We may never pass this way again
Reminiscing fondly about years gone by presents a diversion from the stress that today’s life-in-the-fast-lane brings. And no matter how different my past experiences may be from yours, who we are now as individuals has no doubt been shaped and will forever be defined by the people we have encountered, the places we have visited and the events that have touched our lives.
When I was growing up in the late ‘60s and the ‘70s, Star Wars was the movie not to be missed. The chaos of the ‘60s - from war and social upheaval was carried through to the ‘70s.
Do you still remember what a telephone booth looked like? What about going gaga over Rubik’s cube, Sony Walkman, disco music, bellbottom pants, The Brady Bunch, platform shoes and pet rocks? And then of course there was martial law.
But my most vivid recollection of the ‘70s was my fascination with solid state audio receiver gadgets such as Sansui AU Alpha 607 KX, Sansui AU 20000, Sansui 9090db, Sansui G8000, Sansui G900db, Luxman L45a, Marantz MR250, Marantz 2330B, Marantz model 2325, Pioneer SX1250 and Pioneer SA9800, to name a few. I was still in high school and had no means to own any of them. Instead of photos of movie or sports celebrities, I had posters and pictures of audio gear on my bedroom walls. Like any typical “fan,” I religiously read audio magazine reviews about these gadgets and fantasized about owning one of them someday.
I had a rich classmate whose father had the fortune to have the Sansui 9090db, which was driving a JBL horn speaker system, and we would listen to the music of Carol King, Carly Simon, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Queen in their house during weekends.
Critics didn’t actually give much credit to ‘70s music, describing the bands as shallow, but who cares? It’s the era which saw the rise to fame of hard rock, a subgenre of rock music in which Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Journey, Aerosmith, Kiss and AC/DC would rule supreme; and where heavy metal (unrecognized at that time as a separate genre from hard rock) gained a cult following. Led Zep, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple carried this genre to worldwide prominence, and later influenced Judas Priest and Motorhead of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the 1980s.
Audio receivers may have faded against the market onslaught of audio component gadgets of the ‘80s, but the sonic character of the former remained in my music memory bank. It was after all the sound of my era, where all beautiful memories were made.
I heard the same sound texture wafting in the air as I walked along the corridors of Manila Mandarin Hotel last month during the Hi-Fi Show. It was coming from the room of the Flashback Audio Group, which I later learned was into restoration of vintage audio receivers. The imposing presence of Sansui G-9000DB driving a high sensitivity horn speaker system in a passive three-way configuration was more than enough to make one drool over it.
It was their affinity for vintage solid-state gadgets, which brought the Flashback Boys together. Friends Boy Bustamante, Robert Crespo, Mike Reyes, Ruel Felix and Orli and Ampot Javier decided to pool their resources to put up a group specializing in the restoration of vintage audio gadgets and assembly of horn speaker systems.
They started out as avid music lovers who found something amiss in the way music is being reproduced by some so-called high-end and high-fidelity sound gears Music should be appreciated and not merely analyzed. They long for the halcyon days of listening to music just for fun and pleasure, without worrying about the soundstage precision, focus, transparency, and what-have-yous.
Yes, an audio receiver aside from providing the convenience of having a high-grade tuner for accurate capture of FM and AM audio signals drives a horn speaker system such that it gives out a certain energy in music that is both engrossing and untiring. However, as the Flashback Boys have proven, an audio receiver should not be limited to accurately recreating the music of the ‘70s; it must reproduce other music forms such as jazz and classical with the same almost-magical vibrancy. With every audio gadget they restore, the Flashback Boys provide audiophiles and music lovers with an opportunity too tempting to pass up.
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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 you can tweet audiofiler at www.twitter.com for quick answers to your audio concerns.
