Pursuing the Ultimate Music Experiences

We added a page for high-end audio super tweeters to the Audiophile’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Super tweeters are high fidelity stand-alone devices that produce very high frequencies. They tpically [I would say] start at about about 5000 Hz and often rise to above 20,000 Hz.

The help fill in high-frequency harmonics which in practice helps the midrange and other frequencies sound more authoritative and real – as well as adding the ‘air’ and ‘image solidity’ that one might expect.

Thought there would be a large number of these. But if there are, they are hard to find [kind of the reason for collecting them all in the guide in the first place].

One of the more popular, the MuRata series of spherical super tweeters, has stopped production:

MuRata Super Tweeters:

Translated from the Japanese:

“Notice of end of production of spherical tweeter and spherical speakers
concerning (harmonic enhancer) all models spherical tweeter and our spherical speakers then it has expanded over the long time, I was allowed to end all production and sales.
Inquiries such as repair for this product, toll-free: or, (00: 00-12 13:00: 00-17 9 excluding weekends and holidays, our regular holiday) 0120-015-008 here to ask I would like to. With Thanks very much for your patronage of the past, as will your understanding, thank you.”

As usual, if anybody knows of any high-end super tweeters [and we do not mean regular tweeters, which seems to be a lot of what Google finds] then PLEASE let us know about them.

Our inner ears generates its own sounds – which might account for some dichotomy between measured and subjective quality of some high fidelity systems.

Seems to me that this effect, linked to below, would tend to make the subjective experience better than it would ordinarily be. Both aiding listening and confounding ‘golden ear’ evaluation of absolute quality of high fidelity audio

“Not only can the human ear detect sounds, it can also generate them. If the ear hears the two upper tones of a major triad, it produces the fundamental of the chord which can then be measured. This phenomenon [is] called “otoacoustic emission”

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-audiometric-reliable.html

Today, September 11th, is the Boulder 1000 year flood one year anniversary.

After looking at the maps of what happened during the flood, it appears that our house was the precise point of maximum rainfall [there was a weather station just down the hill – that got damaged during the flood – so we are pretty confident about this. Yay.].

Very wet summer and wetter September. Tomorrow all this will be ice.

Every day, THIS is what we wake up to for much of this week.  And much of the summer. Whenever it starts raining really hard people here kind of look at each other; then look at the ceiling where you can hear the pelting of the giant raindrops we’ve been getting; then kind of grimace.

Sometimes the days would start off nice but then by 1:00pm or so we had to turn on lights it was so cloudy and dark and rainy and poopy.

We’ve already got Boulder’s average yearly rainfall – so the next 4 months are ALL gravy… :-0

It is not like it is a LOT of rain, it is that it rains a LOT of the time, drizzling on us and then surprising us with a 5 minute torrential downpour and then the sun comes out. Rinse and repeat.

I know Californians would love some of this rain – but for us? Our summers are short enough, and all this rain and cold and hail just make Summer a slightly warmer, very humid, version of Winter.

In this photo looking out over Boulder [hidden behind the fog] I keep expecting the Loch Ness Monster to rear its serpentine head.

Tomorrow temperatures are supposed to be 30 degrees below normal. Thanks Calgary 🙂

I think the lousier the climate, the more people tend to stay indoors and listen to music. Am I right or am I right?

The next day. September 12th. Hello Winter.

Moving LPs, those fragile and heavy beasts, is always a source of pain and amusement. The featured photo is from Retro Vintage Modern Hi-Fi.

Over the years, it seems we end up trying several methods of clunking these heavy things around.

These guys at Van Bonn dispensed with the crates, boxes or string approach and just piled in the albums. Of course, if they accelerate at all while they are driving,  they are going are going to have a surprise when they open the back of the truck when they get to their destination.

This is the way I have usually moved albums when I was younger. Now we use moving boxes which seal up nice and allow efficient filling and stacking of our albums.

Never tried this ribbon-tying technique. Seems to work. These last two photos are from Soul Clap Records

I think moving this warehouse of LPs might be a lot of work.

Sometimes I think our house looks like this to people who visit. But, you know, I think we still have a ways to go. Besides, CDs, being SLIGHTLY more robust, are more often tossed around like this here  🙂

But let this be a warning to all of us to keep our collections organized on a day-to-day basis – or things WILL get out of hand.

Photo from Messy Nessy Chic

Added 8 more Hong Kong and Taiwan high-fidelity magazines, along with a Swedish and French-Canadian magazine, to the Audiophile’s Guide to the Galaxy’s page on foreign-language high-end audio magazines and blogs.

That ups the total to 42 international magazines / blogs so far.

Google is really poor at helping me find these sites in Asia. I expect them to trickle in for awhile.

It is really fun to see a page I have no idea what it says but to easily recognize most of the gear on the page – and the photos, like the one of Ed Meitner that is circulating through Asia this month.

As always, the Google Chrome browser will offer to translate each page for you, or you can find another method, if you want to actually try and read some of these websites. Sometimes translations work well, sometimes not as well 🙂

Added Artesania and SolidTech high-end audio racks to the Audiophile’s Guide to the Galaxy page on high fidelity high-end audio equipment racks

When I first started this with the idea of including a photo or two from all readily available racks, I thought there wouldn’t be that many. Especially after I saw that several had gone out of business, like Zoethecus, et. al.

But nooooooo.

We’re up to 56 photos. I *think* we are getting close to having just about all of them.

These two newest additions, SolidTech and  Artesania, are both imported and available in the U.S.

The SolidTech ‘Hybrid’ photo is above and the Artesania ‘Exoteryc’ rack is pictured here below.

I think most of us think about this sometimes. How do you make so your can display favorite records on your wall in your listening room?

The experience is so evocative. Just like browsing the better record stores. Just to be able to look at album covers and remember all the hours we enjoyed the music it represents.  Remember the times of our lives when we first heard the record. Remembering that we actually own this LP that we prize so highly but sometimes forget we even own [or is that just me?].

RecordWall-it does this.

“Proudly made in the USA, RecordWall-it allows record fans to display and change their favorite albums on the wall without the trouble of taking the entire frame apart. With its innovative detachable record post, our record frame supports displaying a picture disc/record instead of just an album cover. Visit http://www.recordwall-it.com to see the many features of RecordWall-it”

RecordWall-it is looking for more dealers., but it is not quite right for our store. Our listening rooms have more windows than wall space, so we couldn’t demo it, but it does look like a cool thing that one would love to be able to use when and if one gets more wall space… 🙂