#10: Tired Nation So Depraved
Make Your Stereo Sound Better for Free, Record Store Day & Papa Steve Roach
Welcome back, voyagers. Just a quick note to thank all of you who have upgraded from free to paid subscriptions. Your support is deeply appreciated and if there’s ever anything I can help you with in a record-and-stereo-nerd way, reach out to me anytime. I love helping people figure out their home stereo situations!
This week’s episode of the Trailhead helped to celebrate great UK folk label Cambrian Records’ 10th birthday. Two great new releases are forthcoming from the label and we heard a jam from each— singer-songwriter David Ian Roberts’ self-titled 5th album and guitarist Toby Hay and bassist Aidan Thorne’s long-gestating first collaboration, After a Pause. Also in the program we heard the jammiest jam Itasca has ever released, spiritually similar pieces from mid-70s Germany and Sweden and sonic tributes to Damo Suzuki and Wayne Kramer. Check the tracklist below and enjoy the show here.
1. Toby Hay & Aidan Thorne - Bard - After a Pause (Cambrian, 2024)
2. Daisy Rickman - Feed the Forest - Howl (Leyline, 2024)
3. David Ian Roberts - Kaleidoscope Rising in 3D - David Ian Roberts (Cambrian, 2024)
4. IKSRE - Heartburst - Abundance (Constellation Tatsu, 2024)
5. Ryan J Raffa & Nico Rosenberg - Surrender - On Thin Air (Muzan, 2024)
6. Montgomery and Turner - Silence Is Approaching - Sound Is (Our) Sustenance (Astral Editions, 2024)
7. LFZ - View From Here - Raveled Veiled Known (Gnome Life, 2024)
8. Emerald Web - Valley of the Birds - Traces of Time (Stargate/Stoned to Death, 1987/2024)
9.Itasca - Easy Spirit - Imitation of War (Paradise of Bachelors, 2024)
10. Peter Bursch Und Die Bröselmaschine - Sofa Rock - Peter Bursch Und Die Bröselmaschine (Xenophon, 1976)
11. Thomas Mera Gartz - Morgonens Sång, Del 1 & 2 - Sånger (Silence, 1976)
12. Can - Halleluhwah - Tago Mago (United Artists, 1971)
13. MC5 - Skunk (Sonically Speaking) - High Time (Atlantic, 1971)
As I go down the endless hole that is high fidelity stereo playback, the deeply confusing and seemingly impossible to address problem of room treatment—making your stereo sound its best in the room it's in—looms. For most, the room with our stereo is the living room and that’s it. There’s nowhere else to go. But that’s not the end of the story on where your gear should go.
Years of living in small Brooklyn apartments had my setup in my bedroom, often to extreme detriment to the sonics. Audiophiles with deep pockets spend large sums to have consultants measure their listening rooms and place absorption hanging, bass traps and diffusers where they are needed. This is beyond my reach but something that we can all do to get one of the best tweaks in sound is speaker placement.
I love scrolling social media and seeing people post the records, CDs, tapes they are playing. I love seeing people’s gear and setups. It’s just good, clean wholesome nerdy fun.
But a big problem I see is speaker and turntable placement. I write this not to shame anyone but to share some very easy little tips to get some better sound out of your stereo. The main thing I see a lot are bookshelf speakers placed on the same piece of furniture as the turntable. I did this for a long time and I couldn’t understand why my brand new cartridge was howling with feedback when I got to a certain volume level. It just didn’t register with me that the sound from my little Celestion SL6s could shake the media stand enough and/or reach the stylus. But they did. Decoupling the turntable as best you can to ensure low vibration is paramount. A while back Stereophile writer and turntable setup expert Michael Trei hipped me to a cheap (and good looking) isolation pad for my turntable—a cutting board from IKEA!
The Aptillig works wonders under my Rega P3 and it is well worth trudging through an insane Saturday at your local Swedish furniture warehouse. Even with an isolation platform, I beg of you to not place speakers on the same stand as your turntable. While not perfect, I’ve used wooden barstools I bought at a thrift store as makeshift speaker stands. They get my tweeters at ear level (where you want/need).
The other really big no-no I see are speakers placed on either side of a receiver or integrated amp, about 17” apart. This placement robs you of any soundstage those speakers may provide. This setup is often accompanied with a turntable sitting on top of a receiver, which could be fine, but probably not, as those vents on top are there to ensure good air flow and we shouldn’t deprive our capacitors and circuits of some much needed fresh air.
Every speaker has different needs as far as placement. Generally, rear ported speakers need as much space from the wall as possible, while sealed speaker designs can generally thrive in more cramped locations. What’s been working for me and making a really nice soundstage is six feet between my speakers and my listening position 6-7 feet away dead in the middle. It’s a beautiful triangle of depth and space. You get that very sweet spot in the apex and you are golden. The key here is research and experimentation. Try toeing the speakers in (angling them to point directly at you sitting in the sweet spot), keeping them straight, hell, try toeing them out a bit. Pick a longtime favorite piece of music to play as you work this out and you just may surprise yourself how much sound you might’ve been missing. Unless you have omni-directional speakers, you really want to have your speakers’ height as close to your ears while in your regular listening position as possible. Do a search for your speakers and see what the manufacturer recommends and if that’s not obvious, hit forums like Audiokarma, Steve Hoffman, or Reddit and see what other users may be doing. A great thing about this hobby is the camaraderie among its participants. Old stereo heads love imparting wisdom and mostly do so without shaming or ridicule.
This is also a good time to mention how great it is to support smaller companies, as they are generally run by real music lovers and enthusiasts who are often very quick to return emails. My current speakers are a pair of Ascend Acoustics Sierra 2-EX and their designer answered a barrage of emails from me about my listening habits, amplification and other things. You don’t get that kind of care and attention from stuff you can buy at a big box store (if that’s the kind of gear you have, the forums are rife with people running what you have and will be of tremendous help).
There was a time when Steve Roach’s masterpiece Structures from Silence was sitting unloved in the bins of nearly every halfway decent record store. Those days are gone and more people than ever are tuned in to Roach’s 1984 ambient beauty. The record turns 40 this year and is now available as a pay-what-you-want download from Mr. Roach’s Bandcamp or as a limited edition remastered LP (on color vinyl :/), CD or tape. Check it.
The list of titles for Record Store Day 2024 has been issued. It is extremely light on titles of personal interest. In fact, I didn’t see a single thing that got me salivating. This has been the case for me for many, many, many years.
BUT
RSD is super fun. It was when I worked in a shop—it was busy, people were jolly and having a good time and there was a real sense of a party. These are all good things. Yes, there are flippers. Yes there are way too many butt rock reissues and the prices have gone insane. Many stores completely opt out of the special releases, and I can totally understand that. But the bottom line is, this day started to get heads inside independent shops and if you continue to view it that way, it’s a good thing. I’ll be going to 3-4 shops on April 20th, skipping the special releases and hitting those used new arrival bins that contain the true gold.
Check out the list and let me know if I missed something good that is worth lining up for.
::moves right speaker:: thank you.
Only RSD that caught my interest is the JGB. Otherwise agree with your thoughts.