"Summer Of Jessica: Part 2" (New GAW Run) - Preparedmind101

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Sound Byte: Whose DigitalFreak And Whats This Site About

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This site is a collection of rants and raves from the mind of a DigitalFreak. Those of you who have run across the handle of DigitalFreak know who I am but for the strangers out there you're all probably scratching your heads wondering what this page could possibly be about. Before I answer that I'm going to first answer the second question that people usually ask. Whats with the handle of DigitalFreak? DigitalFreak was first coined way back in the day in jest by a friend. It's not to say people call me DigitalFreak in real life but it is to say people, think on a subconscious level, have associated DigitalFreak with my person because I'm such a freak when it comes to audio and gear.

Back in the day before the advent of the digital revolution and the birth of MP3 players, like many other teens of the 80's, I'd spend hour after hour sitting in front of my dads cheap K-Mart bought stereo spinning record after record meticulously examining every inch of the albums sleeve admiring the cool pics all the while grooving to the music. Those albums from my teenage years meant the world to me and like so many other teens of my time, and probably today, provided me with the much needed escape I craved from the mundane tasks of school and family life. Looking back, those are my most treasured memories. It was a time of my life when I looked at the world through suspicious teenager eyes and thought anything could be solved if people would just stop and listen to the music that the so called rebels of the time cranked out month after month. Yeah I know, I was so young and green.

As the 80's became a distant memory and the 90's chugged along I soon found myself abandoning, like a fool, my much loved collection of vinyl and jumping head on into the CD and, a little later, the MP3 player revolution. The creation of the MP3 player, for me, felt like the chains of having my most loved music being tied down to a record player or worse, the crap sounding tape deck, had finally been removed. The freedom of finally being able to carry a small amount of my music around in my pocket was incredibly liberating. As such, as the 90's closed and the new millennium opened it became quite hard to run across me without me carrying my trusty Sony Walkman, and much later, faithful iPod in hand. As time passed I would become more and more boisterous of my so called liberating freedom and I dare say many a close friend probably felt like throttling me so as to finally shut my loud mouth and not hear my annoying rants on codecs, file formats, compression ratios, and musical tastes that was beginning to become more and more eclectic as the months dragged on.

I'm not really sure on the exact date or year per say. I do vaguely remember though that it was a rather humid late summer night towards the closing years of the 90's. Me and my friends were sitting around listening to music in a buddies garage and we had taken it upon ourselves to kill off some beers that were nicely chilled in an ice cooler that we had tactfully liberated from a rather boring house party. Offhand, can't really remember which buddies garage it was but I do remember the garage, besides being used for the everyday storage of a car, had partially been converted to act as a makeshift man cave by being fitted with an old black and white TV, small corner fridge, and an old banged up low-fi stereo. I also remember that this old warhorse of low-fi was driving a rather ratty pair of Pioneers which had seen far better days. All the while Black Sabbath played away my buddies heckled me concerning my latest investment of 500 bones on the latest craze, the iPod Classic.

We all being nicely buzzed from the Labatts Blue in the cooler it's not to surprising liquid courage had taken over and our tongues were all working overtime. The showdown comprised of my collection of disheveled looking mid to late 20ish friends taking turns trying to make me see the logic of how stupid I was to spend so much money on a piece of tin and plastic the size of a large matchbox all for the sake of listening to music. On my side, it was me, my shadow, the collection of empty beer bottles which I had taken the pains to stack in a rather haphazard looking pyramid, and my beloved brand spanking new Classic which I repeatedly waved around as if it was a talisman meant to ward away evil spirits.

"You're crazy man!!! I don't care what you say, You hear those speakers? No matter how convenient it is they'll never be able to beat what those speakers can do." My response," If nobody can improve on what those speakers sound like then may God strike me deaf because those things sound like complete crap. Besides, this is just the beginning. If you think there isn't some egghead somewhere trying to make a better sounding, easier to use, and probably even smaller MP3 player it's you whose deluding yourself. You're all just jealous because I can hear my tunes anytime and anywhere I want and you guys have to either wait to get home or hide out in the garage away from the girlfriend so she doesn't blow a gasket when you try to crank the tunes. The digital age is coming guys. Get with it already."

With that I bounced up out of my chair hellbent on grabbing the last 2 beers left in the cooler before my motley crew of tech agnostics could get their grimy paws on them. That's when my rather rubbery beer inebriated legs hit the pyramid of empty beer bottles sending me sprawling forward headfirst while my motley crew looked on in utter bemusement. Luckily, the only thing that was hurt was my pride and more importantly both my half full bottle of beer and iPod Classic had survived my fall. It was then I heard it, the statement uttered through giggling that unknown to me at the time I would remember. "Man you're such a freak. If half of what you say does happen you're gonna be an even bigger freak. You're gonna become a Digital Freak".

That my friends is where the handle DigitalFreak came from.

Now, to answer everyone's first question, this page is devoted to my personal rants and raves concerning music and gear. I intend to slowly populate this site with my personal views and impressions concerning audio gear from full blown desktop DACs, and headphone amps to mobile gear such as DAPs, amps and DAC's, as well as various headphones and IEM's. For some added fun and to change it up a bit now and then I'll be talking music once in awhile too. For the uninitiated, DAC stands for digital analog converter, headphone amp is exactly what it means, an amp meant to power headphones/IEMs, a DAP is simply a fancy term for MP3 player, and IEM stands for in ear monitor. Yes guys, this is a site devoted to music and audio gear. Although it will loosely resemble a review site ultimately its meant to be more of a personal audio journal where I intend to rant or rave about what I think. Also, I will be including video in a lot of my audio journal entries. I've been running my own YouTube channel for a better part of a year and it was that channel, as well as a lot of positive emotional support from various people who follow me, that convinced me to try my hand at publishing my personal thoughts online. Also, just to clue everyone in on my audio background, I also write for a couple of review blogs which are Cymbacavum and audio360, links can be found below.

Hope you all enjoy what I have planned for the coming months, bless.

FIN

audio360
http://www.audio360.org/

Cymbacavum
http://cymbacavum.com/