet they are dumbfounded by the technology of the LP?
Am I just getting old, or what?