Heart and Mind

The Demise of a Stereo System

I've always kept my stereo system in my bedroom. Until this weekend.

Some people may think it's odd that I kept my stereo in the bedroom and not in the living room or with the entertainment center. I guess it kind of is. But let me explain why.

The stereo's home in the bedroom came from a history of living in rented places with friends. Technically, if you want to go back even further, you can say it all started in childhood, when every teenager kept his or her his stereo in the bedroom, because that was the one place in the house that was a private haven for your stuff. Your posters on the wall, your music on your stereo. But more recently than that, I'd rented houses or apartments and my preference was always to keep my stereo in the bedroom for similar reasons. I didn't want to leave my equipment in the living room for my friends and every other young person who came through to use. Maybe I was selfish, but not always in a bad way. The music I played was a part of my own world and I wanted to retain control of that. If I wanted to listen to music, I didn't want to not have that option because someone else was using the stereo, or simply occupying the room. The living room was always like the common lounge. There was only one place where it was all mine and my choice regarding who visits and who doesn't, and when they visit, as well.

When I started living with my then-wife-to-be, it immediately started having a more familial feel to the lifestyle and the home we lived in, but we now also had two stereo systems: hers and mine. Hers went to the living room to fill the entertainment center's glass-doored shelves with the then obligatory stereo, and mine stayed in the bedroom.

But then, things started breaking down. And when one person's component would break, we'd take the component from the other stereo and maintain a complete system at all times. Usually in the bedroom, because I was the one who was too anal to not have a complete system.

So, my stereo's always been in my bedroom. Again, until this weekend.

This weekend, I had to do some construction work in my bedroom that required me to clear a bunch of stuff out, including the stereo. This was the excuse I needed to deal with something that I've been thinking about for a long time. The fact that the stereo, at least in my world, has become obsolete. I have long known that my stereo is the biggest dust collector in my place (literally, as in, boy, do they collect dust, even when you actually use them!), but it was easier to let it sit there then to take it apart. But now that I had to take it apart anyway, it seemed ridiculous to set it up in the bedroom again.

I considered not setting it up again at all, but then compromised by setting it up in a spare room at the far end of the house that we really don't use on a daily basis. It has fallen into the category of "things I could for all intents and purposes throw out, but I don't want to because I might need 'em every once in a while." Kind of like a slide-projector or something. (Not that I own one of those or have any slides.) And I didn't even set the stereo up in it's entirety either, but more about that later...


Maybe getting rid of the stereo's not for everyone....

I know people who still use their stereos all the time. Mostly these are single individuals without children. One such person said to me recently, "The first thing I do every day when I get home from work is put on a CD."

I know there are people out there that like to dim the lights in the evening, light a few candles, pour themselves a glass of wine, and relax in their living room or lounge, taking in the sounds of some CD that they enjoy. Instead of watching TV, I suppose.

And I recognize that someone like that needs to keep his or her stereo. And in another time and place, I could easily be that person. But in my current time and place (and for many years prior to the current), that ain't me.

I still love music, but I can't listen to it at home very often. The whole family thing, you know? And when I do listen to it at home, it's usually through my computer or iPod.

Certainly, it's easy to point out that digital, file-based music formats (like MP3s) and the iPod is the biggest reason for the demise of the stereo system. When everything is being replaced by a small unit that can store your entire collection, there isn't much need to have this giant system that plays all sorts of mediums. Everything these days is portable. This also contributes to why a big stereo system isn't such a glamorous thing in the modern era. But it wasn't always like this....


A Little Personal History

Growing up in the early to mid-1980s, my musical world was basically a three part system. I had the ever present "walkman" (which is a term everyone used to describe any 'personal stereo' regardless of whether it was the Sony Walkman brand) for private, on-the-go listening; the "box" (sometimes called a "boom box" or "ghetto blaster," but it basically was a portable stereo with a handle and no turntable) that was used for on-the-go listening that was not private (like when loitering with friends); and, back at home in the bedroom, the stereo. And, yes, it's one of those funny words: we all know what a "stereo" is, even though all those things described above played "in stereo." Stereo is just a generic term for that big pile of equipment at the home base.

