March 11, 2012

  • Nordost Red Dawn, Part 3

    Ah, spring semester 1987.  I was a high school sophomore back then.  I had the Sony ST-V7TV MTS stereo tuner, STR-AV780 AV receiver, and APM speakers.  I was in the market for a CD player.  One of the CDs I had was Simply Red's new album, Men And Women.  Ah, this made me and my classmates feel "grown up."  But it's brought down by being an impenetrable and hard wall of sound.

    Still, every audiophile should have "The Right Thing."  One fine morning, I was telling my friend from homeroom, Andy, about this song.  Andy told me, "When you get a CD player, make a tape for me." 

    Since I didn't have a CD player or tape deck, we moved on to other topics.  Andy had the guts to ask, "How the heck do we fix the blinds?" 

    That was the question everyone wanted to ask, but was too afraid to speak up.  Everywhere you go, blinds are fucked up.  And no one knows how to pull the strings, or which way to twist the rod.  

    Eventually, I did get both a CD player and tape deck.  Eventually, I did make a tape for Andy.  But I'll never forget that, with the tape deck, I need two pairs of interconnects.  And those cables just added to the mess/nest/spaghetti behind the rack.  Audiophiles know full well what it is like to bend, contort, reach, and stretch behind a rack. 

    So if it's one thing I, as an audiophile, damn well better be good at, it's reaching around a rack, and unhooking a bra.  Here is ACS's old bra.  I remember the first time I reached around with one hand, and easily unhooked her bra.  She said, "Hey, you're good at it!"

    I tsk tsked, "Well, I have had other girlfriends, you know."

    So the next time, ACS tried to fool/trick me, by wearing a bra with the clasp in the front.  Alas, after I took off her t-shirt, I saw that her bra had the clasp in the front.  KJ liked to wear these kinds of bras with the clasp in the front.  Thus, I had lot of practice working with them.

    That Sony STR-AV780 was jam-packed with RCA jacks.  So are many audiophile products, especially preamps.  A sign of a veteran audiophile is the scratch marks on her forearm.  While connecting and disconnecting gear, the forearm gets gouged by heatsink fins, switches, cones/spikes, and the sharp edges of chassis.

    Thankfully, the Nordost Red Dawn has the push-in/pull-out (sounds kinky) Moonglo RCAs.  No fumbling with bra hooks or locking-barrel RCAs.

    One night, ACS opened her bedroom blinds.  She said, "If I dressed and undressed, and you were looking through the blinds, would it look sexy?"

    Since her apartment was on the second floor, and there was no way of looking in, I answered, "Nah, I'd feel like a stalker or loser -- or both."

    The Red Dawn is a ribbon-like cable.  Sexy or not, to prevent the ribbons from touching each other, simply orient them like open venetian blinds.