|   Life Just Doesn't Get Any Better (WAY OFF TOPIC) | pctower
Nov 7, 2003 8:54 AM | | My sound-room is in a remote corner of the home (untouched by human hands, as my wife says) and my bathroom is just off the back of the room. This morning I put on a Time-Life compendium of early 60s country, and while I was shaving Mary Robbins came on singing Devil Woman and the goose bumps were everywhere. It just doesnt get any better.
He came from Glendale, Arizona which is the next burg over from Phoenix (and home of the 2008 Super Bowl, and new home of the Phoenix Coyotes and Arizona Cardinals). He and Waylon are two of my all time favorites.
Waylon also had strong ties to the Valley. In my early twenties, I would go out to J.D.s in the river bottom on South Scottsdale Road to see him and Mac the Singing Bartender (who was a lifelong friend of Waylons and still lives in the Valley) with his Ga-Toilet (a guitar made with a toilet seat). Life didnt get any better than that.
This weekend Im going to Sedona for a firm retreat where I will be in the company of professionals whom I respect and my life-long sweetheart. It just doesnt get any better.
We are so blessed in this country. And we are so spoiled that we can while away countless hours debating wires, while much of the world is mired in poverty and ignorance, and while our young men and women are giving their lives in Iraq in a war we hope will bring more peace, stability and prosperity to the world.
BTW, Bushs speech yesterday will not only go down in history as one of the greatest speeches of an American President, but one of the greatest articulations of the hopes for freedom and the unbridling of the human spirit ever. And as with so many historic bell-weathers in the march of human progress, such as the Gettysburg Address, for the time being it will be widely ridiculed, or even worse, widely ignored.
FURTHER BTW, if you want to see how really ugly I am, you can check me out at:
http://www.mhb-law.com/tower_sht.htm
Everyone have a good weekend. |
| re: Life Just Doesn't Get Any Better (WAY OFF TOPIC) | FLZapped
Nov 7, 2003 9:49 AM | | Man, I coulda lived the rest of my life without seeing that......just kidding of course, however!
(damned, always a gotcha)
Is posting here part of your civic duty spoken of in the write-up?
-Bruce |
| re: Life Just Doesn't Get Any Better (WAY OFF TOPIC) | pctower
Nov 10, 2003 6:13 AM | | b Man, I coulda lived the rest of my life without seeing that......
You and me both. |
| re: Life Just Doesn't Get Any Better (WAY OFF TOPIC) | FLZapped
Nov 10, 2003 6:41 AM | | So how's kicks, seems to me, there is a certain song you must be singing.....
Fires to the left of me, fires to the right.....
-bb |
| re: Life Just Doesn't Get Any Better (WAY OFF TOPIC) | okiemax
Nov 7, 2003 8:23 PM | | I saw Waylon Jennings in concert with Jessi Coulter and Willie Nelson in the early 1970's. They put on a terrific show. My favorite C&W singers from my honky-tonkin years are Lefty Frizzell and Web Pierce. They aren't very well served on CD, but their talent transcends the poor recording quality.
I sometimes wonder what the people here look like, so thanks for posting the photo. |
| re: Life Just Doesn't Get Any Better (WAY OFF TOPIC) | mtrycrafts
Nov 7, 2003 9:01 PM | | b and the goose bumps were everywhere.
You see, you don't need fancy anything if you get this reaction, in another room no less:) |
| SO! | trollgirl
Nov 8, 2003 5:25 PM | | What do YOU suppose he had in the other room? Was it a boombox, an (un)Soundesign stack, or a real audio system??
Maybe Mr. Tower would allow you to do a DBT from the bathroom...
Laz |
| SO! | mtrycrafts
Nov 8, 2003 9:36 PM | | You missed the point, totally.
If he gets goose bumps in another room, it is from the musical effect on his psychology, not any component he has. |
| SO-SO | trollgirl
Nov 9, 2003 7:04 AM | | Do you really think I totally missed the point? I think not. Mr. Tower may be different, but I've never gotten musical thrills from good music played over bad equipment. Bad music played over bad equipment really drives me crazy. Good music over good equipment - ah!!! And then there is mtrycrafts - so you still subscribe to the notion that playback gear is irrelevant?? Reminds me of a story the seller related in his ebay ad for a Moscode amp: Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg would give each buyer of a Moscode amp a diaper, saying that once it was powered up and playing music, the buyer would soil his pants at hearing how good it sounded... I'm sure it was a bit of a gimmick, and a standing joke, but you get the idea, or do you?
Laz |
| SO-SO | mtrycrafts
Nov 9, 2003 7:54 PM | | b but I've never gotten musical thrills from good music played over bad equipment.
I guess then you don't listen to your car system? Or, you just don't enjoy it and get goose bumps from certain music. Too bad. Try to listen to the music, not the component. |
| I don't have a car system... | trollgirl
Nov 9, 2003 8:11 PM | | and do you mean to imply that car audio is automatically bad equipment? To me, the music and the gear are synergestic, as far as my enjoyment are concerned. Tell me, if you were to read, say, WAR AND PEACE, would you choose a hardbound edition or a pile of mimeographed pages?
Laz |
| I don't have a car system... | Rockwell
Nov 9, 2003 9:09 PM | | I can separate the music from the quality of the reproduction. I listen to MP3s on my PC's single speaker at work and I still find a way to enjoy it. Of course, it's better on better equipment, but reproduction is a means to an end, not an end.
