DOuG pRATt

200 lbs., free shipping

Here’s something I thought I’d never see. Amazon.com is selling the Klipschorn loudspeaker with free shipping. These things weigh nearly 200 pounds each! The price? $3999. That’s per speaker, not per pair.

Even 30 years ago, when I was in college, the Klipschorn was considered to be an old man’s loudspeaker. I was visiting an instructor’s house with some other kids. He had a 20-year-old mono hi-fi that consisted of a Fisher tube amplifier, a Fisher tube FM tuner, and a single Klipschorn speaker. Classical music was playing over the radio, and I was completely knocked out by the sound. It was one of the most uncanny and impressive home audio demonstrations I’ve ever heard.

After that I fantasized about someday owning a pair of Klipschorns, but it will never happen. A few years later, when I had graduated and was working, I bought a pair of Allison 3’s, new, for half price — $350/pair, the equivalent of $1000 today — at a going-out-of business sale. Like the Klipschorns, the Allison 3’s are intended for corner placement. I still have the Allisons, and they’re in excellent shape, both operationally and in appearance.

1 comment April 17th, 2009

Mass Tea Party

A tea party protesting a tax increase? A tax increase for who? These people, perhaps….

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Add comment April 15th, 2009

Silents were golden

I’m not going to tell you anything about this movie clip, except that it’s not by Hitchcock.

10 comments April 13th, 2009

‘Good Ol’ Charles Schulz’ at MASS MoCA

Something I missed, that I wouldn’t have been able to attend even if I’d known about it, was a screening of the documentary Good Ol’ Charles Schulz, with director David Van Taylor in attendance, at a place I’ve mentioned before, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Here is the part of the film I liked, and I was pleased to later learn that Monte Schulz felt the same.

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9 comments April 12th, 2009

The new, old ‘Trek’

Bismo says the buzz about the new ‘classic’ Star Trek movie is that it’s better than the trailers make it seem. It’s been seen in Australia, and also in Austin, TX, where fans who thought they would be seeing a screening of the 27-year-old Wrath of Khan were in for a surprise.

Add comment April 10th, 2009