Sold our Souls, movements I-V

Warm. Comforting, cozy, solid, full, nourishing, healing, enjoyable, smooth and satisfying. My turntable breathes warmth into the music I'm so used to hearing digitally. As the needle rides the roller coaster of sound waves carved into the vinyl, out pours Willy Wonka's chocolate waterfall of music. Delicious.

I love my iPhone, especially with my UE Superfi 4vi headphones. The sound is clear and sharp. But instead of smoothly navigating the hills and valleys of the aforementioned sound waves, the iPhone diligently and methodically ascends and descends stairwells of sonic factories. Not quite delicious, more like efficient.

Interlude: Why did we sell our acoustic integrity for portability?

The irony of my headphones, as well as those of the guy blasting his ears on the subway letting everyone else know exactly what he's listening to, is that in trying to listen to a world of possibility, I cut off the world of reality. I walk around Manhattan and make purchases and work at my desk while using ear buds as Berlin walls between eastern monotony and western musical freedom.

All to frequently, I'm struggling not to go into a tirade over the waste that is a 74 minute CD compared to the easily manageable less-than-43 minutes of a record. MP3 players the size of a pack of cigarettes use electrons to get the music from binary code into sound waves while you run around in circles for over an hour. Record players the size of a pizza box rotate a ten inch disc, scratching it with a diamond-tipped needle while you sit on your couch and listen for just a short while. Since my record player is on my dresser, I have to put away clean laundry like a brain surgeon if I don't want the needle to go ballistic.

Most speakers brag about how close they are to reproducing the exact properties of a real live musician/instrument. But that's only half of the process. If the musician was in your living room, playing a concert, would you walk around busily rearranging your Nicholas Sparks collection? No. Unfortunately, cramming 100 people into my living room probably wouldn't be a very fun Tchaik 6. So at home I listen to vinyl. And at work I listen on my iPhone. And you know what? Vinyl lets you hear the music and MP3 players let you hear the music but neither matter if you're not listening.