Pursuing the Ultimate Music Experiences

Yep. Still looking. Looking for a place in the Silicon Valley for the store / our home. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Palo Alto

We applied to rent 3 homes in the last 10 days. The first we could not come to an agreement on price. The second we got turned down and we still do not know why [their stated reason just doesn’t make a lot of sense]. The third we are still waiting to hear from but we were not the first to apply, so… it does not look so great.

This is a sellers market, and the way this game of musical chairs is supposed to be played out here is for each renter to apply to several places, and each property to take several applications.

But what happens is a property gives the okeydokey to a prospective renter, but that renter might prefer another place on their recent ‘applied fors’, so they hold off accepting. Meanwhile a renter who really wants this place, hoping for this place, is being stalled because if the first people accepted eventually go somewhere else, then they might actually get the place they really want after all…

So, yeah, musical chairs meets the lottery [or, more like Let’s Make a Deal. Do you want door #1, or #2, or…].

We, however, have been applying to just one at a time. We make such an investment in feeling how it would be to LIVE someplace, and how we can fit us and our businesses and our immediate and future goals into a place. It becomes THE place we can make work. THE place we WANT.

And then we don’t get it.

Not giving up, however, on any of these places yet.

Unlike most people, we are lucky enough to work out of the home – and so we spend a LOT of time there. We ‘give’ ourselves to the home, and bond with it, try to make it a better place while we live there.

This place below is a fine example…

This place in Palo Alto was one we had our eyes on for a long time – 5 weeks+. Spent sooo much time evaluating each aspect of this out-of-the-ordinary home.

For one – it has an elevator. An elevator! [there are not enough explanation points in the universe to express how much this tickles us :-)] For over 20 years we wanted an elevator so we did not have to lug 100 lb amps, 300 lb amps, even 700 lb speakers up the 45 stairs to our listening room in Boulder [and, of course, back down again].

Large parking area. Large-ish yard to separate us from the neighbors. Nice appliances. Lots of parking. A gate of sorts. Very nice.

But the rooms were small, and the Audio Note room would require some kind of pipe and draping [Neli thinks].

We haven’t come to terms yet on the price; it is currently just too much for us to feel comfortable with.

We are still jonesing a little for this place, but trying to move on… The other places we found are priced a little better, and all have their more or less lovable blemishes, so we shall see….

Starting to wear us out some, and no doubt you the reader as well…. :-/ Hopefully this will resolve itself sooner rather than later

Whew. Going to run out of Roman Numerals 🙂

Still looking for a place out here.

This Belmont place had an awesome, awesome view. You could stand at this window where the Acapella Cellini speakers are and look right to see South Bay and left to see the San Francisco downtown skyline – and everything in between.

This room was big enough, about 15 x 20 feet and even the dining room was big enough for the Audio Note E-size speakers [and with the same awesome view].

[You mean you don’t also put a system in your dining room if it is big enough? You are missing out! ;-)]

But it was really cold and windy here that day, which is not completely uncommon – which Neli hates – and it was a duplex [we suspected as much during the original drive-by, but it was not specified as such in their ad].

Sharing a wall – the listening room wall – with another home does not seem like it may work all of the time for the ultimate happiness of all concerned.

And there were other issues – basically coming down to us not feeling like we would like living here in the long run.

*sigh* onward we go….

As we make our way up and down the Peninsula looking for a place to settle our selves and our audio gear…

.. realize that we look at about 10 places for everyone that we go inside. Just by driving by we can figure out some of the access issues, the micro-climate, the neighborhood and more.

For example, in a quiet family neighborhood, we might be expected to get some pressure to turn down the music around 8 or 9pm when the neighbors kids go to bed. Now, mind you, *I* do not play the music loud very often, but Neli…. 😉

Large mid-Peninsula Home

The Acapella Cellini in the backroom at this house.

The house was big, with a large yard, and on a relatively busy street. With such a big house, with a big yard, and high noise floor outside, we expected to be able to play music at a reasonable high volume.

There were plenty of rooms here. And the price, while high, could have been much, much higher.

Not much of a view – but not too bad. We are starting to look at houses without views of the bay – we just aren’t seeing what we are looking for in houses-with-a-view right now.

Why didn’t we select this as our next home?

Well, for one, someone else had applied ahead of us [taking the choice out of our hands] :-/.

And, the busy-ish street… We lived in town in Boulder for a bit, when we 1st got the big Acapella Triolon speakers [and met Kevin for the first time – looking for a record cleaner I think], and THAT was on a busy street. Never could open the window because the noise was so bad [a busy street where the speed limit was around 45 mph]. This was nowhere near that bad, here, but still, we have some hesitancy about moving this place for that reason.

Still – it was a nice place…

Yep, still hunting for a house to settle ourselves and the store into in the Silicon Valley area.

