I realised recently it’s my stereo’s 25th birthday. I wouldn’t mention it except me and my stereo are pretty close. We’ve traveled everywhere together. I’ve mentioned the turntable, sorry the “deck”, before, but the heart of my system is a trusty New Zealand-made Linear L240 amplifier, a big late ‘70s industrial black steel job.
I bought it in my first year at Uni. It was on sale as most of the local manufacturers were going out of business as protection ended. It’s hard to believe now that in those days most of the consumer electronics available in New Zealand were made in New Zealand: AWA TVs, Fountain and Linear stereos and lots more.
Strangely no obsessive stereo nerd has created a web site for these rapidly disappearing pieces of New Zealand technological and economic history. The only reference I could find to any of this stuff online was some guy rating his New Zealand-made stereo the worst piece of equipment he'd ever owned.
But my amp is fantastic. The L240 has a great sound but is known to blow speakers. It peaks at about 60 watts per channel, well up on its 40-watt rating. I’ve blown at least three sets.
If I have visitors they look at it and think: “You poor sad loser, Rob.” But they do a double-take when I wind the old bastard up. When I was shifting to Australia, the moving guy asked if I wanted insurance. He paused, looked at my stereo and other junk.
“I reckon the minimum would do,” he mused.
Perreaux, the most innovative of the local manufacturers, has fittingly survived and thrived at the quality end of the market. And I guess that just proves the point of those reforms – if you could produce something the market wanted and built a brand reputation you succeeded, no matter if you were thousands of miles away.
Anyway, Linear didn’t survive, but around my place one old unit is still pumping out those sweet grooves, baby! Yeah!
Speaking of grooves I went up to the Cat and Fiddle in Balmain on Saturday for one of my increasingly rare live music outings. We caught the reformed Hard-Ons. They were okay, loud and thrashy, which was what I was after. My mate, Dan “once you’ve tried Jew you’ve had the best screw” Kaufman, hated them. But I thought they were okay.
At this point I’d like to declare Balmain the most over-rated place in Sydney. It has 26 pubs so if that doesn’t win me over nothing will. Despite that it’s a bit of a twee colonial hell. Mainly a residential area, you can’t get in anywhere after midnight. The restaurants aren’t all that crash hot, despite what they think, and it’s quite hard to get around on foot.
Okay, so five Britons have been released from Guantanamo, people George Bush had declared to be terrorists and murderers. What gives? Well, they are the latest of over 80 prisoners released to date. George caught in another lie, the United States losing more of its moral authority and moving ever further from its founding principles. Sigh.
Bush will be watching developments like these closely.
And this just in from Stephen, a muslim fisking of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.