BLOGGER WINS FAB SPEAKERS SHOCK!

Only those who scrutinise Mojo magazine rigorously would have spotted my name in issue 365, which had John Squire and Liam Gallagher on the cover. It appeared on page 113, below the answers to the crossword in issue 363. “Winner: Reader Chris Charlesworth wins a pair of Audio Pro A48 speakers [above],” it said. Yes, it was me, though in reality I solved an anagram from letters that were highlighted in the crossword grid, specifically those that when rearranged spelled “Shane O’Hooligan”, probably not the easiest anagram to solve but pretty easy if, like me, you’ve been cracking cryptic crosswords for years as a means of exercising the old grey matter.

        The speakers, which retail at a whopping £960, were delivered to chez CC at the beginning of this week and after a bit of fiddling about with cables that weren’t part of the package, they were up and running yesterday. They’re now wired up for use on our hi-fi and TV, and, of course, they’re Bluetooth compatible, which means that music from my phone comes through them too. 

        Despite my fondness for music of pretty much all types and a pretty large record collection, at least by most people’s standards, I have never really been a hi-fi buff, one of those folks who can discuss tweeters, woofers and frequency balance with any semblance of authority. Truth to tell, the speakers in use chez CC until now were bought in 1980, in New York, a pair of silver Onkyo HS-20s, which have served me remarkably well ever since. They cost about $80 and I had to pay £35 customs duty on them at Heathrow, which translates as around £400 in today’s money, a substantial investment but a good buy all the same. 

My old speakers

        I was on my way back from Chicago where, as PR at RCA Records, I’d taken a couple of writers to see David Bowie in The Elephant Man and I stopped off in NYC to meet up with a friend who didn’t show. To ease my disappointment, I browsed in a hi-fi shop and bought the Onkyos because the man in the shop recommended them, I had some unused dollars and they looked nice. A glance on eBay tells me they’ve held their value, which doesn’t surprise me as I’ve always thought they sounded terrific.

        Well, bugger me with a dead badger, as my old mate Allan Jones used to say. These new motherfuckers blow the living daylights out of them. The bass sound turns our living room into one of those clubs in the Balearic islands, booming out like a sound system at the Notting Hill Carnival. But it’s not just the bass, it’s the overall clarity of the different instruments and the vocals, almost as if the singers and guitarists are in the room with you, sitting somewhere between each speaker, playing for your entertainment only. They have built-in amplifiers – Digital Class D 2x130watt + 2x30 watt, according to the specs – which is on the hot side to say the least. It means I no longer need a hi-fi amp and can stick them in the garden and entertain the whole village if I want. Before long I will need to sign a peace treaty with my neighbours. 

        I haven’t had them long enough to try out many records yet, but just for the record, in the last 24 hours I’ve played some War On Drugs (Lost In The Dream, Live Drugs), The Last Dinner Party (from my phone, proving Bluetooth and records are indistinguishable), Miles Davis (Kind Of Blue), Elgar (adagio from cello concerto), Beatles (second side of Abbey Road, ‘Strawberry Field Forever’ from Love, ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ from remastered Let It Be), Jeff Beck (‘Elegy For Dunkirk’ from Emotion & Commotion), Who (‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and live ‘Bargain’), Cat Stevens (‘How Can I Tell You’ from remastered Teaser And The Firecat), Abba (‘The Day Before You Came’), Gillian Welch (Revival) and Everly Brothers (‘Kentucky’). I’m saving Floyd and S Dan for the weekend. I’ve also watched on TV Jeff Beck Live At The Hollywood Bowl (from 2017), Springsteen Live In Barcelona (2002) and bits of The Beatles’ Eight Days A Week documentary, all which I’d recorded and saved on the planner long before the new speakers arrived. 

        The TV sound through the new speakers is amazing, giving an added dimension to the music, as good as the hi-fi sound from CDs or vinyl. I’m gobsmacked at the sound I now hear from Beck’s white Strat, always a source of wonder to me, not to mention the bass playing of Rhonda Smith and crackling drums of Jonathan Joseph. On The Beatles’ doc Paul’s bass sounds terrific, putting to the sword any suggestion that the Fabs weren’t that good on stage when the screaming got out of hand. 

        Indeed, all this music sounds far better than I’ve ever heard it before. Also, I’m hearing things in the background that I never realised were there, perhaps the scrape of a pick against guitar strings, a singer catching their breath, a synth line buried deep in the mix. And for this reason, unusually, I’m sitting between the speakers without doing anything else, just hoovering it all up without distraction, simply listening. 

        I can’t quite believe my luck.