BEST OF BOOTH WORLDS
Risks and Records
When I was a kid, choosing a record was less agonizing than it is today. You could walk into a record store, pick out a disc, and audition it in a little booth before buying. By the time I got an allowance, though, the listening booths had disappeared.
The then -new LPs and 45s scratched easily, and buyers wanted factory -
fresh records in sealed jackets.
This didn't deter me too much. The prices of the new vinyl discs were considerably less than those of the 78s they replaced, low enough so that I didn't mind taking an occasional flyer on a record I hadn't heard but which looked interesting.
With CDs, I'm more reluctant to take chances. Prices are beginning to drop, yet most of the CDs in the stores still cost about twice what LPs do. And I feel railroaded by the still -
limited selections available. Much of what I want is not available on Compact Disc yet-either not at all, or not by performers I've learned to trust on that particular music.
Reviews are some help, but what I really want is the chance to hear at least some snatches from each disc before I buy. As a result, most of the CDs I do buy are reissues of LPs I've loved to death-and even some of these are sonic disappointments.
Buying CDs need not be such a gamble. Compact Discs don't wear down from use, and any audible damage will probably be visible as well. So a few record stores are once again letting customers listen to discs before buying. The old listening booths of my 78 -rpm childhood have been done in by the high cost of commercial real estate and the high quality of modern headphones, which provide better listening in less space.
The stores with listening facilities I've heard of so far are Compact Disc Warehouse in Huntington Beach, Cal., and Waterloo Records in Austin, Tex.
Each has its own approach. Compact Disc Warehouse has a battery of five, 60 -disc jukebox -style players hooked up for headphone listening. The store also sells used CDs for $8.99 each, and that stock is available for listening as well. New CDs not in the 300 -disc jukebox system cannot be auditioned, however, because of the difficulty of removing them from their theftproof packages and the near impossibility of restoring the packaging after play.
Waterloo Records takes a less limited approach. They'll not only open and play anything they have in stock but will even let customers audition CDs at home and exchange them if not satisfied. Because Waterloo keeps its CDs under glass, theft-proof packages are not required.
Therefore, repackaging is no problem.
"Our policy sells records," says co owner Louis Karp. "About 60% to 70% of the people who listen in the store buy the discs they've auditioned. They're usually pretty close to deciding on a disc by the time they listen to it-they just want to make sure. And we get very few discs returned.
"We have a lot of music that people will never get to hear on the radio.
Letting people hear before they buy encourages them to take chances on new material. I don't know why every record store doesn't do this." Amen, Mr. Karp. Amen.
Sub System Urbanites don't hold garage sales unless they're moving. Since I have no plans to move, I tend to squirrel away odd bits of unused audio equipment-power amps and gadgets, mostly-against the day I may have use for them again. My wife quietly wonders if such days will ever come, but just recently one did.
I wanted music in the bedroom I use as a home office, so I set up a first -generation CD player and a pair of small powered speakers back there. The system sounded fine (not as good as my main system, of course), but it lacked two useful features-a master volume control (each speaker has its own control) and a second input for my portable cassette player.
So I dug way back into my closet and came up with AR's SRC remote control system, which has both a tape monitor and a master volume control.
I feel a little silly using a wireless remote to span the 2 feet between my chair and the equipment, but it does the job.
White Black Box During a concert at New York's Weill (formerly Carnegie) Recital Hall, I noted something I hadn't seen at previous concerts: Two white, flat boxes were mounted on gimbals from pipe stands which projected from points high on the stage's side walls.
Each box was about 12 inches high, 18 inches wide, and 3 inches thick.
Ventilation slots were cut into the narrow sides of the box, and the large face, which was tilted down towards the audience, had a grid-work of holes about 3/6 inch in diameter. A black cable snaked from each box to a plug in the wall, hard by the base of one of the pipe stands.
It looked like a piece of audio equipment (perhaps the cable and plug tipped me off to that), but I had no idea just what it might be. The boxes were too small to be speakers and too thick to be backup plates for PZM or similar microphones. When the concert ended, I asked a stagehand. He told me they were infrared transmitters which allow the use of infrared-sensitive headphones by hard -of -hearing concertgoers.
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(adapted from Audio magazine)
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