Most stock car systems are crap. Most custom car systems are also crap, just louder crap. |
| I don't have a car system... | skeptic
Nov 10, 2003 4:05 AM | | "Most stock car systems are crap."
At least insofar as the Ford/JBL system which happened to be in several Lincolns I've owned, you are IMO 100% correct. This stuff is pure garbage and would not satisy even an audiophile with very modest expectations. |
| I don't have a car system... | Rockwell
Nov 10, 2003 12:55 PM | | I have a new Ford and it has a 290 Watt "Audiophile" system in-dash changer. I don't know who makes it, but it is the best stock system I've owned. It even has a little subwoofer. That said, I don't think an audiophile would be very impressed. I find it acceptable, meaning that it doesn't annoy me like the Nissan I had before. |
| I don't have a car system... | skeptic
Nov 10, 2003 6:29 PM | | IMO, the JBL sound system in my Lincoln Mark VIII sucks. It has a boomy bass and the only way to make male voices and even female voices not sound chesty is to turn the bass almost all the way down which eliminates the boom and the deep bass at the same time. To get the treble to sound even close to flat you have to turn the treble control almost all the way up. Having removed the grill from one of the tweeters because it failed, it is clear why. It is one miserable excuse for a high fidelity tweeter. The tuner is not particularly sensitive either. When you hit any real bump in the road, the trunk mounted Sony 10 disc changer locks up and the only way to get it to play again is to stop the car, open the trunk, eject the 10 disc carrier and reinsert it. The dealer says this is normal for this model. Someone familiar with this car told me that the head unit is made by Sinn and the speakers by Kicker so it isn't even JBL if he is right. As I said, for a supposedly audiophile sound system in a luxury automobile, it is a big disappointment. However, the performance of the power train and road handling makes up for it. |
| I don't have a car system... | Rockwell
Nov 11, 2003 8:37 PM | | My stereo has one nifty feature that seems like it would only be possible on a stock system. The volume can automatically increase with the speed of the vehicle so that you don't have to keep adjusting to compensate for road noise. I don't want a car system without this feature in the future, unless my car is so quiet as to not need this.
The indash CD changer is also a must have for future vehicles.
Overall, I would sound is pretty good within a limited volume range. The sub is kind of boomy and sounds strongly on some notes, but drops out on others. Probably a small, but highy ported woofer. |
| I don't have a car system... | skeptic
Nov 12, 2003 4:31 AM | | The road and wind noise in the passenger cabin of a Mark VIII is surprisingly high. Perhaps it is deliberate because a lot of times you hear criticism of large American luxury cars that they make you fell removed from the road. I admit that many years ago, driving a 1966 Lincoln, looking through the windshield was like watching the road going by on a movie screen. The car was dead quiet, the glass was heavily tinted, the 5600 pounds of car was on a suspension so well damped you could go over the deepest ruts, get a flat tire and never know anything had happened, and the gas and brake pedal just seemed to be like putting your foot into a bucket of water with practically no resistance or vibration. I must say, driving that car was effortless, like just thinking you wanted the car to do something and it just did it. Of course by modern standards it wouldn't handle well, especially on twisty curvy roads like the ones I drove so often in California. The slab sides made it very easy to judge the width of the car too. And I loved the suicide doors and no center post. Anyway, the Sony cd player in my Mark VIII has dynamic compression, perfect for listening to classical music in such a noisy car. |
| re: Life Just Doesn't Get Any Better (WAY OFF TOPIC) | pctower
Nov 10, 2003 6:15 AM | | b You see, you don't need fancy anything if you get this reaction, in another room no less:)
Don't recall ever claiming that I did. |
| re: Life Just Doesn't Get Any Better (WAY OFF TOPIC) | mtrycrafts
Nov 10, 2003 10:30 PM | | No you didn't. A comment that the music is what makes you tingle. |
| I'm the one on the right | Mwalsdor_cscc_edu
Nov 8, 2003 6:50 AM | | Thats what it's all about; moments in our lives, some important and others that will not be remembered but all the same, the times that make us thankful to be alive. And to embrace that is a good thing. Rejoice.
MikE |
| Hey MikE | Kapsley
Nov 11, 2003 5:57 AM | | How's the quest to re-qualify for Boston going? I'm back up to about 25/week including a hard ten-miler every weekend with my running club. Work is crazy so I'm not getting much time through the week. Good training to you! Kevin. |
| Hey Kevin | Mwalsdor_cscc_edu
Nov 15, 2003 6:15 AM | | I tried to email you but it was returned? My two most recent races were [finally] something to get excited about. I ran a five miler faster than I'd run in some years and then did a half-marathon relay where I actually ran at a faster pace. So in the next three years+ I need to slice 4 minutes off that 1/2 time to get me a "projected" Boston qualifying effort. So things are looking up. I'm doing a five miler in two weeks and then for the first time since '96 I'm training through the Winter. 2007 will be here before I know it! I know what you mean about buzy, I was out running last night at 11pm. Take care.
MikE |
| Whose right, yours or mine? | rb122
Nov 11, 2003 12:45 PM | | You sure are a cute kid! :) How did such a young'un get so educated about tubes? |
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