wired magazine and Tom Port

In the late 80's Tom's apartment and mine were a couple of blocks apart, his very near the corner of Ventura Blvd. (as immortalized by Tom Petty in his song "Free Falling") and Van Nuys Blvd. It was a great neighborhood---locals like Johnny Ramone, Dave Edmunds, and Billy Swan could be seen getting a coffee, bagel, or newspaper on the street. Sherman Oaks has now joined the rest of the Valley in becoming a ghetto.

Both Tom and I moved away, and it looks like he's done pretty well for himself, as his current room is much bigger than his tiny apartment in Sherman Oaks was. Back then his prices had yet to escalate to where they are now; I got a "hot" pressing of the German "Magical Mystery Tour" LP for something not-too-bad, maybe twenty five bucks, I don't remember. Luckily (I guess!), I have more records now than I have hours left in this lifetime to listen to! So Tom will have to get by without more of my money.

Yeah, weird to see those kind of components in a system used to evaluate the sound of LP's. He's obviously never heard a high performance system. I should have had him over to hear the Quad ESL/ARC/VPI-Rega-Grado rig I had when he was down the street. Looking back at him now, I do seem to recall he struck me as a know-it-all kinda guy. I remember he made very little eye contact, always a sign that something is not quite right with a person. He also never stopped moving, very fidgety, with a lot of nervous energy. Other than that he was cool ;-).

For me, Johnny, it's not his system that gives me pause (the Townshend tweeters are fantastic. The low powered 70's receiver, not so good), but rather his opinion that tube amps make everything sound warm and snuggly. That view of how things sound brings into question Tom's qualifications to judge the sound of LP pressings.