![]() My office stereo consists of a Shindo Laboratory Cortese single-ended-triode tubed power amplifier, a Shindo Masseto tubed preamplifier, Horning Eufrodite Ellipse speakers in Indian applewood, and High Fidelity CT-1 Enhanced speaker cables. My reference system reflects my fondness for an enduring design aesthetic in which extraordinary electronics are encased in beautifully crafted cases of metal and wood. ![]() What Kondo proposes requires that you ask yourself a different question: Will the next upgrade be that destination piece, that holy grail - a purchase that will bring me lasting joy? To me, such an audio component must be utterly transparent and relentlessly musical in sound, timelessly drop-dead gorgeous in appearance, easy to use, absolutely reliable, and provide state-of-the-art sound quality that won’t be significantly bettered for years. At some point you might ask yourself, “When does this quest end? When can I start to focus again on the message - the music - and stop obsessing about the medium?” What does this have to do with stereo gear? Stimulating the brain’s reward center with music can unfortunately lead to an addictive, obsessive-compulsive search for an elusive holy grail of auditory nirvana, and along the way we can accumulate too much stuff. Clutter could be a roadblock in the neural highway to the brain’s reward center: the nucleus accumbens, a small, almond-shaped structure deep in the midbrain that has been shown to be an important part of the positive emotion our brain senses when we hear music we like. In this age of distraction and materialism, too much information and too much stuff could be obscuring or interfering with our brains’ pathway to joy. Kondo encourages us to keep only what brings us joy, and to get rid of everything that doesn’t.Īs a psychiatrist entrusted with the responsibility of helping people take care of their inner worlds, I can see the interesting neuroscientific premise behind this. The path to reorganization, however, involves a ruthlessly deliberate shedding of some of our things. Declutter your life and you’ll feel better, she promises. Kondo makes a simple but powerful claim: a dramatic reorganization of your outer world can result in correspondingly profound changes in your inner world. ![]() Prices vary, but given the level of design, fit and finish, lowballers bargain hunters may need to keep looking.I’ve been reading a compelling self-improvement bestseller by Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. There are lots of options to choose from, including some “floating” LP shelves.Īaron’s piece show a very high level of craftsmanship. Shelves are isolated and the entire construction is itself isolated. Shelves are dense, and typically include mass-loading designs with stout metal inserts and constrained-layer dampening. Anyway, what may at first look to be pretty and well-crafted turns out to be wicked-clever and extremely intricate work. Har har, get it? “Solid”? Oh, never mind. Which is a nice reversal - now, it was impossible to overlook it.Īaron does some solid work. Kanso Furniture‘s Aaron Hoffman set up his display pretty much right in the way. Which is why it’s fun to run across a totally in-your-face “demo” of nothing but furniture. This is a shame - some of that stuff is every bit as arty, bespoke, and gorgeous as the gear sitting on it. I don’t think there’s anyone in high-end audio that gets less air time than a furniture maker.
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