When I was in about 7th grade, I got my first stereo. No more using Dad's. This stereo was actually one of those all-in-one models: AM/FM, dual cassette and turntable all in one unit, plus a pair of speakers that came in the same box. It was probably about $88 back in the day. In other words, considering that one decent speak ALONE can costs well over 100 bucks, this was a pretty crappy system.

But it was good for a guy in 7th grade, and, in fact, it lasted me throughout most of my childhood. It did the job. And my parents weren't going to buy a junior high kid anything too fancy.

I always knew, though, that my system was kid-league. I knew that people who had good stereo systems actually bought all the components individually and built it like that.

Towards the last year or two of high school, the time had come for me to start building my own "real" stereo.

The first thing I acquired was a receiver (or amplifier). Basically, an AM/FM radio that was about the size of a laptop bag. Basically, the most boring piece of the equation. I didn't even listen to the radio, after all. But this was a necessary first. After all, all the other components went through this before going to the speakers. It was kind of like the gateway.

Then, as time went by, with each Christmas or birthdays, I'd acquire the next component I needed.

I was never an audiophile, so it's not like I every had particularly fancy equipment, but after a couple of years I had a complete system that was all "of decent quality," unlike my original $88 all-in-one. And over the years I'd replace pieces as they broke or became old.

It was pretty cool stuff. Who'd have ever thought I'd be here, questioning whether I should even set up the stereo at all?

Well, I did set it up again, though it's not all there, and I want to talk about what's left of it. We'll have three sections here:

1. Things that made the cut


2. Things that should have been cut, but weren't


3. Things that didn't make the cut

THINGS THAT MADE THE CUT

The Turntable
This is probably, single-handedly, the reason why I'm even bothering to keep the stereo set up at all. And that's ironic, because it's the piece of the picture that is the most old-fashioned and most obsolete.

I have a lot of vinyl. There it is over there on the right. That's my vinyl during the transition. It's a pretty good amount. Actually, I know people who have lots more vinyl than I do, but I know very few if any who have as much vinyl that they actually have listened to extensively. You see, I've never been a "collector," or someone who subscribes to the notion that they want to accumulate as much as they can simply to have it. I know lots of people who have many more records than I do, but they couldn't really tell you too much about them, especially the tracks that weren't radio hits. My mantra has always been, "If I'm not planning on listening to it and listening to it a lot, then I don't want it." I've had an intimate listening experience to almost all of these records, with only a small percentage falling into the category of something that I simply own without actually being that familiar with the content. I feel pretty good about that.

Most of the music on the vinyl has been acquired or transferred into digital formats now, but there are still a number of them that haven't. And someday, I may want to do that. I certainly want the ability to play the records.

And, every so often, I still buy something on vinyl simply because it has never been released on CD due to its obscurity.

So, I know I want the ability to play vinyl. And I know that if I simply put the stereo into storage, when that need comes up once or twice a year, I will not be inclined to set it up. That's why the stereo is still set up. For the vinyl. Ironic, indeed.


The Vinyl Itself
OK, so I'm kind of cheating here, since the records aren't actually part of stereo any more than a Hot Pocket is part of Microwave oven. But the bottom of my stereo cabinet does hold (some) of my vinyl, so it visually looks like the same set-up.

But that's not really why I'm talking about the vinyl here. I'm talking about the vinyl because LP records are friekin' cool. If can't appreciate that, fine, but if you didn't live as a big music fan back in the days pre-CD, then you're not really qualified to judge.

I refuse to put my vinyl on some shelf, buried deep in a closet. I still enjoy looking at those records, much more then I ever actually spin them. Records are reflective of a time when music was less of a commodity and more of an art to be taken seriously and treasured. Of course, I'm being idealistic here, and it was always a commodity to a certain degree and it remains something "serious and treasured" these days to a certain degree. But there was something magical about buying an LP album. You had to wait until you got home to play it, and then you'd sit on your bed and take it all in, reading the liner notes, looking at the artwork. It was fantastic and looking at vinyl now brings me those same warm, fuzzy feelings.

Do I miss vinyl? No. Don't mistake this bit of nostalgia for something that it's not. I also miss things about high school—like life being more carefree and not having the responsibility of a mortgage—but that doesn't mean I'm clamoring to go back, or that I miss it. There are so many things that are 100 times better about modern day technology when compared to vinyl, but the packaging and "experience" was never better then it was back in the day, in my opinion.


