Times of your life
From cassette tapes to CDs to SACDs, XRCDs, HDCDs and who knows what other music meda will come next whose acronyms may be long enough to make an alphabet soup, vinyl records continue to be the preferred music source among discriminating music lovers around the globe.
This is the reason “AudioFile” is organizing an analog seminar on Sept. 19 at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Conference Center (ACCEED) at Benavidez corner Trasierra Sts., Legaspi Village, Makati City. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Audio gurus will explain and demonstrate why vinyl has made a spectacular comeback and has captivated even today’s generation who grew up in the digital age.
When I first sounded off the idea in earlier columns, I immediately got favorable reactions from my avid readers, people whose ages range from 19 to 33, and many have excitedly signed up. Initial kinks have been ironed out, and this first-ever audio event specifically conceived for people passionate about quality music is all set.
I wish to thank my dear friends at San Miguel Corp., Ramon Ang, vice chairman, president and COO and Ramon Santiago, vice president for corporate communications — for promising to share the company’s resources during the event. Your participation in this worthy endeavor is very much appreciated.
Those who are interested can still sign up. We are accepting early-bird payment of P850 via BPI bank deposit. Should you wish to pay on-site on Sept. 19, the seminar fee will be P950. The payment covers lunch and snacks. If you wish to avail of the early-bird rate or ask for further details, you can get in touch with Jen Dones at jenjen.dones@gmail.com or through 0917-8004868.
The event will not only arm you with knowledge about the beauty of analog music, we also envision it to be your best chance to finally grab that elusive LP album or glitzy analog gear you’ve been longing to have. Select LP and hardware dealers will display and sell their wares at a discount during the event.
So what is it really that has made LPs endure and even thrive in the digital age? Don’t get me wrong. I’ve nothing against digital technology. In fact, its contribution to how we now conveniently do things is immeasurable. But it’s a fact that music lovers who switched to CDs belatedly realized that there seemed to be something missing from the sound they were hearing. The clinical approach to music reproduction has proved not to their liking.
More than its sound quality, many audiophiles also believe that, just like a photograph, the grooves which store music on vinyl do a more accurate job of recording the times of their lives. Vinyl, after all, represents the years when most of their heartwarming memories were made. For the young, the bigger-sized album art was what initially attracted them to vinyl. A 12-inch by 12-inch canvas can definitely showcase a work of art far better than a CD’s 4.75 x 4.75. And boy, it’s no contest: some of the most creative and artistic cover art can be found on LP albums.
I can enumerate many other ways in which vinyl is notches above a CD, but at the end of the day what really matters is that an LP record can trigger that feeling of losing oneself in music. For lack of a more appropriate adjective, I say it’s magic! Hey, did you know that for the price of an iPod, you can already have a decent analog system? Oh, there’s so much to discover about analog music. And on Sept. 19, that is exactly what we want to share with you.
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For comments or questions, please e-mail me at audioglow@yahoo.com or at vphl@hotmail.com. You can also visit www.wiredstate.com or http://bikini-bottom.proboards80.com or you can twit audiofiler at www.twitter.com for quick answers to your audio concerns.
