My son Kyle reminds me that much of our attitude is a choice. We can choose to be positive or negative. We can choose to be jealous or appreciative. Entering 2018 I decided that I would be a more grateful person, more appreciative of the people in my life, the experiences I have had, and the joys great and small that bring me delight.
I must confess that sometimes the negative news of the day becomes a cloud eclipsing the sunshine of my gratitude. But over all, it has helped my attitude this year. But I have wondered if I could do more to encourage others to be, as William de Vaughn sang, “thankful for what you got.” I thought an appropriate place to start given the EPB platform I am using is my appreciation for a now defunct Portland audio store. Below is a letter send to the then owner Richard Hayes of Investment Audio. I have no idea if he ever received it or read it, as I never received a reply. Regardless my gratitude was and is genuine, and offer it to him publically, and to all as an example of gratitude for admittedly small things.
Dear Richard,
In late April 2015 I purchased a Marantz 2270 receiver from you. For the past nearly year and half, I have enjoyed the wonderful sound this unit has provided me. I am uncertain how often someone thanks you for the service you provide. So allow me to do that now. You need not read any further as what follows is a extended reflection on why I am thankful—which I may be writing more for myself than anyone else. But you, of course, are welcome to continue on, if you should chose.
Growing up in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains in the 60s and 70s had the qualities of a being in a cultural wasteland during one of the most creative and important cultural eras in our lifetimes. But living in a hollow in the heights of the Alleghenies had its unexpected advantages. Ours was one of the first communities to get cable, because over the air reception from Buffalo, Erie, Pittsburgh, and Toronto television was spotty at best. Cable television brought us good reception and channels from New York City and all that was going on in that very different world. And then there was radio at night, when the AM powerhouse stations upped their wattage. So nighttime meant music from New York, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, and more. It was the rare night when I did not fall asleep with a transistor radio under my pillow when I was a preteen.
Then in the early seventies came the explosion of Q-format FM radio, moving college and underground radio to a broader audience. At the same time high fidelity equipment was becoming more accessible, and found less commonly in a singular, large piece of furniture (like the unit I played my records on when at my grandparents house). And stereos were more often components from different manufacturers comprising a system. It was in this time at age14 I bought my first “stereo” at Lafayette Electronics. It was unit comprised of an AM/FM tuner underneath a low level BSR turntable with two satellite speakers. It cost $110 of money saved from my paper routes, and maybe $5 more for the headphones. It was no-fi, but it was stereo and louder than anything else in the house. And for another $5 I had an FM cable hook-up installed in my bedroom and my life changed. Listening to AOR radio from Buffalo and Toronto exposed me to a whole new world of music that stretched far beyond the music of AM radio in the Nixon era. At the same time my brother was away at college and coming back with news of music old and new he was discovering.
Of course I understood my stereo, as beloved as it was, was simply a gateway drug to better sound. All that held me back was money. So I would read STEREO REVIEW and HI-FIDELITY magazines at the library dreaming of better sound. I then began sending in the postcards with all of the advertisers represented by numbers on them. Circling all the numbers, I would pour over the pounds of promotional mail sent from all the big names in electronics in the middle to late 70s. Two years later when I was 16, I upped my game slightly given my financial limits: a receiver from JC Penny (a Panasonic Technics unit with a JCP nameplate), and a BSR turntable and a pair of two way speakers I picked up at Radio Shack. I won a pair of Akai headphones from a Buffalo radio station to complete the system. This got me through high school and college.
Then I started graduate school in 1982. At the same time I came into some money. My older brother thought I would buy a car, but living in Chicago I didn’t need a car. I needed better sound. And so I bought my dream stereo: a Yamaha R700 receiver, a B&O Beogram 1602 turntable, a Nakamichi 480 tape deck, a pair of Stax electrostet headphones, all completed by a pair of ADS 520 speakers. As much as I loved the sound of the Yamaha, over time it proved itself to not be very dependable and had to replace it rather than keep repairing it. By that time I was doing my doctoral work and had just become the father of triplet daughters—our third, fourth, and fifth children. I bought a “temporary” receiver, a Nakamichi Receiver 2 at a “dutch auction” at an audio-video store in the early 1990s. Just before the turn of the century I added a CD player, a Marantz 67SE CD player.
This was my system until April of 2015 when I upgraded from the Nak receiver to the Marantz receiver you sold me. And that receiver is a game changer.
I am listening to music I have heard for decades but it feels like it is the first time. The sound is warm and rich, with clarity on both the top and bottom ends. I am not pretending mine is an A list system, but it is an excellent system for me given the space it is asked to fill. The fact that I am able to keep my turntable running and get new cartridges for it delights me to no end. Time to time I will pull out a record I have not played for years and discover both things I had forgotten and things I am sure I never heard. And sometimes at night I turn out the lights and listen to one of those songs that goes deep to the core of my soul, and I am that boy with the transistor radio under his pillow all over again, hearing that new song from Wolfman Jack on WNBC, or Cousin Bruce on WABC, or that classic LP I had never heard before played in its entirety on WGRQ-FM at midnight—this time listening with headphones.
What you have given me was a spark of to rekindle the magic my music had lost, all because you make these great audio components both dependable and available. I am sure I am not alone in my experience. But I am not sure anyone ever tells you—and so I send you this letter. I am sorry for taking your time (if you bothered to read this and you were indifferent to its sentiments). But my guess is, you know exactly what the memories and feelings are behind these words.
Thank you.
Most sincerely—but not wasting away,
Todd E. Johnson
Since writing this piece I have updated my turntable. As much as I still love my Bang and Olufsen, I could no longer justify the expense of the handmade cartridges for the unit, as great sounding as they were. I now have a Rega Planar 2 turntable with all of its manual delights.
In the end though, my reflections are about more than thanksgiving for electronics and technology and the aural pleasures they offer. It is about the joy of music and the enchantment of sound. It is about music that has etched its way into one’s psyche and becomes a bit of who they are. It is also about the appreciating the artistry of recording and the craft of and skill of those who make the magic moments in a recording studio live forever—and those who do it all from a laptop as well. And finally it is about the ability to experience both the music and the sound more fully.
In a world full of anger and disappointment. I offer a small example of my reasons to be grateful this year. Might you find examples–large and small–in your own life as well.
