It is well documented that Dusty’s taste for music is broad and deep and generally excellent (with the notable exception of his love for The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, but many better men have also succumbed to the siren call of Prog Rock), but Dusty has no call for one genre: Country.

There is a Texas-based singer named Kevin Fowler who has an infectiously-cliched song that is burning up the Texas/Americana charts right now. It is called “Pound Sign (#?*!)” and it is catchy and jangly and hokey and PRECISELY the kind of song, I suspect, that would make Dusty bleed from his ears but only until he found a hot, sharp object with which to puncture his eardrums. Should you want to listen to it, here you go (apparently MySpace still exists):

http://www.myspace.com/kevinfowler

or: http://www.kevinfowler.com/index.aspx

SpeakerCity! hasn’t been heard from in a while, so I thought I’d put up another post no one would read or comment about. Kind of like the Obama-Hillary ones below, only I’m interested in it.

If you really listen to a lot of music, and not with an ipod, you’d probably notice this. Older CeeDees sound better than newer ones. Newer CeeDees (and .mp3s and ipods) sound louder than older ones. There’s a real phenomenon behind this. Compression is being used to take the dynamic range out of music recordings - the quiet parts aren’t as quiet, and the louder parts don’t stand out. It’s called “The Loudness Wars.” See the video for an example of what’s going on (headphones are suggested).

Now, this barely matters for most of us, because as old bastards we don’t buy much new music. OK, being old has almost nothing to do with it - how many times in the last year have you heard something and thought “That’s good music, I should buy that album!”? Music sucks, and that’s why the RIAA has to sue kids and grandmothers.
But if they ever get around to putting out good music, I’d rather be able to listen to it without the compression.
And for now, that will be my excuse as to why I listen to a lot of vinyl. Yes, I have both Warren Zevon and Falco on record.More information on this here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-loudness_mastersonjan01,0,7547276.story
and here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity/print

I make no secret about my affinity for “shopping” (some call it scrounging”) at the Goodwill. Ostensibly, this is a donation center and charity thrift store where a person can buy used and overstock donated goods, and the proceeds go to some sort of charitable enterprise.

We all know that it doesn’t work that way, and there is crookedness in the system - but that doesn’t mean I don’t love a good deal when I find one.

So - what kind of deal is it that really makes me love Goodwill so much? Speakercity justification could include:

Profit - Pioneer HPM-100 speakers bought for $50 sold for $300, Advents for $2 sold for $75, Bose $20/$75, AR Speakers (x3) $20/$50-$75, Bose Wave radio $20/$150, various amps/recievers I’ve at least doubled my money on.

Sound - I’ve been using my Dahlquists for $50, AR-3 speakers for $50 - collector value $800-$1000, and other stuff for $15-$20: Advents for $20, a 1980 Pioneer monster reciever for $25, B&W speakers, two turntables, etc.

History - CDs out of print for 10 years, a Beach Boys Pet Sounds original pressing mono LP.

Experience - You might not like it, or think older stereos sound good, and think vinyl sucks.  But I dig it, and I get to try all this cool stuff for cheap - in fact I make money at it.

All good.  But what really makes me love some Goodwill is this past week. Saturday I was thinking - “I really need to find some brand badges to finish restoring Dad’s speakers, ” and “I need to fund an amplifier upgrade,” and “I’d like a good racing wheel for my PS2″ and almost bought one for $70 on Craigslist. So all of the sudden between Saturday and Monday, I picked up:

- another pair of $300 speakers for $40 (there’s my amp $)

- a pair of trashed RtR speakers with perfect badges for $15

- a $100 Logitech GT racing wheel for the PS2 for $9.

So there you have it. It’s like shopping e-bay without e-bay prices. Maybe I wait a little longer for stuff, but I pay lots less.

Plus, I get to hang out with such an interesting crowd, and I get to be the best smelling one there.

    Speaker City!(tm) has been fairly active in sales and marketing for the last few months, pulling off an inventory blowout.  It’s tax time, and we don’t want to pay the TaxMan for for our inventory - so the savings come to you!  So Speaker City! has liquidated stock of  at least seven pairs of speakers, three recievers, one amplifier, and a turntable since Christmas.

Of course, we at Speaker City! do our best to buy low and sell high, but even when we sell at our cost, we profit.  (How?  Simple - Volume.  Actually, we’ve had some loss leader  driven impulse sales, and we do and profit from the temporary use of the stock).  But we rarely sell at our cost, since we’re savvy.  So even with the deep deep discounts, prices so low we must be CRAZY - Speaker City doesn’t want to make money, we just love to sell speakers - this has been a profitable endeavor.  Much more so than the unlimited holdthem pokers.

But there must be balance in the universe - matter cannot be created or destroyed  - so this weekend Speaker City! made its most expensive acquisition to date.  Coincidentally, it was our most massive acquisition.  For the low low price of a short trip west, a couple hundred dollars and a pair of Advent speakers, Speaker City! now possesses a pair of Acoustic Research AR-9LS speakers.  And our showroom looks like this:

The magnetic field has created a localized quantum singularity in the showroom.  For a sense of scale, the square Dahlquist speakers are 34″x34″, then raised on a 10″ stand.  The good Doctor was good enough to assist me in unloading these 120 lb. beasts.

Vitals:  5-driver 4-way speakers, .75″ dome tweeter, 1.5″ dome mid-tweeter, 8″ mid-woofer, 12″ front firing woofer, 10″ down firing internal subwoofer.  Frequency response is 26Hz to 32kHz +/-3db.  52″ tall, 120 lbs each.

You may drool.  And probably criticize.

I need a new headset for the computar. I’m no audiphile, but I’m in need of some quality here. This headset will get a lot of use. I used to own a Koss headset for my computer that actually produced a nice sound. The bass was surprisingly responsive (Close Combat mortars, Kevin?), they were comfy, and they had a nice adjustable mic. They wore out. The plastic frames holding each side had been broken and repaired, the foam cups for each ear began to disintegrate leaving nasty remants on one’s shirt, and finally they just stopped working. I immediately ordered a replacement set from Koss online. Hmmm, new model. Looks nicer than the old, ok.

That headset sucked so bad that I sent it back the next day with a note to Koss explaining the gigantic sucktitude. I am currently using a cheap Plantronics headset. The sound quality is not great, but I also didn’t pay much. I’d even donate them to bung for Teamspeak once I get a new one.

What I need, to put it simply, is headphone quality in a headset (microphone attached without duct tape, ty) that plugs into the computer.

Budget is $200, but I’m happy to spend way, way less than that.

SpeakerCity, what can you tell me?

This ain’t all bad. In fact, all around better and quicker to get to than Flogger.

But can we handle not being part of the Flogger community of blogosphere….?

Also, me likey search.