Gramophone Dreams

The first thing I noticed about the LAiV Audio GaNM monoblock amplifier is its unusual shape and size; it occupies space differently than the other, more basic amplifiers on my rack. The GaNMs sat there giving off a megalithic vibe.

There was no limo, just a walk filled with Christmas-in-Chinatown sights from the F train east down East Broadway, past 169 Bar, under the Manhattan Bridge, to the Dim Sum Palace. I was having a dinner meetup with an artist-writer friend named Joe who invited me to hear the wide-range AER drivers that he has bolted onto clear acrylic AER baffles with big, round, clear horns on the front.

Last year, I reported on Stax's glamorous new SR-007S electrostatic earspeakers ($2390) in conjunction with the Stax SRM-700S driver amplifier. This report was extra fun because I was just finishing up a long romantic affair with a loaner pair of vintage Stax SR-Omegas about which, in his 1995 Stereophile review, Tom Norton declared: "If you want the truth, however—at least as honestly as I've heard it in any headphones—you want the Stax SR-Omegas."

When you get old and gray and all them shoot-'em-up dudes doe wanna ride wit you no mo, don't fret—you can still have fun. Once you're a geezer, you'll have more time to work in the garden, drink tea, buy LPs, and fiddle with your unipivot.

When I was José Cuervo young, I mocked belt-drive turntables, unipivot tonearms, and teetotalers. "You can't drink, dance, shoot up the bar, and play hot records wit no persnickety belt-drive or wobbly unipivot. You need a masculine, pro-fessional-quality direct-drive or rim-drive turntable with a sturdy a gimbal-bearing tonearm!"

My passion for listening to music through headphones is fueled by the enhanced sense of intimacy and extra feeling of connectedness I experience in rediscovering recordings I already love. You know the old audiophile cliché: It's like hearing my record collection for the first time. High-quality headphones provide a sharper-than-box-speaker lens that lets me experience lyrics, melodies, and instrumental textures more close-up and magnified.

Some of our readers seem to believe that the essence of high-quality audio is disclosed primarily by science, and not by dreamy, bodice-ripping adventures that take place on plush carpets behind closed doors. Perhaps they're right. Unfortunately, I have had no personal experiences that confirm that hypothesis.

As much as I delight in pagan dreams of sweetly perfumed garden nymphs, I'm embarrassed to admit that my mind also drifts in pleasant reveries whenever I hear the words research and development in the same sentence. I am by nature a greasy gearhead. The idea of taking well-considered steps of engineering to analyze and possibly improve the operation of any electrical or mechanical system never fails to get my imaginative juices flowing. This is why I've spent decades fascinated by perfectionist audio: I like watching and participating in its edgy, eccentric evolution.