The Momus loudspeaker saga
Oct. 12th, 2008 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusA month ago I received a strange, friendly email from a man called Alexander in the Ukraine, the director of a hi-fi company called Sound Sound which makes and sells loudspeakers. "We are simply the music and good sound lovers," Alexander explained. "Three years ago I discovered two discs "Oskar Tennis Champion" and "Ping Pong"... I enjoyed with your music so much (and not only I but many at our company) that we decided to name new Sound Sound loudspeaker line Momus".
The mail included photos of the Momus speakers, and a shot of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station in Zaporozhye. "I listen to all true music from Residents to Frank Zappa, from Tom Ze to Johnny Dowd," Alexander added, ending with impulsive generosity: "We have an idea to present you the exclusive loudspeakers Sound Sound Momus 1."
"This is a surprise indeed!" I replied. "I'm honoured that you have a speaker line called Momus! It's somewhat ironic, I must say, because I have always used very poor quality speakers for my home recording and music listening -- I suppose the logic is that if music sounds good on bad speakers, it will sound even better on good ones, whereas music that sounds good on good speakers might well sound terrible on the cheap ones many people have!"
A couple of weeks later, I received a card in my mailbox saying the Momus 1 speakers had arrived in Berlin and were waiting for me at the dreaded Zoll office in Schoeneberg. You'll understand why this customs office is dreaded when I tell you the sequence of events that awaited me when I got there:
1. Queue 15 minutes or so to register for a case number.
2. See an officer and hand over paperwork.
3. Get sent to waiting room to sit with other lost souls.
4. Get summoned by PA back to the other room to meet again with officer to discuss case.
5. "Where is the invoice?" Attempt to convince officer that package is a gift ("90% of packages we get here are described as gifts.") Suspicion aroused because I can't pronounce -- or even read -- Alexander's name, which appears in cyrillic script on the documentation.
6. Officer leads me to computer to print out email from Alexander proving speakers are a gift.
7. Proof is located and accepted, but tax is still payable at 13%.
8. Stand by as officer opens and inspects the package, then closes and re-tapes it with official Zoll tape.
9. Sent back to lost souls in waiting room.
10. Called on PA to pay tax duties at cash desk.
11. Take payment receipt (€26) to officer, who hands over package.
12. Struggle home on u-bahn with heavy box, having spent, in total, about two hours on this Zoll business.
The complexities of German bureaucracy behind me, I unpacked my new Momus speakers and set them -- silver and beautiful -- in likely locations in my living room. Unfortunately, we now encounter another obstacle: the incompatible complexities of sound technology. Here is a list of the sound systems I currently use in my living room:
1. An iMac with built-in speakers -- the most-used of all my sound systems.
2. A set of Harman / Kardon sound sticks which connect either to the computer or my video projector for slightly better sound when watching films and so on.
3. An old East German record deck with its own speakers,tuner and amp, also used for an old Tesla reel-to-reel tape deck.
4. A ghetto blaster with semi-detachable speakers, used for listening to cassette tapes.
5. Various musical instruments, microphones etc and a mini-mixer containing a pre-amp for recording.
6. An iBook used for playing torrent files into the projector.
Each of these sound-producing devices comes from a specific era and a specific geographical location, and each comes with its own set of connectors.
1. The 1960s East German record deck connects its amp to its speakers via the pronged Philips DIN-type plug characteristic of communist audio equipment.
2. The 21st century American computers use quarter-inch stereo mini-jacks.
3. The late 20th century musical equipment -- mostly Japanese -- uses half inch mono jacks.
4. The mics use XLR jacks and require pre-amplification.
5. The Ukrainian Momus speakers use raw speaker cable, slotted into 1970s-style screw traps.
6. The patch bay uses the RCA connectors standard to hi-fi separate systems.
Because of all these different audio cables and connectors -- each with its own era and its own zone -- it's well-nigh impossible to connect all the audio devices in my living room to each other. A clunky patch bay allows the Harman / Kardon speakers to be activated by the iBook, the iMac or the TV, but it involves a lot of unsightly extension cables, mostly of the type that start with a mini-jack and end with RCA connectors. These sagging extension cables have to be kept off the floor, otherwise the rabbit will sever them in seconds. If I'm away traveling, Hisae never touches the projector or the audio system -- the patching and cabling chores make it too much of a hassle (and let's not even talk about the whole other set of cables and converters you need to get a computer video signal into your projector).
