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.

Yes. That’s right. Your socks.

This Winter seems to be worse, for some reason known only to the Sock High Command.

Maybe they have been pushed too far, in and out of shoes with which they are at odds, each accusing the other of theatening to break the latest Stink Armistance.

I don’t know.

But I can report that they are on another serial killing spree that may extend into our listening rooms, so be on the lookout!

They come in all sizes and colors and smell quotients.

Do not be fooled by softness and humorous anecdotes on their exteriors!

When they strike it can be both painfull and costly.

If you are unable to get away and are cornered by a pair of what seem to be tube-like material made out of cotton or wool, Be Extremely Cautious. Do not interpret their soft and gentle demeaner as being friendly. They are not!

Carefully, every several steps, touch something metal that is NOT connected to anything electrical. This renders their weapons of mass destruction impotent, but only temporarily.

While we have contacted the Defense Department and Homeland Security, as well as both the NRA and anti-NRA people, it is unlikely they will be able to stop their infiltration before they get to YOUR listeningroom.

This is the only warning you will receive. Our feet are freezing and the computer is the only thing left that hasn’t been taken ou

1. We will see people cryo’ing entire amplifiers, cd players, and pre-amplifiers.

2. TAS will finally match Stereophile in number of subscribers and number of copies printed.

3. Somebody will make a blu-ray high-end audio cd player which will not sell well.

4. Somebody will make a blu-ray high-end video player that sounds almost as good as the best high-end audio SACD players which will open the market for true high-end Audio+Video systems and the dredging up of all sorts of video to go with the large, currently video-less, music catalogs from the last 100 years. This will stave off the recording industries demise until broadband is capable of downloading the equivalent of a 70GB blu-ray disc in finite time.

5. The official CES High-end ‘High Performance’ Audio Show and the Stereophile Home Entertainment Show continue to dwindle.

Wishes for the New Year

1. We see larger and larger diamond drivers culminating in six-foot tall diamond drivers for a high-resolution single-driver speaker.

2. The current bear market for high-end audio turns into a bull market (i.e. it becomes popular) and drives down costs by a factor of two every six to eigthteen months (like the digital video market today) and today’s $150K speaker costs $5K in 5 years.

3. The recording industry goes bankrupt (fiscally this time) and the resulting Laissez Faire environment which allows actual talent to rise to the top results in a new revolution in music similar to that which occured in the 60s.

4. Someone will make a component that has built-in vibration mitigation from, say, HRS, a custom designed power cord and internal wiring that was tuned for the component from, say, Nordost, the best capacitors and resistors and silver transformers from, say, Audio Note, and…etc…. so that there is no need for aftermarket tweaks or modders to do any work on the piece. Oh! And it comes broken in already. REALLY broken in. So it sounds good as soon as you take it home.

5. Mike will learn how to spell, or at least get a spell-checker for the blog.

Humor for the New Year

1. Every single home audio company will now offer a $2oK turntable…. no matter if they are a cable company, an equipment rack company, a speaker company or an amplifier company.

Including Bose.

……………………… And Rockport.

All of which will receive rave reviews.

2. The Stereophile Show collapses and gets split up into 50 shows per year, one per state capital, and once per week. This ends up putting many overly exuberant show attendees out of work and overly exuberant exhibitors into bancruptcy court, and the court creates a new ‘Chapter 50’ for these poor souls.