Over Christmas, my search for a CD of suitably seasonal and festive music provided some amusement for Steven, quite possibly supported by Matthew. It would appear that for their particular generation a CD is the equivalent of what an LP might be for me – technologically superseded. Downloaded music is the thing, with no more jumping tracks, no shelves crammed with discs, and easily located music of the desired genre. I fought my corner well, explaining that the MP3 format is lower quality than a CD, and in any case I didn’t want to listen to music to the accompaniment of the PC cooling fan, but even I decided that maybe I was sounding just a little like my father defending the use of the telephone instead of the internet. And CD’s do sometimes jump tracks on my player
A day or so later I saw that the annual Classic FM Hall of Fame album of 100 favourite classical music tracks was now available for a mere £15.99. Or £4.99 if downloaded……
I noted that my amplifier had a 3.5mm jack plug socket on the front, presumably for connecting to an auxiliary device such as an MP3 player. I have an MP3 player – I use the radio option to listen to Radio 4 while cycling to work, but have never actually listened to an MP3 file on it. I visited my local Maplin store for a suitable connecting cable (having found the vast selection of cables on Amazon somewhat confusing), and with the assistance of the helpful staff I untangled the differences between USB and jack plug ends on my MP3 player (input and output respectively, apparently), and came away with a suitable cable and adapter to attach the player to my amplifier.
I enthusiastically selected the “buy” option for the downloaded Classic FM album on the radio station web site, and promptly got told that I couldn’t download it because I hadn’t got i-player. And so I used the link kindly supplied to download i-player. Of course you can’t just download i-player, because this is an Apple product, and so you have to register, providing name, address, age, gender, e-mail details and inside leg measurements. And then the site demands ALL of your credit card details, and it’s no good pointing out that you haven’t actually started shopping yet. I admit to having one or two Victor Meldrew moments.
It was almost time for bed when at last I was cordially invited to download the album, and I pressed the download option. The first track crawled slowly onto my PC, and the second and third tracks trailed slowly behind. Predicted download time 2 hours. I went to bed, leaving the download proceeding at the pace determined by the copper telephone wires that loop through the trees to our home.
The following evening I transferred the successfully downloaded album onto my MP3 player, plugged the newly purchased cable between the player and the socket on my amp, selected “play” and “aux” on each device respectively, and waited. No music of even substandard quality emanated from either speaker. I then realised that the amp socket was for headphones – music out, not music in, and remembered that the inputs were at the back. I moved the entire sound system away from the wall, untangling cables and relocating items from the top as I did so, and located the available aux inputs. There were two of them, one for the left speaker and one for the right. I only had one end on my new cable. It was clear that my amp is too sophisticated for my MP3 player.
Instead I opted to listen to the album on my PC, already connected to the amplifier and thence to reasonably decent speakers, which was successful. I wanted to be satisfied with the result. I really wanted to be satisfied with the result. I’m all for less clutter in my study, and the idea of easily accessible music files was appealing. I even found that the PC fan was not too intrusive, and the music was perfectly adequate. I came to a very familiar choral track, which was OK. I have the track on a CD, and played both almost simultaneously, switching from CD to aux to compare. The CD track was full bodied, rich, clear, satisfying. I’m still talking music, not wine. The MP3 was, well, just OK. And, totally independently, Chantal agreed. To be fair to Steven, I suspect that the problem is my PC sound card, which is not up to reproducing the desired quality.
For the time being I will retain my loyalty to CDs.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
