Stereophile
New member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2013
- Messages
- 442
- Thread Author
- #1
<p><img class="story_image" src="http://www.stereophile.com/images/1113awsi.promo2_.jpg" /></p> Thanksgiving will mark two years since Charles died. I still miss him.
<p>
I first met Charles in the 1990s, around the time I began to review recordings and audio equipment. I had just left my apartment and was driving slowly down the street when I spied a somewhat bent-over, wizened-looking man carrying a copy of <i>Stereophile</i> under his arm. My astonishment at discovering another <i>Stereophile</i> reader whom, it turned out, living just two buildings away, brought my car to a sudden halt.
</p><p>
I opened my window. "You read <i>Stereophile</i>?" I exclaimed.
</p><p>
"Why, yes, I do," replied Charles, with that curious mixture of intellectual engagement, hauteur, and combative distance that I was soon to know too well.
</p><p>
So began our friendship. One of the many things that bound us together, in addition to equipment, was our love of classical music. While Charles championed Bruckner, whose music can drive me up a wall, and initially disparaged my beloved Mahler, we both shared a love for renaissance music and "natural" sound.
</p><p>
Within a week, we'd begun sharing recordings and critiquing each other's systems. Mine was certainly in need of improvement. But the system in Charles's apartment occupied another plane entirely.
</p><p>
Charles was an individual for whom the diagnosis <i>Audiophilia nervosa</i> seemed overly generous. In the darkened front room of his extremely stuffy flat, whose windows had not been opened for years, sprawled a system that defied description. To the right of his closely spaced speakers
[Source: http://www.stereophile.com/content/death-audiophile]
<p>
I first met Charles in the 1990s, around the time I began to review recordings and audio equipment. I had just left my apartment and was driving slowly down the street when I spied a somewhat bent-over, wizened-looking man carrying a copy of <i>Stereophile</i> under his arm. My astonishment at discovering another <i>Stereophile</i> reader whom, it turned out, living just two buildings away, brought my car to a sudden halt.
</p><p>
I opened my window. "You read <i>Stereophile</i>?" I exclaimed.
</p><p>
"Why, yes, I do," replied Charles, with that curious mixture of intellectual engagement, hauteur, and combative distance that I was soon to know too well.
</p><p>
So began our friendship. One of the many things that bound us together, in addition to equipment, was our love of classical music. While Charles championed Bruckner, whose music can drive me up a wall, and initially disparaged my beloved Mahler, we both shared a love for renaissance music and "natural" sound.
</p><p>
Within a week, we'd begun sharing recordings and critiquing each other's systems. Mine was certainly in need of improvement. But the system in Charles's apartment occupied another plane entirely.
</p><p>
Charles was an individual for whom the diagnosis <i>Audiophilia nervosa</i> seemed overly generous. In the darkened front room of his extremely stuffy flat, whose windows had not been opened for years, sprawled a system that defied description. To the right of his closely spaced speakers
[Source: http://www.stereophile.com/content/death-audiophile]