I still haven't heard my Momus speakers in action. I've been twice to Konrad Electronics, once to buy (by the metre, cut with a knife from a drum) the raw speaker cable needed to connect them to an amplifier, once to see if they had some kind of converters which could connect half-inch jacks to speaker cable (they didn't, and recommended I tried an even more techy specialist shop in Prenzlauer Berg). I've also been into every junk shop in Neukolln, looking for a cheap secondhand amp from the "separates era". For some reason, old separates amps from the 70s and 80s are always very expensive: I haven't seen anything cheaper than €60, even in the crummiest junk stores. At the moment I'm planning to use an old Roland mixer as my amp, but I don't know how to connect it to the speakers.
Buying an amp worthy of the €600-value Momus speakers would just be the beginning -- if I took the "separates route" I'd have to start building up yet another pile of audio junk in yet another corner of my room, demanding yet another power extension cable. Sound Sound recommend a NAD amp. I'd probably want a Technics turntable like the one Jan has (my East German deck can't connect with anything except its old speakers). I'd add a decent cassette deck and a CD player (at the moment I play CDs in my computer, but they whirr and whine and I hate having to insert and eject them). All this investment would basically be for a "legacy system" that played old museum media like vinyl -- to play, in other words, bad media well. And at the back of my mind, when I think about high fidelity and perfect sound, is the thought: what if my ears aren't up to it? They already buzz with low-level tinnitus. They've probably lost a lot of high-range sensitivity.
I often think, when I'm disentangling power cables from audio cables, that human systems are just needlessly clunky and stupidly designed. Didn't Buckminster Fuller have a riff about how the world could be saved by simple standardisation, starting, say, with a universal electric plug? And yet, in the years since Bucky's death, we've, if anything, multiplied the complexity of our systems. The Cold War and the Anglosphere's resistance to the metric system have only made things worse (in my room they're represented by my East German equipment frostily shunning my capitalist equipment, and by my Anglospheric quarter and half-inch jacks refusing to define themselves in millimetres and centimetres). There's also the problem of the increasing pace of format obsolescence: do I hang onto my vinyl, or replace it with CDs, only to replace those with mp3s? Do I throw out my analog equipment and replace it with digital? How do I play my VHS tapes, my video8s, my DV tapes, my DAT tapes, my reel-to-reels? Do I allow all these systems to co-exist alongside one another, eating up space and power, or do I allow the latest one to displace and represent them all, with the risk that it too may disappear in a couple of years?
If the banking system is anything like the tech systems in my living room, we're fucked.
The mail included photos of the Momus speakers, and a shot of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station in Zaporozhye. "I listen to all true music from Residents to Frank Zappa, from Tom Ze to Johnny Dowd," Alexander added, ending with impulsive generosity: "We have an idea to present you the exclusive loudspeakers Sound Sound Momus 1."
"This is a surprise indeed!" I replied. "I'm honoured that you have a speaker line called Momus! It's somewhat ironic, I must say, because I have always used very poor quality speakers for my home recording and music listening -- I suppose the logic is that if music sounds good on bad speakers, it will sound even better on good ones, whereas music that sounds good on good speakers might well sound terrible on the cheap ones many people have!"
A couple of weeks later, I received a card in my mailbox saying the Momus 1 speakers had arrived in Berlin and were waiting for me at the dreaded Zoll office in Schoeneberg. You'll understand why this customs office is dreaded when I tell you the sequence of events that awaited me when I got there:
1. Queue 15 minutes or so to register for a case number.
2. See an officer and hand over paperwork.
3. Get sent to waiting room to sit with other lost souls.
4. Get summoned by PA back to the other room to meet again with officer to discuss case.
5. "Where is the invoice?" Attempt to convince officer that package is a gift ("90% of packages we get here are described as gifts.") Suspicion aroused because I can't pronounce -- or even read -- Alexander's name, which appears in cyrillic script on the documentation.
