AW - Editorial May 2006

In a recent editorial, a member of the audio press remarked, “Sadly, truth is under attack everywhere, even in our listening rooms.” While I agree with his argument that measurements do have a place in audio reviews, primarily because they can provide some objective (assuming that they were conducted properly to begin with) data to the reviewer to either vindicate or hang themselves with, I have to ask myself what truth is he referring to.

Is it his truth? My truth? Your truth?

Could there be anything more pompous and condescending?

If I am reading between the lines, those of us who prefer the sound of “colored” sounding loudspeakers, and I am assuming that he is referring to single-driver loudspeaker such as the Auditorium 23 Solovox, Cain and Cain Abby, Shindo Labs WE 755As, and the Horn Shoppe Horns, are the evil-doers with a serious hearing problem. I suspect that music listeners who prefer single-ended amplifiers and consider the iPod to be a viable platform are also deaf and taking this country to the dogs.

One thing I do know is that none of the speakers that I consider to be the greatest conveyers of “musical truth and beauty” are guilty of making a piano sound thirty feet wide.

All of this talk about “subjectivist” and “objectivist” reviews can become tedious, especially when it detracts from the true mission of any audio system, home-based or portable, which is to connect a music lover to his or her favorite music. While we prefer and endorse the high-end approach, that doesn’t give us the right to be snobs and pretend that folks on the outside of our rose-colored (pardon the pun) little world are not doing things differently. The enjoyment of music is an international affair, one that brings people together from all corners of the globe. Some of us enjoy listening in solitude to single-ended gear from Japan; others enjoy inexpensive headphone amplifiers from China. Some folks enjoy riding around naked on a bike while plugged into an iPod.

“Where should I begin?

“My name is Hector Topete, born in San Diego, but living in Tijuana for my first four years before I was discovered and taken back to The States. Until the age of 18, I grew up in a small rural town called Redlands, located in Southern California from which I later joined the Navy for three years. Within those three years I was introduced to the San Francisco Bay Area while stationed in Alameda Naval Air Station.

“After leaving the military, I decided to stay in the Bay Area and have been living in San Francisco ever since. Almost twenty years later, all I have to show for myself is an extensive resume of the number of Central and South American countries I have pedaled through while carrying my camping gear and a surfboard. I have developed such a beautiful love affair with my bicycle that I have been fortunate enough to pedal through the most beautiful but dangerous places in the world and I have yet to see it all. Most of my travels have been sporadic throughout the years, as I have been living in San Francisco.

“The past few years in San Francisco have been such a blast for me after I met an incredible girl in Guatemala who coincidentally happened to be from San Francisco as well. We decided to continue our relationship in San Francisco and most of it was sheer bliss. One of my most adventurous and fondest experiences while being with her was my introduction to Burning Man about which I have heard for the past fifteen years. I had never had the opportunity or the motivation to go, but all that changed when I met the dream girl.

“For those of you who never heard of Burning Man, it started in San Francisco twenty years ago by Larry Harvey who founded Burning Man by gathering a small group of his friends to burn an effigy of an eight-foot man at baker beach in San Francisco, Ca. Legend has it, that the effigy represented a best friend of Larry Harvey who happened to steal his girlfriend away from him. How true that really is, I don't know. But by now, the Burning Man Arts Festival, a congregation of self-reliance and self-expression has grown from twelve people to thirty-five thousand people and has moved from Baker beach to Black Rock Desert in Northern Nevada from where these photos have been taken.

“This utopian destination is unlike any other place on earth with many genres of music, the arts and most importantly, the people. The majority of people take bicycles with them, as the makeshift tent city is too big to walk around to see everything. Last year, I decided to pedal one of my bikes up to Burning Man from San Francisco, a little over three hundred miles through the steepest of mountains and the most inhospitable of deserts.

“My girlfriend helped me take my other bike in which I constructed a mobile sound system attached to it while still being able to give another person a ride. Of course, I had to construct a shaded canopy for the bike to protect me and my passenger from the menacing sun. I thought I would construct the music box myself and buy the necessary components that would produce the sound. I figured if a car could have music, why not a bicycle?

“Well, my experiment proved to be a success despite the heavy weight I had to tow, not including the passenger, as long as she didn't weigh more than a hundred and fifty pounds. I would pedal around La Playa picking up passengers, acting as a bicycle taxi stopping at various art installations, while playing my favorite house music tunes through my mobile dj sound system thereby creating a frenetic and enthusiastic dancing scene with everyone moving with me. I wanted to pick up more passengers but I was able to pick up no more than one passenger. I always saw two girls walking and exploring. Hence, the need for at least a two-passenger bicycle taxi with a sound system. Perhaps next year will I create my more than one passenger bicycle taxi with a sound system.”

We plan to direct Hector towards Vinnie Rossi at Red Wine Audio for a primer on battery-powered audio that doesn’t give one a coronary.