My Audiophile Problem
It is one of life’s minor sorrows that my audiophile hobby has seriously impaired my power to love music, for music-lovers typically aren’t audiophiles. Just last week, when an enthusiastic, concert-loving friend forwarded an audio clip of a classical piece; I, noticing the great dynamic range and good clear bass, replied, “This tune is quite well recorded.” “Okay,” she responded with undertones of befuddlement. And I haven’t received any new forwards from that enthu-cutlet since.
Quite understandable. A normal, well-adjusted human would have responded with compliments about the artist, the venue; a genuine music-lover would have asked about the raga-swara-alapana. But I am an audiophile.
I, instead of just pressing the play button on the phone, downloaded the clip to a 2009 Mac mini, streamed it into a DAC that converted the file to a sound-signal, which was then amplified by a pair of hulky valve-amplifiers that drove my speakers — a pair of monstrous lacquer-finished wooden boxes — whose emanations filled the room with music.
Did it sound heavenly? Did it elevate me into transports of ecstasy?
How could it? I barely listened. Ensconced in the sweet spot, between the speakers and 8 feet from it, I was lost in thought whether to upgrade my speakers or buy a valve preamplifier to improve the bass response of my Hi-fi system. And therein lies my audiophile problem.
An audiophile aspires to reproduce a concert at home. He wants Miles Davis trumpeting between his speakers; Zakir Hussein tabla-ing behind it. He wants to feel Mingus’s fingers run up the fretless neck of his bass; and hear every rustle of Roy Haynes delicate brushwork on the cymbals. And there is nothing an audiophile likes more than discovering new coughers in a live concert recording. Meanwhile he just forgets to listen to the music.
This analysis suggest that an audiophile is merely a gear chaser, his acquisitions as half-baked as next-door neighbour buying a BMW 5-Series car for his twenty kmph stop and go, pothole-ridden, chauffeur-driven Mumbai commute. My take on it, however, is quite different.
Deep within every audiophile, I believe, resides a failed musician. Someone who wishes he had not abandoned, come high school, the violin lessons of his childhood, to hit the books.
My audiophile journey began in my early twenties, with my first big fat American paycheque. To celebrate, I decided to blow it all on my first Hi-Fi system. Having just discovered Bob Dylan, I thought it would nice to have the young Bob Dylan of the 60s give a private performance in my newly rented studio in Mountain View, California.
I toured all the Hi-Fi stores in Northern California. It was an eye-opening experience: It shattered all illusions of the fatness of my first paycheque; which, as it turned out — in the audiophile world — was skinnier than a SoCal soccer-mom on a Keto diet. All I could afford was a pair of diminutive bookshelf speakers and some ”vintage” NAD electronics bought off eBay.
The system didn’t sound like much. Bob Dylan never appeared in living room, but my next-door neighbour did, threatening to call the cops if I didn’t turn the volume down. And so my twenty-something brain moved on to more fruitful, more age-appropriate pursuits. Fast Cars, Alcohol, Dating.
A few years passed, my tastes in music changed — I rediscovered Hindustani classical. In one of my forays at a local CD store in the hippie neighbourhood of Haight-Ashbury, I picked up a CD titled “Psychedelic India”, and no, it didn’t contain Bollywood druggie songs from the 70s like “Dum maro Dum”, but performances by Ravi Shankar, Ustad Amir Khan, Ali Akbar Khan — stalwarts of Hindustani classical. (Someday, I would love to see a shack in Goa selling Mozart compositions performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra titled “Trippy music from the West.”) There is a 27-minute piece — Raga Marwa — by Ustad Amir Khan in there, that rocked my world. In that somber piece, the Ustad, weaves into explosive finale that opened, for me, the doors to the seventh heaven.
It was a red-pill, blue-pill moment. Music or Audiophilia. And, of course, I chose the blue-pill. I fantasied about upgrading my humble system so the Ustad could take me to not just the seventh heaven, but to the fifteenth, or the fiftieth, or the hundredth heaven; so he could give me the key to new highs, to new ecstasies. And the music, that had flowed into my soul bearing new revelations like floating leaves, ceased.
