We have an upgraded Bang & Olufsen in our Audi, and I’m sure it sounds better than the base model stereo, but it’s not my favorite. It’s so fatiguing to the ear! The bass just hurts your ears if you turn it up to sing. The “Surround sound” effect is also fatiguing and adds a lot of high-end shrillness. I’ve had to dial everything back past the center EQ to make it tolerable. Now, with almost all of the EQ settings dialed down, it doesn’t sound too bad.

I’ve heard McIntosh tube amps powering Klipsch khorns that reproduced my favorite albums as if I were in the room during the recording. There was this suspension of disbelief because I couldn’t believe the singer WASN’T in the room with me. When I closed my eyes, they were standing eight feet out in front of me, singing to just me. They were right there. A 50-year-old recording sounding like it was right now. The acoustics of the room I was in seemed to disappear; I was no longer in a large living room, I was in an intimate little recording studio booth; I could hear the guitar and vocals bounce around in that little room – I couldn’t explain it, but the acoustics of the room completely changed to the acoustic of the recording studio. It was a religious experience. It’s just as memorable as my first blow job or my vacation to Greece.

My goal, my quest, is to achieve that sound in my own home.

I think this topic is like the earlier era of digital cameras vs film cameras. Film cameras were far superior to digital a few decades. Digital cameras could not get even close to the level of detail or stylized moody lighting of film. You could not zoom in and blow up a digital photo and get anywhere near a film photo.So, everyone shit on digital and said it would never replace film.

Now, digital has surpassed film in so many ways it’s not even close. Yes, film cameras are still beloved and have qualities that digital cannot capture, but the majority of professional photographers and videographers prefer using digital cameras.

The same is now true with the discussion of vinyl vs digital music. Digital music files were not as detailed and it wasn’t ever close during the CD and origins of iPods and downloading. Now, with faster internet and inexpensive larger hard drives, its’ very possible. Now digital file sizes have the same amount of musical information as vinyl and for the first time giving records a run for their money. At some point digital files will sound much better than vinyl and vinyl will take on a film quality and enjoyed or nostiliga and the ritual aspect of it.

Yeah an amp can short out blowing your speakers but highly unlikely. I guess an amp to burst into flames and blast a sound so awful you go deaf and never get to listen to the wonderful art of music ever again. But amps and your outlets have fuses in them to prevent the ideas within your vivid imagination from coming true.