Can you hear us pumping on your stereo ?

[venta]

And part three of the "This morning, on the way to work..." series:

William, my elderly car, has recently developed a Really Serious Fault. OK, so there's the mysterious and terrifying clunking noise whenever I brake while in reverse. There's the schizophrenic central locking. There's the increasingly strange behaviour of the stalk which controls the lights and indicators. There's the mystifying and irregular problem with the electrics.

But none of these are serious. The real issue here is that in the last couple of weeks, the stereo has stopped working. I don't mind the clunking and the inability to indicate right sometimes, but really, one has to draw the line somewhere. I do have a new (well, second hand) stereo waiting to be fitted - but there's no point doing that till the aforementioned problems with the electrics have been investigated.

However, this morning, I suddenly had a fit of inspiration, tested it and confirmed: only the tape deck is broken. The radio still works. Hurrah!

Now, as far as I can tell, car radios (radii?) come in two flavours. There's the ones that other people operate, which switch smoothly from channel to channel, picking up the station clearly. Then there's the ones I operate, which always play half a local station no one's heard of, and half white noise. Which will scan along FM from 90 to 110 without ever finding Radio One - or indeed anything else identifiable - or arbitrarily refuse to play anything but Medium Wave.

Some kind soul in the past seems to have tuned my car radio to Classic FM - and it was playing merrily, with beautifully clear reception. I know better than to dick around with something that ain't broke, so we had Classic FM this morning.

Half way to work, I realised that I'd been able to identify, or at least say something moderately intelligent about, every piece I'd heard. Which left me feeling pleasingly educated. Of course, there is the theory that says that Classic FM is repulsively populist, and that any muppet who can tell Taverner from Tavener can identify each track best out of three. But enough of that.

Not that I was actually always correct, of course. I heard the variations on Simple Gifts, which I cheerfully attributed to Vaughan Williams instead of Aaron Copland (kind of "right guy, wrong country", there.) And I went "ooh, ooh, ooh, I know this" all the way through Saint-Saëns' The Swan without ever coming to any very serious conclusion. I appear to know nothing about Elgar. Was pleased with myself to be able to dredge the name Albeniz out of my head at the appropriate juncture, though.

And I really, really do need new speakers - something that was obvious when I dismantled them the other day, and lots of crumbly ick fell out of where the membrane ought to have been. The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves turned up full belt just about finished the poor things off.

I think I could quite get to like this classical music on the way to work idea, though.


Update: I said a while ago I was going to stop putting cut-tags in which didn't indicate what was behind them. I haven't stopped, have I ? This one hides a bit of a witter about classical music on the radio.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

I like listening to a spot of classical on Radio 3 when traffic slows to a crawl on the M1. I've found that the best way to deal with the 3 mph phenomenon is to not care, and bunging on the classical seems to cheer me up when all others around are looking thunderous.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Classic FM is only populist if you've grown up being taken to concerts and were made to listen to Mozart in your sleep as a child. Or are a musical prodigy. Neither of which I am or was, so it's not populist. I am however very glad they've got over their Einauldi phase because I think he's shit. I also think they should spell out the composers' names occasionally, because I spent a year listening to it thinking Cincenze wrote The Swan and wondering who this St. Sean bloke was that I kept seeing in HMV next to everything else.

I also find it a lot better than Radio 3, because Radio 3 seem to less understand the concept of background noise, and put on music that goes VERY VERY LOUD and then very very quiet so that you have to turn it right up to hear it over the prat in the next lane who thinks revving his engine will make his dick grow and then SUDDENLY VERY LOUD AND THIS TIME IT'S LOUDER BECAUSE OF COURSE THE VOLUME IS LOUD AND AAAAA TURN IT DOWN and then it finishes and they have somebody muttering under their breath about it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

Radio 3 seem to less understand the concept of background noise...

That's a pretty fair criticism. I may start listening to Classic FM instead.

[zandev.livejournal.com]

Of course, this is part of the point of radio 3. It is targetted at people who want listen to the music rather than just leave it on in the background. Thus they don't compress the dynamic range of the music, which while helping hear things over the background noise does destroy a lot of the subtlety.

It's not just classical music which is affected by this. I recently read an editorial rant on the website of one of the sterophile magazines complaining of the recording levels of modern popular CDs. In particular, they are mostly mixed to be very loud pretty much continuously. This of course means that the bits that are supposed to be even louder get clipped and distorted as the peaks exceed the CD maximum. They were complaining that this means that many of the rereleases of 70s and 80s classic rock are actually much worse than the original recordings.

