A 30 Thousand Dollar Stereo

 I had a great time listening to music with my new friend, Girish.  I got to hear the top of the line Paradigm speakers and they were so bright.  It is the beryllium tweeter that makes them way too bright for the kind of music I prefer.  While they were nice and did something differently than my own, I am completely happy with my rig.  I put together a fantastic system at a great price and hearing the next step was nice but it wasn't Earth shattering.

What was Earth shattering was hearing a fifteen thousand dollar set of speakers.  OMG.  I didn't know a stereo could do that.  Here's how to describe the experience.  A great system reproduces sound.  A top tier system reproduces the space.  What the sound does in space is amazing.  We were listening to the Hook album.  I've heard it hundreds, if not thousands of times.  Top tier was amazing.  A horn line came through that I have never heard before.  It gracefully came up from nowhere and it was amazing.  Another part where an oboe plays.  Guess what?  It's not an oboe.  It's two oboes.  My mind was blown.  There was a separation in the instruments that was unlike anything I've heard before.  Easily identifiable within the sound as individual instruments.  Individual strings.  Just so interesting.

After Hook ran its course, Girish played a chamber piece with string instruments.  OMG - you could hear the musicians breathe.  You could hear the resonance in an instrument that you only hear/feel as a musician when playing the instrument.  Then we move to a piano piece.  Again, you could hear the artist breathe.  It was like the grand piano was in the room - all nine feet of it.  I've never heard a piano sound like that on a cd.  Then he played some jazz piece with vocals.  I'm not a vocal guy but it was interesting.  What I found absolutely stunning about the jazz piece was the striking of a woodblock.  You could hear the initial strike and how it faded into silence as it travelled the space.  Next level.  

Girish then took me on a tour of his home and showed up other speakers and gear he had.  Amazing.  Not all of it was hooked up because he had a listening session over the weekend with a group of guys and I enjoyed the result with the paradigms and the other speakers.  Apparently there's a group of guys with high end systems and they visit each other and do listening sessions.  Girish said he was going to invite me to the next one.  I made a friend.

Audio is like corvette.  The fun in both hobbies is sharing them with other people.  Girish had this killer setup and didn't hide it.  He was more than willing to share it with other people that share the love of music.  We hit it off and were able to share and discuss the nuances in the sound being reproduced, etc.  We are both educated listeners and connoisseurs of music.  

When you get into the high end game of sound reproduction, it's a lot like wine tasting.  There are certain flavors with overtones and undertones or hints of flavors, bold flavors in wine.  There's good wine and bad wine.  And there's exceptional wine.  And it all depends on what your taste is or what you want out of the wine.  The same is true of stereo equipment.  What Girish is passionate about is finding the 50 dollar bottle of wine that's as good as thousand dollar wine.  Finding the gems that exist in wine also exist in stereo gear.