An Advanced Audiophile Exercise Regimen
Being an active audiohpile can be both great exercise, and at the same time requires one to be very fit.
We are talking specifically about ‘active’ audiophiles who mix things up a lot. You know, audiophiles who are on a first name basis with the FedEx guys and gals.
In order to compete against other audiophiles for the title bout in the Audiophile Strongman Competition, the following are recommended exercises:
1. Carry a 120 lb amp up and down 45 steps.[builds strong legs and biceps].
2. Now carry the 120lb amp up and down the 45 steps while it is in its crate. [builds character]
Extra bonus points: Do it while it is snowing and icy.
Extra extra points: Do it while it is very hot and humid while it is snowing and icy
3. Lean over and plug in a power cord into a hospital-grade outlet. At an ackward angle such that one cannot use your body weight to help get it in. Now un-plug it, again without using the body’s weight, and plug it back in. Do it 10 times. Do not electrocute yourself. [builds finger strength and popeye forearms].
4. Practice routing a very stiff and large power cord under a rack and up and over into a power strip. Now do it for a transport, DAC, preamp, and 2 monoblock amplifiers. [develops analytical skills and legendary patience, along with an abilty to ignore situations of disturbingly low aesthetics].
Extra points if the lightweight power strip is made to remain in its correct horizontal orientation.
5. Bend the legs and lean precariously on tip toe over $50K+ worth of delicate and very hot equipment, putting one arm around the front of a equipment rack to stablilze a component while using the other arm around the back to plug in a cable. [develops the core muscles and a nerves of steel].
Extra points if the cable has a WBT NextGen connector which requires two hands – or in this case, one hand using precisely controlled fingers that hold, stabilize, push and twist the connector, over and over again, until it is in place.
Subtract points if the component ends up cock-eyed because of imperfect stabilization technique.
Subtract more points if the WBT did not go on all the way precipitating an embarrassingly loud ground loop. Take two Advil.
6. As quickly as you can [grasshopper], Take a CD out of a top loader CD player / transport in a single movement [builds precise motor control of the finger tips] and put it into a front loader so that it sits perfectly center in the tray [develops a precise feeling for the weight and aerodynamic capabilities of a silver disc].
7. Queue up an LP while straddling a half-dozen power cords, two SET tube monoblocks, a preamplifer’s power supply and without leaving any finger prints on the equipment rack.[Develops a care-free yet zen-like appreciation of the workings of the world].
Extra points if all of the beginning of the first track on the record is prefectly audible and at the correct volume.
Subtract points if the cartridge falls off the outside of the record.
8. Route 100 cables, power cords and interconnects, of various sizes, of various robustnesses, of ridiculously high but damn well worth it cost, in and around components without scratching either the components or the equipment rack. The wiiiiide equipment rack. Witn one side of the rack blocked off by a piece of furniture that appears to allow enough room to get behind the rack but in fact does not. With minimal room lighting. While playing Led Zepelin REALLY really loud. [Develops an ability to curse with the best of them].
Subtract points if a red cable goes into a black connector.
Subtract more points if an input is connected to another input, or an output to an output, and for any cables only attached at one end.
Extra points if the lengths are such that only some cables will only reach to some components, requiring a super-computer-like capacity planning algorithm to be running in one’s head to figure out what goes where.
Extra extra points if the final arrangement of all these cables was actually the optimal one for this system.
——
Those are just a few of the exercises that many audiophiles do, every day, as they prepare for the Audiophile Strongman Competitions. I.E. modifying a typcial system on a typical day.
Just A Thought
Hmm, maybe I should stop complaining about those pianos? Y’know, those 9’6″ 1255 pound $268,000 Bosendorfers that Victor Borge used to play. Pretty much one step to this competition:
1. Get this big, long instrument up onto its side to get it out the front door.
Extra points are earned if you can get this piano past the tricky point of balance where its weight is the most and every muscle is hyperextended. This is just the time when you realize that your palms are getting sweaty (and slippery) as you begin to pannic.
(Extra extra points earned if you do not pannic enough to lose your grip and end up under a very big instrument that has just fallen seven feet!) This is usually a competition for a pair of dedicacated guys.
Maybe I will continue to complain…And I suggest you do the same. It takes guts, this audio stuff. Perhaps someday, we shall be given the highest honor of audiophiledom, the Distinguished Service Medal of Aural Arts, awarded for extreme gallantry and risk of life in actual combat with a producer or reproducer of music.
Shall be a fine day indeed.
Ryan Lannom
Mike, I think Ryan has trumped you. Although it depends on how often he moves them. If he travels with a touring pianist who favors that beast, he’s the champeen of the world. But, in both cases, ohmygod, the sound makes it worthwhile!
Jo-Ann and I sang, (as part of a choir), at the Bosendorfer headquarters in Vienna last March and we rehearsed in their factory demo room. We all sorta forgot to sing the first time the accompanist played the intro to the first movement of Mozart’s Coronation Mass. 40 dropped jaws and 80 wide-open eyes.
That said, I’m glad I don’t have 45 steps or a half ton piano. 😉
Frequency of moving is an excelent point. To Dave, I am a technician of electronic player pianos (lots of interesting stuff going on now) and come across pianos of this magnitude less frequently than I would like. That is the bitter-sweet point of my life…Heavy but heavenly. The last Bosendorfer 290 I heard was at the NAMM trade show in Anaheim; Chopin Fantaisie-impromptu in C. Unbelievable! It is much more common for us to have Steinways and poor-quality Chinese furnature that is shaped and strung like a piano in our shop. For that reason, Mike may edge me out in the Audio Strongman Competition. Although we do about 100-150 pianos per year, that WBT/yoga/Cirque du Solie thing that Mike discribed takes the prize.
(check out http://www.classicpianos.com/ a good friend and great tech)
Okay Mike, I’ve got it out of my system. No more PianoFederation 😉
Regards.
RL
…PianoFederation… . 🙂
Every discipline takes its toll on the body and the best train for the physical demands, as well as the mental.
Pretty soon we will have ‘coaches’ to train people how to modify their systems, Indy 500 style! Interconnect changes in under 10 seconds!
[and I am just going to ignore the prospect of 1255 lbs of high quality, high precsion, ungainly masterpieces. But only $268,000 you say? Can you say… ‘insurance’? 🙂 ]
Take care, guys,
Mike