April 21, 2016

  • AudioQuest Forest RJ/E, Part 4

    Once again, let us go back to the Fall 1992 quarter. Back then, we only had landlines. There were no cellphones. Heck, most of us had never heard of pagers.

    That was the beginning of my sweet senior year of college. Upon moving into the Crown-Merrill apartment, I did not hesitate; the first thing I did was hook up the stereo. Thus, we had music, while we unpacked, cleaned, put stuff away, arranged the furniture, and made lists of what we still needed.

    And then it happened. A blood-curdling scream emanated from Ron & Tron's room. You see, Ron, a Computer Engineering major, had put together a PC. As part of that, he had a so-called modem, which used the good ol' landline. He disabled call-waiting, and had the modem dial into UCLINK. That was when that awful blood-curdling noise happened.

    Ah, landlines, dial-up, phone cords, call-waiting. How quaint. Back then, we had not heard of "Ethernet," and its concomitant and more robust RJ/45 connector. Since we had cable TV and analog stereo components, we we aware of electrical signals flowing through coaxial cable, line-level RCA (and XLR) interconnects, speaker cables, and AC powercords. We could not have imagined signals flowing through Ethernet, which in some ways is a more robust phone line. C'mon; we were in college. College kids were more obsessed with signals flowing through, ahem, other conduits.
    IMG_2905
    That brings us to the AudioQuest Forest RJ/E. It has the RJ/45 connector, which is bigger than that found on old phone lines. Makes me laugh at the memory of college guys yelling about who had the biggest dick. And when ACS said, "Let me be the judge of that," most guys would shy away, while a few idiots would whip theirs out, LOL.

    My summer '92 fling was Patricia, not ACS (though ACS did accompany me to audio stores in Berkeley). But at the same time, I had reconnected with my ex, KJ. She and I were on good enough terms that KJ, a Cal student, came down from UC Berkeley, and visited me at my apartment in early October. Since her bf was a computer geek, she knew about UCLINK. Furthermore, she knew how to navigate DOS, and utilize the primitive "messaging" or "email" services.
    IMG_2898
    Just as KJ knew her way around, you need to know which direction to use your AQ Forest RJ/E. For most setups, the Ethernet cable will go from the router to whichever electrical component lies next.
    IMG_2901
    Those plastic tabs on phone cords can be fragile. The plastic tab on the AQ Forest RJ/E's plug is a little more robust than those on phone cords. But do be careful.
    IMG_2902
    The UCSC students were notorious for being hairy, or letting their hair (on all body parts) grow. KJ took off her clothes, revealing a forest of hair on her legs, snatch, and armpits. In this sense, she fit right in, at UCSC! So if the name of the AQ Forest RJ/E reminds us of let-it-grow early-1990s coeds, that's not necessarily a bad thing :-)