You still believe in me

One of my foundational memories of becoming an audiophile was waiting to listen to a pair of speakers at Sound by Singer in Manhattan.

- BY ALEX HALBERSTADT

Perhaps a more apt verb is loitering, because I was in my mid-20s and always felt on the verge of being thrown out. The store was patronized mainly by affluent-looking men in suits, and from time to time I'd see Jonathan Scull, the famous Stereophile reviewer, sweep into the place and step into a listening room as though it were his den. That afternoon, a salesman was demonstrating a pair of inexpensive speakers for a middle-aged customer who'd shown up before I did, and I was standing around while they finished their audition. The customer handed the salesman a CD he wanted to listen to, which turned out to be the soundtrack to Patriot Games, composed by James Horner. "Play 'Assault on Ryan's House,'" he instructed. The music that blasted out of the speakers sounded like it was composed for a Coast Guard recruitment video, and at the customer's request, it was played at an arrhythmia-producing volume. He listened to four more interminable tracks before handing the salesman a second CD, this one the soundtrack to Casper, also by James Horner. Before I left, having decided that nothing was worth listening to more James Horner, I heard the customer tell the salesman, with no small amount of pride, "I've got about 30 CDs at home and every one sounds amazing."

It hadn't occurred to me that someone might enjoy listening to audio gear but not have much interest in music. This seems naïve to me now. As it happens, in the early years of the high-fidelity era, audio enthusiasts like film-sound pioneer Peter Handford and Brad Miller, the founder of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, enjoyed making and listening to recordings of steam locomotives and other nonmusical things. (The first MoFi LP, Memories in Steam, released in 1958, was a recording of a Southern Pacific train.)