Am really loving my home stereo setup. I decided to have a main central stereo located in my entertainment center with satellite Bluetooth speakers and soundbars placed around the open floor plan. I also have smaller stereo systems in other rooms like my office and my workshop. As it's all networked, I can synchronize play across systems and speakers or have a different sound style for each area. I can control playback with a Smart Assistant, tablet, smartphone, laptop, or remote control, and can access my cloud music libraries, music and radio apps, locally stored media and play internet and broadcast radio, plus physical discs. It's pretty rad! I'm still building it out. Certainly, I'll add more wireless speakers and I'm leaning toward a turntable for vinyl.
SIDE NOTE: By the way, this is merely my audio setup on the new-fangled side. Opposite, I have desperately desired a Victrola or other big "belled" antique Gramophone, since I was 5 years old. My mother had one that I can still picture as clear as day. I didn't care that it was perhaps valuable, I simply thought its big gleaming horn was beautiful.
In what seems to be a fairly common occurrence in poor rural areas, where people were often not well educated, were desperate, yet were trusting of their neighbors and displayed hospitality to strangers, a dishonest itinerant junk antiques dealer swindled ME out of it, thinking nothing of telling a bald-faced lie to a small child --- and I have never forgotten it! It takes a despicable person to take advantage of anyone as he did; however, it takes a no account bastard to take advantage of a five-year-old little girl who has been taught to respect the words of her elders.
The theft of my mother's Victrola (which is exactly what the stranger's deceit amounted to) marked the loss of my childhood innocence. Afterward, I became withdrawn. I became wary of anyone who professed anything without showing me proof. I became skeptical of human motives. I began to distrust people. It was a dear and precious lesson to "give" a 5-year-old. My mother, bless her, was furious on my behalf when she returned from a neighbor's, not even caring that I had "given away" her prized Victrola, but only concerned that some stranger (and a grown man, at that) had taken advantage of her baby girl. Of course, by then, the lying scoundrel was long gone.
I made a promise to myself that I would acquire a replacement for it one day, so its something for which I keep out an eye. It will require the perfect specimen. I am fascinated with early record players (and cylinder players) as a result, and recognize that this is likely another personal library collection in the making.