6. Officer leads me to computer to print out email from Alexander proving speakers are a gift.
7. Proof is located and accepted, but tax is still payable at 13%.
8. Stand by as officer opens and inspects the package, then closes and re-tapes it with official Zoll tape.
9. Sent back to lost souls in waiting room.
10. Called on PA to pay tax duties at cash desk.
11. Take payment receipt (€26) to officer, who hands over package.
12. Struggle home on u-bahn with heavy box, having spent, in total, about two hours on this Zoll business.
The complexities of German bureaucracy behind me, I unpacked my new Momus speakers and set them -- silver and beautiful -- in likely locations in my living room. Unfortunately, we now encounter another obstacle: the incompatible complexities of sound technology. Here is a list of the sound systems I currently use in my living room:
1. An iMac with built-in speakers -- the most-used of all my sound systems.
2. A set of Harman / Kardon sound sticks which connect either to the computer or my video projector for slightly better sound when watching films and so on.
3. An old East German record deck with its own speakers,tuner and amp, also used for an old Tesla reel-to-reel tape deck.
4. A ghetto blaster with semi-detachable speakers, used for listening to cassette tapes.
5. Various musical instruments, microphones etc and a mini-mixer containing a pre-amp for recording.
6. An iBook used for playing torrent files into the projector.
Each of these sound-producing devices comes from a specific era and a specific geographical location, and each comes with its own set of connectors.
1. The 1960s East German record deck connects its amp to its speakers via the pronged Philips DIN-type plug characteristic of communist audio equipment.
2. The 21st century American computers use quarter-inch stereo mini-jacks.
3. The late 20th century musical equipment -- mostly Japanese -- uses half inch mono jacks.
4. The mics use XLR jacks and require pre-amplification.
5. The Ukrainian Momus speakers use raw speaker cable, slotted into 1970s-style screw traps.
6. The patch bay uses the RCA connectors standard to hi-fi separate systems.
Because of all these different audio cables and connectors -- each with its own era and its own zone -- it's well-nigh impossible to connect all the audio devices in my living room to each other. A clunky patch bay allows the Harman / Kardon speakers to be activated by the iBook, the iMac or the TV, but it involves a lot of unsightly extension cables, mostly of the type that start with a mini-jack and end with RCA connectors. These sagging extension cables have to be kept off the floor, otherwise the rabbit will sever them in seconds. If I'm away traveling, Hisae never touches the projector or the audio system -- the patching and cabling chores make it too much of a hassle (and let's not even talk about the whole other set of cables and converters you need to get a computer video signal into your projector).
I still haven't heard my Momus speakers in action. I've been twice to Konrad Electronics, once to buy (by the metre, cut with a knife from a drum) the raw speaker cable needed to connect them to an amplifier, once to see if they had some kind of converters which could connect half-inch jacks to speaker cable (they didn't, and recommended I tried an even more techy specialist shop in Prenzlauer Berg). I've also been into every junk shop in Neukolln, looking for a cheap secondhand amp from the "separates era". For some reason, old separates amps from the 70s and 80s are always very expensive: I haven't seen anything cheaper than €60, even in the crummiest junk stores. At the moment I'm planning to use an old Roland mixer as my amp, but I don't know how to connect it to the speakers.
Buying an amp worthy of the €600-value Momus speakers would just be the beginning -- if I took the "separates route" I'd have to start building up yet another pile of audio junk in yet another corner of my room, demanding yet another power extension cable. Sound Sound recommend a NAD amp. I'd probably want a Technics turntable like the one Jan has (my East German deck can't connect with anything except its old speakers). I'd add a decent cassette deck and a CD player (at the moment I play CDs in my computer, but they whirr and whine and I hate having to insert and eject them). All this investment would basically be for a "legacy system" that played old museum media like vinyl -- to play, in other words, bad media well. And at the back of my mind, when I think about high fidelity and perfect sound, is the thought: what if my ears aren't up to it? They already buzz with low-level tinnitus. They've probably lost a lot of high-range sensitivity.
I often think, when I'm disentangling power cables from audio cables, that human systems are just needlessly clunky and stupidly designed. Didn't Buckminster Fuller have a riff about how the world could be saved by simple standardisation, starting, say, with a universal electric plug? And yet, in the years since Bucky's death, we've, if anything, multiplied the complexity of our systems. The Cold War and the Anglosphere's resistance to the metric system have only made things worse (in my room they're represented by my East German equipment frostily shunning my capitalist equipment, and by my Anglospheric quarter and half-inch jacks refusing to define themselves in millimetres and centimetres). There's also the problem of the increasing pace of format obsolescence: do I hang onto my vinyl, or replace it with CDs, only to replace those with mp3s? Do I throw out my analog equipment and replace it with digital? How do I play my VHS tapes, my video8s, my DV tapes, my DAT tapes, my reel-to-reels? Do I allow all these systems to co-exist alongside one another, eating up space and power, or do I allow the latest one to displace and represent them all, with the risk that it too may disappear in a couple of years?
