It is quite incredible that in the age of Spotify and Apple Music a teenager has actually looked for and purchased a turntable off the Internet. Vinyl records sales have surpassed the CDs a while ago. Digital music does no longer need a physical support. Compressed formats have reached an almost accetable quality even to hifi geeks like me. Teenagers largely use their own phones to download or stream their preferred music and MP3 players are disappearing. Nonetheless people have continued to buy vinyl records at an increasing rate. What surprised me was that teenagers would do it, too!
Author: Pasquale Robustini
The teacher
In high school I had my head among stars, galaxies and nebulae, I wanted to be an astronomer and I had a math and physics teacher who made me dream. Perhaps he was responsible if I became passionate about science until I got a degree in this field and it was thanks to him that I was able to develop the skills to succeed. When I enrolled in that institute and I happened to be in that class, someone was warning me about serious trouble from that professor, a madman, out of his mind, a real nutcase. Others considered him a genius, with a teaching method of his own, very difficult to follow. I mean, the advice was to change class.
The 2016 Central Italy Earthquake
I am an Italian geologist and how can an Italian geologist not love the mountains of Central Apennines? This particular area of the Apennine Mountains has a precise geodynamical meaning. And they are also beautiful, green, with small villages harmoniously perched on the slopes around 1000 m above sea level, in an area where four different Italian regions meet: Latium, Marche, Umbria, and Abruzzo. Also an area of high seismic risk.
Guidare un’Alfa Romeo
Let’s talk about futile things (come on, we’re on vacation!). I’ll also state in advance that I’m not a car fanatic, someone who polishes it every day and is afraid to leave it in the parking lot. I do, however, enjoy driving – and I need a car. Since it costs a lot of money to buy and maintain it, at least I try to have a car that gives me a pleasant feeling when I drive it – and I’m not just talking about performance. A car can be much more than just a tool, sometimes a necessary one. It is the synthesis of technology and design, for many it is a status symbol. Certainly not for me. I look for something else in a car.
Back to Gold
When I first upgraded my Thorens turntable’s cartridge I was adviced to look into Grado’s catalogue. I choose the top of the Prestige series, which in 2005 was the Gold. I was happy with the sound I achieved on the Thorens, so when the time came, I replaced the needle with a Gold1 which was the available choice in 2010.
You never forget your first guitar
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my past. Not actually in a nostalgic way, but as something to be given more value, the correct value. Guitar playing has always been my trademark. The guitar has been central to my youth. I started playing at 11 with clumsy attempts that my 9 year old sister had started. It was an old acoustic guitar, so cheap it hurt our fingertips very quickly. It was at our father’s parents home, seldom played by my father’s younger brother. My father had bought it used in the 50s. Soon a new acoustic followed but, again, cheap. It was new at least. We must have destroyed it by playing it in any circumstances. My parents bought me my first electric guitar just before I turned 16. And they made me the happiest teenager on Earth!