The Cassette Deck
The reason I still have this set up is for similar reasons as to why the turntable is set up. I'm actually finding it quite disturbing that with each passing year, it's becoming more and more difficult to find a working cassette player. After all, when one of those old ones in the basement stops working, I'm not going out and buying a new one.

Unlike vinyl, I never bought cassettes. I used them all the time to make copies of my vinyl and bring them in my walkman, car, etc. But I rarely purchased them.

Rather, the dependence on cassettes comes from personal recordings, particularly my own music and music from bands that I was a part of. From more-formal demos to boom-box recordings of rehearsals and everything in between, my closet is littered with boxes filled with reams of cassettes containing this kind of stuff. They're major pieces of my history, and a wealth of historic documentation, and we were documenting this kind of stuff on tape much later than anyone remembers. (Throughout all of the 1990s, to be sure).

I almost never play these things, but I need a medium for it when I do. The cassette deck has to stay.


The Amplifier
For the same reason discussed earlier: the receiver is glue that makes the other things work.



THINGS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CUT, BUT WEREN'T

The Mini-Disc Player/Recorder
Mini-Discs never caught on over here in the US, but they were awesome and I'm proud to say I was a Mini-Disc enthusiast. They were a fantastic bridge between cassettes and MP3s. They were like CDs that were portable. I don't care what anyone says, CDs were not and are not particularly portable. You can't jog with a CD player, plus most of the portable CD players are too bulky to carry around. And CDs sucked for throwing on the floor of your car. You always had to worry that they'd get scratched. I loved my Mini-Discs in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I had a Mini-Disc car stereo, Walkman, and stereo component.

These days, of course, I have no use for Mini-Discs. MP3s killed 'em off.

I talked myself into keeping the Mini-Disc player using the same logic as the turntable/cassette quandry: "I may have to play one of my old mini discs." Indeed, there are a SMALL handful of recorded bits that I only have on Mini-Disc. But not enough to make me think I should keep this set up.

The slam-dunk point as to why I shouldn't set this up is that the Mini-Disc player is semi-broken and needs some repairs that I'm not motivated to make (or possibly not capable of making). Of course it's broken... it's a Sony. I hate Sony. I know of people who will only buy Sony equipment. I am the opposite. Sony is the only brand I will actively avoid buying at all costs.

As it was, though, at the time I got my Mini-Disc deck, Sony was the only game in town. So I had no choice.

So, this should go right in the garbage. I guess because Mini-Discs were so cool and so unknown, I feel like I need to hold onto this little piece of my history.


THINGS THAT WERE CUT

The CD Player
If it were ironic that I kept the turntable, you may say it's also ironic that I ditched the CD player, the one part of the picture that is still relevant, if only barely.

The truth is, I ditched the CD player a while ago, in a round-about sort of way. My CD player on my stereo was a DVD player. When the CD player I had there broke, it was around the time that DVDs were finally fully taking over VHS, and I needed a DVD player. Reasoning that any DVD player can play a CD, I bought a DVD player. Good move. Since then, I maybe played a CD in the machine once or twice. But the DVD player has gotten a lot of good work.

So, the DVD player is staying in the bedroom with the TV.


The Speakers
Yup. This one may be the one that surprises people. The "need" for speakers is arguably more than even the amplifier that powers them. How can one hear the vinyl without speakers?

In a word: headphones.

"Yeah, but are you going to sit their tied to headphones every time you want to use the stereo?"

In another word: Yup.

My stereo speakers, although nothing to write home about, are simply too big to waste valuable floor, shelf, dresser, or wall space on. I don't want them. (I will put them in the basement, where they will sit unused, along with 3 or 4 other sets of speakers, for years and years and years.)

If anything, the lack of inclusion of speakers should further hammer home the point: this is not a system set up for musical enjoyment. This is a system that is set up "just in case I need it" or "just in case I need to transfer something over to a digital format." It's a work-station, like a photocopier. It's going to be used to do a task, not to sit around and be enjoyed.

posted by Steve @ 4:19 PM