Last Tuesday I went down to the Jersey Shore for a family vacation with a good portion of my extended family; my wife, kids, parents, sisters, brother and Grand-Aunt. Yeah. Toward the end of our stay it was decided we should visit a thrift shop set up to support a local church in one of the wealthier beach communities. So I said all right. I’ll go figuring there might be some good vinyl to snap up. As it turned out there was not. 7 Frank Sinatra albums and a couple gospel LP’s. No dice.
But at one point my father comes lumbering up to me and says come look what I bought and he leads me to a pair of Acoustic Research AR 4x’s he just purchased for a grand total of 10 dollars, in pretty good shape considering they are 40 years old. Ordinarily I am not a greedy or covetous man, but the feeling I got then was one I have felt before, usually at record stores. It’s the feeling that tells you you just got outmaneuvered for some good stuff. I went back to the area where he found the speakers and buried among the old fax machines, shelf systems and bazooka trunk subwoofers I scored a NAD 5325 CD player for 10 dollars. I hooked it up today to my new amp and the improvement over the Technics player I was using was astounding. Hell yeah. My streak of stereo luck has continued in brain-scorchingly hot South Jersey.
I have a point to this piece beyond just gloating. Like Brother T said things have different values to different people. Whoever got rid of the CD player, or the amp and speakers I got earlier, did so because they just weren’t necessary, but they were to me. If you are going to be the poorer end of the equation (and it looks like I am) you can still get what you need. You are just gonna have to look a little harder. I guess this can be considered my single effort at recycling, taking the old and making it new. So that is what time it is. From now on look out for the FSS. Coming to a flea market or curbside trash drop-off near you.
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