If the banking system is anything like the tech systems in my living room, we're fucked.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 07:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 07:31 am (UTC)the communist speakers would appreciate the flawed idealism (promising so much but delivering flawed results)
whilst the rest of your equipment would be happy their position is secure and distinct from the uncommunicative East European cousins
kudos re having some hi-fi equipment named after your good self, however!
greetings from Izu, Japan
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 07:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 09:10 am (UTC)I actually have a pair of cables with a Soviet din plug at one end and a quarter inch mono plug at the other. They came free with an astonishingly low quality Soviet-era effects unit. Maybe a pair of these would allow your mixer to route audio to your turntable's amp.
If you think it's bad now, just wait till the ebook format war gets started. Anyone else still regretting getting a Philips 2000 vcr?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 09:29 am (UTC)connecting
Date: 2008-10-12 11:14 am (UTC)He is quite a cable genius.
greetings from the West,
Rinus
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 12:01 pm (UTC)http://www.trendsaudio.com/EN/Index.htm
There seems to be a dealer in Duisberg:
http://www.trends-audio.de/
You'll need a DAC if you want to use the analogue amp. Or there is also one which will take audio from the usb. There are also some very good inexpensive Chinese made DACs.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 12:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 12:28 pm (UTC)Anyway, regarding the banking system, google 'Fractional Reserve Banking'. I put up an article about it on my blog here (http://dogsolitude-v2.livejournal.com/169389.html).
It's all fairy money! O_o
Stars Forever Speakers
Date: 2008-10-12 12:44 pm (UTC)I can relate to this post entirely, I've always owned a large music collection and completely shite systems - curiously the opposite of some of the wealthy clients I work for whose - one singular - stereo system cost more than a small car but is used to play five greatest hits collections.
Whilst living in Canada I purchased a 'separates system' from various Toronto junk shops but now back in Ireland I have to couple the aforementioned with a construction site transformer to bring the current down from 220V to 110V to have the amp work whilst meanwhile an old cell phone charger is used to bring this 110V down to 12V to drive the turntable motor. Meanwhile two other systems are employed for CDs, tapes and DATs...
I own about 1000 LPs but I am more interested in music than in formats and I have no intention of selling them off, I'm always a little perplexed at the paradoxical post-materialist urge to replace formats, why not hang on to those LPs instead of contributing to the creation of more future garbage.
I suppose this disposability urge does however serves people like me well - half my music collection has come from flea markets and thrift shops and most of my film collection is
still in VHS format.
I concede that the media and the players take up space and this kind of counters a certain minimalised living space I would ideally prefer but the irony of minimalised dwelling is that one needs to be wealthy to afford the technology to consolidate everything together...
To a point books and records can furnish a space and do so a lot better than a state-of-the-art stereo system playing Celine Dion's Greatest Hits..;)
Re: Stars Forever Speakers
Date: 2008-10-12 12:51 pm (UTC)Maybe when all the banks are nationalized and harmonized, the new world government / bank can start work on implementing universal standards in audio and power?
Yay the new global communism!
Re: Stars Forever Speakers
Date: 2008-10-12 06:28 pm (UTC)Technology the new art form or just another "Elvis on Velvet."
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 01:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 01:58 pm (UTC)Such is the world of celebrity, where the more famous you become the more valuable you are as a PR tool.
I'm not trying to imply anything dubious has gone on here, I just think you should be careful about advertising on here the free stuff you're sent. I don't need to explain to you why, do I? You really will be on a slippery slope to hell - product integration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement) hell, where you don't know if people are trying to become part of the Click Opera narrative just to promote something.
You might laugh at that, but your blog isn't as humble as it appears on the surface. I've been reading your blog for a while now and I've been surprised by some of the lurkers who appear out of nowhere, as well as the opportunities that have arisen for you because of it. Momus is a brand, you represent a market group. In fact, maybe its something that's impossible for you to escape.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 05:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 06:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 12:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 01:54 pm (UTC)blows dust
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 02:18 pm (UTC)usually though it's just a case of finding or buying a suitable adaptor or making up a cable. I have to do this constantly as my sound installation work is based, as you know, on old audio tech-junk found dumped.