[venta.livejournal.com]

clipped and distorted

I'm intrigued, now. Do you know whether this is clipped and distorted in the ears of a rampant get-me-my-gold-phono-plugs-and-green-pen stereophile, or in such a way that's actually discernible to normal people ?

[zandev.livejournal.com]

Well, the article I was reading did actually compare the waveforms of different versions (I think of a Pink Floyd recording) to demonstrate the clipping. Whether normal people would notice is another matter.

A related article is compares average decibel levels.

[zandev.livejournal.com]

I've just found the article I was looking at, also at stereophile.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

the point of radio 3. It is targetted at people who want listen to the music rather than just leave it on in the background

Oh no! Another good point. Now I don't know who I am or where I live!!!

Ahem. I'm calmer now. Radio 3 at home and Classic FM in the car may be the solution here.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

And if everybody stopped driving everywhere, everything would be better, because you could hear the quiet bits when you were waiting at the traffic lights :(

[venta.livejournal.com]

Einauldi ?
I've never heard of him.
Admittedly, you don't inspire me to want to. What era are we talking here ?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Now. Well, a couple of years ago. He writes piano pieces that are...you know when you sit a child down at a piano before it's been taught that nobody wants to hear its imagination, and it just improvises? It's like that. It's pretty, but charging £15 for it is taking the piss. When he was in fashion, Classic FM would be beseiged by middle-aged women ringing up during the Request Lunch programme to twitter about how wonderful he was despite two out of the last four pieces having been Einauldi.

William

[gothstew.livejournal.com]

Ok a typical blokey question? How old is William and what make and model is he?

Re: William

[venta.livejournal.com]

The car (Almost William, because he's nearly orange) is an H-reg Peugeot 305, lovingly maintained by myself or (when it gets tricky) my mechanic-housemate. Housemate inconsiderately got a job in Cambridge, so is now only about at weekends, hence the backlog of work that needs doing.

Depends how you look at these things: he's old, knackered, and extremely idiosyncratic. On the other hand, a fourteen year old car, for which I paid £100 a few years ago, and he's doing pretty well.

<touches wood> He's only once broken down so chronically that I wouldn't have been able to get home - and that was 200 yards from my house after a sixty mile journey. Other than that, he's been damn reliable. Just a bit clunky :)

Don't listen to anything snow_leopard has to say on the subject. He's got both of us to Whitby and back a couple of times, even if she didn't believe we'd make it!

Re: William

[gothstew.livejournal.com]

I've got a F reg Toyota Corolla. Old cars are great, Mine was £575 3 years ago and last december it passed its MOT first time of asking, no repairs needed. It has had a few minor repairs since and has its faults like William but beats buying a new one for £300 a month for 5 years. The dents and rust gives it character. Most importantly it has a good stereo and speakers but mine does lack a name though!

Re: William

[venta.livejournal.com]

I have heard it theorised that naming cars is a girly thing, and can't really think of much evidence to the contrary. (I know blokes with named cars, but it mostly seems to be under duress :)

Much I might like to have a car that always started the first time of asking and didn't scare passengers, there's also a lot to be said for having a car that you don't need to care about much. If someone bumps me in a car park and drives off - I'll knock out the dent with a plank and a lump hammer, same as I did the last one. If someone breaks in - I'll patch it back together, and the locks probably still won't work properly. Hell, if someone steals it - I've had a good £100-quidsworth, and it won't be the end of the world.

Much easier than all this worrying :)

(Oh, and Pegueot + H-reg => galvanised body => very little rust. Hurrah!)

Re: William

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Hey, Brooke's not under a dress...

<boom-tish>

Re: William

[venta.livejournal.com]

Um, the fact that I didn't know your car was called Brooke (if it is ?) demonstrates that you don't call it by name :)

Lots of cars nominally have names.

Re: William

[wimble.livejournal.com]

You're the one who managed to reverse engineer the joke when I got the name wrong in the first place!

OTOH, I don't blame you for forgetting :)

Re: William

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh aye. I remember.

On the other hand, my point stands: you don't refer to your car by name, so it doesn't really count.

Re: William

[venta.livejournal.com]

H-reg Peugeot 305

As my mother pointed out to me in an email, this is something of a lie.
Or a typo, at least. 309, it should have said.