The Acapella Cellini speakers in the dining room.

The house was much like our previous home in Boulder.

The ‘mountains’ [what passes for mountains here, not quite the Rockies] on the very tip of Silicon Valley.

Big. Quiet. Large Lot. Views [but nowhere near as spectacular as our previous location in Boulder]. Smells really good here to; all sorts of wonderful flora.

And with the same problems – difficult road [very, very narrow and twisty] and long steep twisty driveway. Only one flight of stairs to go up though 🙂

It is also kind of away from everything, which is good and bad, right? We can really Turn It Up but many people would have a hard time getting to us [we fear].

Lots of room here for several systems, and tall ceilings are nice.

But, personally, my body just starts aching when I think of all the effort it will take to get gear in and out of here – not as bad as Boulder, but can we at least TRY to make life easier? [this is me whining to the wifey :-)]

If the views were really, really excellent [or a really good location] then I might be up for something like this again, but…

Continuing our somewhat more lengthy than desired adventure looking for a new place for the store, which we also call our home [since, you know, we live there], in the San Francisco Bay Area.

[Not about CA, but about the fact that – unfortunately – we think we HAVE only just begun.]

Neli and a Rocky Flats yucca plant.

Now, most of you not from the Denver / Boulder CO area will not know about Rocky Flats.

Rocky Flats processed fissionable material for nuclear bombs and was located between Boulder and Denver.

They periodically ‘leaked’ ‘stuff’.

Much of the land around there is now radioactive.

They closed the plant … 10 years ago? [Oops. It was 24 years ago. Time flies :-)] … and cleaned up best they could.

But, still, whenever we see a super-sized tomatoes, or pumpkin, or anything, we think… hummmmm…. like the Sci-Fi movies of the 1950s taught us, it could only be due to One Thing. Too much ‘Radioactive Fertilizer’. 🙂

So our journey continues…

Anyone has any ideas about how this search for a new location might be, you know, successful [and not be a complete muck up :-)], Please let us know!

Finally.

We’ve been telling people we were going to do this for sooo long. And now the stars have finally aligned, the moon was in the 7th house, and it is happening.

Moving to the San Francisco Bay Area.

South of 92, North of San Jose. We hope.

Looking to open the store in our home, again, with perhaps a retail location later.

Since every audiophile has this dilemma about finding a place with a decent listening room(s) while satisfying several other constraints, we thought it might be fun to share our experiences. You know, as kind of just-what-can-happen tale of audiophiles trying to find a home that ‘works’ for audio as well as for the mundane aspects of life.

Our needs are slightly different than most people, which hopefully will allow us to get something that most people pass over [so it will be cheaper] but which we find AWEsome.

Specifically:

1. A big listening room 15×25 feet or bigger if possible, with a big window with a view at the speaker end [our room at Newport was 13×18 ft. This is kind of an absolute minimum]
2. A smaller listening room with solid corners for the Audio Note speakers, hopefully with some kind of window with a view there too.
3. Two more rooms for our offices.
4. An attached garage to put crates and packing material
5. Oh yeah, a room to sleep in. We’re OK with one of the offices being in here if the room is not too small.
6. Mid-Peninsula where it is warm [Neli likes it warm] and close-ish to most of the Bay Area [for the business]

This is more difficult than imagined – but at least most places have an attached garage here [I will always remember the day before a RMAF, carrying the 120lb Edge Signature One amps, covered in bath towels, stumbling down the 45 steps in a blizzard that had just dropped 6 inches of new snow while Neli and Steve G. were down at the storage unit in Boulder picking up boxes we had forgot to get earlier, with no doubt their own fun times ;-)]. <neli> yeah. driving a F rental truck in the snow [up and down the mountain]. Ugh.

What We Want

[Steve Jobs’ old house in Woodside]

What We Can Afford

[Adorable garage-cottage mid-peninsula:-)]

North Peninsula Townhouse with Awesome View

This is the place we looked inside of first [after driving by about a dozen places all over the peninsula].

Well. A room that is octagonal, like our listening rooms in Boulder. We know all about setup in rooms like this after 20 years of living in them. But this is a dining room, and the length is not great enough to put a couch, or even a chair, in the sweet spot.

And… townhouse? We are thinking that one on the end, and ‘end unit’, where the listening room is farthest from the wall shared with the neighbors, might work OK. Neli really does blast opera a lot, so, ….maybe not 🙂

The main living room of this place has a diagonal corner. [Bad]. Plus the speaker would have to go in the doorway between the dining room and living room. [we can live with this]. The left speaker would also block the door to the deck [which means we can never barbecue. Hmmmmmm]

Nice view though. Can see all of mid bay to downtown San Francisco.

So. No go for this one though a comparatively reasonable price makes it somewhat seductive, even with all the problems.

Looks like this will take some time….