Wired for Hi-Fi in a Wi-Fi World

A couple weeks ago I visited the dreamy new shop, Sonder, in Peterborough and was not disappointed. In fact, I was not surprised as I wandered up the front path of the same location as the beloved Black Swan gift shop used to be. It was all very familiar and yet a totally different experience. Perhaps meriting a future article, in short let me just tell you that if you like Bowerbird antique shop in Depot Square, you will LOVE Sonder. That's not the purpose of this piece though. As I wandered around the light, bright massive space, I noticed the music playing. The style was some type of modern jazz alternative and was just the right vibe for the space. The sound was rich. Good bass and crisp clarity at the same time. Shop partner, Ron, was manning the front counter and I asked him if those were Sonos speakers and he said yes, they were. I noticed a wire coming out the back of them and mentioned that I was surprised he didn't go wireless with the new store. He said they were indeed wireless, as in Wi-Fi enabled but they still each had a power cord. From my earliest close-and-play record player to that first stereo system with the smoky plastic dust cover and on to those component rack systems of the '80s to even now leaning more retro/analog, I've always considered myself somewhat of an audiophile. I'd much rather have music playing in the house or car than a TV or audiobook. I've always appreciated really good sound as well. While some people are perfectly happy just streaming music from their phone to Alexa or some other single Bluetooth speaker, not me. OK, maybe for the beach but it had better be a good one (mine is a blue plastic Bose speaker that has amazingly good sound). As a kid, I remember appreciating the bass-heavy music coming from my Aunt Emily's hi-fi record player. It was a large wooden box with splayed legs and a turntable. The front of it was the fabric mesh speaker cover and the record player was accessed from a lift-top to reveal the recessed hardware. Somewhere on the speaker front there was that familiar retro "Hi-Fi" logo of sorts and somehow in my childish mind I could identify this was quality sound versus my close-and-play. I knew I also really liked the sound of bass. Not just the thumping of strong bass but an actual upright bass being played. Shortly after buying our house in Dublin, I started outfitting it with sound. First, because of that hill in Dublin, my favorite radio station signal was lost so I visited Interface — a long-time audio store on Route 12. It's been closed for a few years. I described my radio station problem in Dublin and he sold me an antenna I brought home and strapped to a chimney up on the roof and ran a wire all the way down to the family room to my receiver. Voila! I could listen to WRSI out of Greenfield. Problem solved the retro way! Next, I bought vintage Bose speakers on eBay and commenced snaking wires from the living room, kitchen and back porch down into the basement and through a PVC pipe that circled from the sill under the front door, all the way around the family room. Necessary because the family room had once been a garage so it was on a concrete slab. I fed all the speaker wires through a hole I drilled in the wall itself and up to my (also vintage) Marantz receiver. Long story short, I also connected an amp and a speaker selector so I could have music in four different rooms and outside on the porch. For a good while, I was in musical heaven. Eventually my Marantz went on the blink, so I bought a vintage Onkyo from Interface. Then, as Bluetooth and storing music on phones became a thing, I had to switch back to a digital receiver that also had Bluetooth. I still miss turning the dial on the analog Marantz but I do like my Apple Music these days. Since I'm refreshing that big family room, I'm thinking about giving Wi-Fi speakers a try. I've been leery about them for some time but, oh, they sounded good the other day at Sonder. Diving into my audio rabbit hole just a bit further, I asked ChatGPT what it was about the music I heard on my Aunt Emily's record player that I loved. I compared it to the sound a current band, The Mavericks, uses in some of their music. Here's what it came up with: "If I had to put money on a single answer, though, I'd say the sound you've keyed in on is the slap upright bass driving a rockabilly groove. It's one of the most distinctive and addictive sounds in American popular music." I wonder if Aunt Emily knew anything about a slap upright bass.