I wouldn't advise using the roland mixer as an amp - it's unlikely to have more than a monitor output and may be underpowered.
I think what you need, as you seem to suggest, is a hifi amp with plenty of inputs and 2 tape deck connectors, into which you can have your PC sound, your reel to reel, your ipod, your projector, and via an adaptor, your DDR turntable. The second 'tape out' socket will enable you to instantly switch any of those items to your PC input if you want to to do easy transfers (for archiving, uploading etc).
As for turntables, you don't necessarily need a '1200' - there are far better sounding decks available for far less. The 1200 is only really essential if you DJ, due to the cueing facilities and high torque motor. The 1200, is seen as more desirable but that's more to do with it being an 'icon' (!) than anything else.
Here's a pic of my crack 'computer setup' - all found in skips and brought back to life!
The 'heart' is a 1970s stereo with cassette deck, 8 track deck, and turntable which goes to the line input of the PC via a DIN to 3.5mm jack cable. There's also a reel to reel and a vcr's audio connected through it.
The PC's line output also goes into it so I can hear whatever's playing on it through the speakers.
This enables me to digitise found cassette, reel to reel and 8 track cartridge tapes and VHS cassettes for the purpose of my online archive. And of course it acts as a safety copy of rare irreplaceable material. The turntable plays vinyl (and shellac 78s with a special stylus). It also acts as an amp for the PC speakers.
Anyway, if you send me a message with some jpegs of the various the inputs and outputs of your devices I can advise and even build you the necessary cables!
As fro finding an amp, you'll be able to find some at the mauerpark fleamarket! (I did anyway) but could be sold as seen. I would ask on your local freecycle - you'd be amazed at what people put on there. Or try 'fleabay'.
I'm sure all this is far too much info now, so I'll stop there!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 02:20 pm (UTC)off tangent
Date: 2008-10-12 02:30 pm (UTC)Re: off tangent
Date: 2008-10-12 02:32 pm (UTC)Re: off tangent
Date: 2008-10-12 02:34 pm (UTC)Re: off tangent
Date: 2008-10-12 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 05:20 pm (UTC)I think you're right about the amp, I'll just have to splurge the 60 euros or whatever.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 02:04 am (UTC)Anyway, re:amps. If I were you, I'd take my time until I happened upon something versatile. You don't want to end up with another semi- useless black box!
With 70s-80s amps, you have the basic models which are quite easy to find (usually 3 or 4 inputs and drive a single pair of speakers), and the higher end ones which have 'extras'. The most useful of these being: more than 4 inputs, plus the option to connect 2 tape decks (2 pairs of line in/out) and more than one pair of speakers (handy if you divide your place up into zones, like for viewing films or whatever). Those amps are the sort to go for if you have lots of devices. Good luck. B.
amped
Date: 2008-10-13 12:54 pm (UTC)1. In the magazine "zweiter Hand" you might find better offers
2. South of karlmarxstrasse shops might be cheaper - try also the middle east of weserstrasse -sonnenallee
3 . A mini sub woofer (=as Big as two 1,5 kg dash boxes) could do the work as well
Greetings from the sparkling West
Rinus
Ps some thoughts on postmodernism can be found here-> daskleinefieldrecordingsfestival.org
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 08:20 pm (UTC)to leaf up the mainland... now there is a thought
Date: 2008-10-12 07:46 pm (UTC)A microcosm Tower of Babel in your living room.
I have those same soudsticks and some headphones, but I consider myself lucky to have an audiophile friend, his system mostly made up of esoteric French (http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/enkianthus_e.html) and German (http://www.mbl-germany.de/Reference_html/101_e.html) gear. Visiting him a few weeks ago, a momus mix came on; the Laplantine horspiel, Canidate, recent stuff, and then, to top it off, the song from the museum you recorded where they sang as they sacrificed a horse -- this song rises in decibels and intesity as it proceeds -- sounding like a bunch of drunken ghosts cleaning out a closet as the horse flails in agony upon the blood-drenched field --and we were transported... magic show... gone... nibbana.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 08:36 pm (UTC)love,
John Flesh
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-12 10:29 pm (UTC)-John Flesh
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 01:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 08:19 am (UTC)