One Thing Leads to Another…
February 23, 2016
Funny thing about deadlines. With me anyway. I’ve spent the last couple weeks with some really special new things in my system at home, trying to decide which one to muse about first. So yesterday I tore my whole system apart instead. I had ordered an AudioQuest NRG Edison wall outlet, the simplest part of Garth Powell’s new lineup of AC power enhancement components. I also realized I had been having so much fun with these other new things, about which more in the next Musings, that I had totally forgotten the part this is work- the writing down of observations for publication as a Musing. So, instead of staying up late Sunday and cramming for today’s post, why not take every single part of my somewhat complex audio system out and make way for a new electrical socket?
Odd as it sounds, I was way overdue for a system tear down and cleaning, and looking at the packaged Edison across the room was starting to bug me. So I began. As I disassembled my system, I found numerous things buried behind the racks that had fallen into the abyss during the intervening century and a half since the last expedition. Since my system is also my “listening lab,” things get put in and out of it a lot, and I felt like an archeologist unearthing the timeline of my own past civilization. I also discovered that the one thing you can’t do with the stereo on, at least for background entertainment, is tear apart the stereo, so I blasted the kitchen speakers into the listening room sending the cats to the nether reaches of the second floor.
Step one in any project involving electricity is turning off the power to the outlet one is working on. My electrical box is labeled, but not by me and, as it turns out, highly inaccurate. It’s almost as though someone drew the room names and other descriptive details out of a hat by random. Yesterday, I finally found the breaker for my stereo system by turning off, I kid you not, the very last one. Who needs a Stairmaster when you have an electrical project?
From there, the installation of Edison went smoothly. The “electrician” who installed the previous outlet had reversed hot and neutral, so I remedied that while I was at it. I also installed the Edison “upside down” so as to remind myself that it was special. I then made a nice big margarita and some Rick Bayless chicken tacos and gave myself the rest of the night off.
Today, I spent the morning and most of the afternoon reassembling the system and have just half an hour ago fired it all back up. And? Well, the system has that “making friends all over again” sound of many new connections reforming, but there are some wonderful things happening already in some interesting areas, so tune in Wednesday for the second part of this adventure where I report on my listening results.