Happy Tuesday Music Tribute; Or, Things That Make Oxywife Moan

As some of you already know, I have been slowly resurrecting my once-famous and now defunct listening room. It's been a slow process because I've had to acquire a few additional components. What's more, the pieces I want are not always readily available on the used market. So there's a lot of waiting involved.

But finally, last week, one of my two preamp choices was listed for sale. The price was right, so I bought it. It's a full-function tube preamp with a 100% tube phono stage. This is my first foray into vacuum tubes, so I was eager to give a listen.

Because the conditions for the reestablishment of the listening room have not yet been met, my audition of the new preamp was rather makeshift. The active monitors sat on floor, flanking both sides of the preamp, which sat in the middle of the room, also on the floor. My iPod was connected directly to the preamplifier.

I have say that I didn't expect much out of the system on this particular evening because the audio files on my iPod are compressed to the point that songs lose their sense of realism. But when I pushed play, the music just sang. Everything sounded so right. I could not believe how realistic the tubes made vocals and instruments--especially acoustic instruments--sound. And again, this is through the iPod.

I was so impressed that I called Oxywife into the room to listen. I knew she would also be impressed. And this is no small assumption, as she tends to think that I spend too much money on audio equipment. For the record, she is probably right. She also tends to say things like, "Well, I don't really hear much of a difference," usually just to emphasize her belief that a purchase was wasteful.

But the night my preamp arrived, things were different. As I shuffled through numerous songs, I paused the iPod on Michael Buble's cover of "You Don't Know Me." Since Oxywife likes Buble, I invited her to listen to this song. To my surprise, she said "Wow! That really sounds good." And then shortly thereafter, it happened: Oxywife experienced her first eargasm.

So as a tribue to my beautiful wife, I post here for you the song that made her moan.