I began jonesing for an audiophile fix again. And for the addict, looking to fill that void within, dealers, pushers, enablers abound: Hi-Fi stores. Audiophile magazines. Internet gurus. Internet forums. Audiophile clubs. Audio Shows. Like a pusher, like Coca Cola, they promise the impossible — a high like nothing before and Happiness and (audio) Nirvana.
Instead of pursuing the giants of Hindustani classical, instead of delving deep into understanding ragas, talas, swara, instead of buying more CDs, more records and listening to them, I began on an audiophile quest to get better sound. Looking back at those times, I think I was less of an Audiophile; more an Audiofool.
I paid a Hi-fi dealer, Tim Nguyen, $250 to visit my home and recommend the components I should buy from his store. I followed an audio guru, Arthur Salvatore, who solely recommended gear built by his Canadian friend’s company Coincident Speakers Inc (I bought their amps, preamps, cables). I fan-followed opinionated audio gurus. When you are young, you like that. You like strongly opinionated ”experts” explain complex topics neatly in black and white: Tube amplifiers are better than solid state. High efficiency speakers better than low. Mo watts, mo problems. No negative feedback, only single-ended amplifiers. I didn’t understand half of those very technical terms. But like a young college-going Marxist, I drank the Kool-Aid.
My addiction deepened when I discovered Audiogon, a marketplace for audiophiles. It was like the moment when a recreational user becomes a meth head. Thus began the gear swapping: I bought and sold seven speakers, ten amplifiers, five preamplifiers, eight DACs and three vinyl record players in a 14-month period whilst chasing the dream. But I have to admit, in this period of gear swapping, I heard listened to more music, discovered more music, saw more concerts than ever before in my life. I discovered Jazz: Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Charles Mingus. I became a card-carrying member of SFJAZZ — the only Jazz-dedicated venue in the United States. I discovered African music, especially from Mali: Toumani Diabate, Ali Farka Toure, Rokia Traore. I discovered Classical Guitar. I rediscovered Zakir Hussein and his fantastic trans-continental collaborations at SFJAZZ; and Yo-Yo-Ma and his famous Silk-Road Collective, an ensemble of musicians from the countries of the ancient Silk Road.
But the gear swapping took up most my headspace. I tested every theory propounded by audio gurus. To test what was snake-oil and what was real? Single-Ended-Triode amp is better the push-pull tube amps. I bought, I sold. Tube amps better than solid state. I bought, I sold. Battery powered preamplifier better than one connected to wall socket. I bought, I burned my hands on spilled battery acid, I sold (very quickly).
My return to India was looming. It took some time, but I had swapped a lifetime worth of audio gear, and gotten to my “final system”. I shipped it all via sea, along with 100s of CDs and LPs I had collected. It cost me a pretty penny but I was looking forward to spending my sabbatical at home, finally listening to the music. The same music that gathered dust while I gear swapped to build a system worthy enough to play it.
Old habits die hard. But moving back to India was like being sent to a rehab facility for recovering audioholics. The almost non-existent second-hand market for audio gear, the 120% customs duty, and the extravagant pricing by audiophile stores makes the promiscuous gear-swapping that I used to indulge in, impossible.
I am a one-woman man now. Stuck with my “final” audio system for better or worse. I have heard most of my 300 CDs I brought over. I stream high-fidelity music from an app called Tidal, and discover new music all the time. But I do stray every now then: Obsessively reading posts in audiophiles forums. Living vicariously the gear-swapping lives of fellow audiophiles. Pouncing on the latest audio gear reviews by Stereophile magazine.
I know my system is lacking. I know a change is gonna come, yes, it will. But for now, I couldn’t be bothered. I am too busy listening again and again to a young Turkish musician, Sedat Anar: who plays an Indian instrument, the Santoor, and produces haunting melodies that harken the ancient and the modern — the darbars of the Mughals, the Persian courts, the chants and whirling of Sufi saints, the ghost of Tansen, mixed with some blues, some jazz — it tugs strings in my heart I didn’t know existed; I up the volume, an audiophile voice whispers in my head, “Hey, it could sound better, in a nicer system, you wouldn’t need to press the volume up,” but out of nowhere comes a strike of a copper mallet in lowest registers of that 100-stringed instrument, it permeates the room with a mystical energy the Santoor is known for, and sweeps me straight back into the music.
