Our first analog event is a Phono-Stage Smackdown, on April 18th. You should have received the registration invitation last week via email.
I’m almost giddy (almost) with excitement about this event… but I need to get something off my chest: for 40 years, the very fact that analog playback on LPs is even possible has seemed crazy to me. Sure, I get how it works – I can see that a needle traveling in a modulating groove will make a sound, just like scraping your fingernail on a chalkboard would… but every time I put a shiny black disk on my turntable, drop an almost invisible stylus into the lead-in groove and somehow make beautiful music come out of the speakers, I’m astounded. How can this technology transport me to a venue to hear Oscar Peterson record his “We Get Requests” album? Seeing some of the photos I used for this post didn’t make it any easier to believe, quite the opposite! I’ve accepted this low-level cognitive dissonance for four decades – and actually, I’m happy to have kept the child-like fascination with analog. To me, digital playback is much easier to understand and believe, but analog… analog still feels like some kind of sorcery.
If you’re interested in a really good, visual, 8 minute education on the mechanics of how LP playback works, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umu37m0qUiE and then consider joining us at our event where a bunch of phono stages in a wide spectrum of price points will duke it out for best sound.
You will hear the difference, and it will be a really fun event!
See you there?
Cheers,
Alón