When I was about 11 or 12 a friend who lived around the corner, on the way back from School, invited me in. His dad was keen to show me his HiFi room. Proudly he opened the door to show a barely furnished room, parquet flooring and on a low flat coffee, rectangular, table was a Bang & Olufsen Record Player and Amplifier. There were 4 large speakers in the corner of the room and this thing was like someone from another world had sent it.
Os think early 1970s so I am not sure if it was a full quadraphonic system. There was a single armchair in the centre of the room.
I cannot recall where he got the LP from now but he had all the gear and cleaned the LP and set it on the record deck and put on the music - it made an amazing sound, as you'd expect" but then, suddenly he said "Did you hear that?" I probably asked what and he said "That click, did you hear that click?" AS you may know I have always had problems with one of my ears (11 or 12 operations down on that one) and I didn't hear anything at all.
I could see he was irritated by it though. I think it destroyed his listening pleasure and he would probably have replayed it to see if he could hear the click again. Are we listening to the music or waiting for the click?
AS an aside, when I was an early adopter of CDs I would often say to people can you hear the silence and classical and choral music really benefit from the silence so I do have some sympathy but even on my old vinyl I always felt that the click or hiss was part of the experience and let the music play!
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