Klipsch and a little Sibelius

The other day when I was burning some CDs of my music for the talk I was giving, suddenly my computer speaker system just died. Nothing, nada. So I looked around on Amazon. There are a lot of possibilities, of course. My old speakers were these modestly priced ones from Creative Labs:

I thought they were ok, better than the iMac built-in ones. But as I am something of a power-user, I decided to upgrade to the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1, about twice the price:

Big heavy box, and when I unpacked it I discovered a speaker system that would not be out of place in a component stereo system. Big sub-woofer, nice satellite speakers and when I got it set up, big, BIG sound. I was just listening to Sibelius Symphony No. 5 and with the speaker volume on about 2 it was plenty loud enough. Excellent sound. Klipsch is a well known name in speakers and these sure do the job.

I used to like to listen to Salonen's recording of the Sibelius 5 with the Verbier Festival youth orchestra, but that seems to have disappeared from YouTube. So I am moving over to this Frankfurt Radio Symphony version conducted by Hugh Wolff which is excellent. Never heard of him before, but he seems a very good and precise conductor. He has a tendency to conduct the rests between the final chords in the last movement, but apart from that...

Equipment Review: Bose Soundlink Mini

I don't think I have ever done a review of a sound system here, and I won't make a practice of it, but I think this might be of interest to quite a few people:

Here is the link and Amazon delivered it to me in Mexico without fuss. Bose is a company well-known for quality sound systems and this one is no exception. Despite its "mini" size, it has very good reviews on Amazon. I've been using it for several days now and can recommend it. It is not cheap, but at $199 US, I think it is priced according to the quality it delivers.

The problem for many of us these days is that we do most or a lot of our listening on our laptops just because of the convenience. So many use laptops as their main computer these days and it is so easy to just call up whatever you want to listen to on YouTube. But the problem is that laptops have low-quality sound reproduction. Especially in the bass range they are simply inadequate to listen to these pieces, for example:

If you were listening to a laptop like mine the beginnings of all three of these pieces were virtually inaudible, even with the volume up. Why? Because they all start with very low bass lines.

The Bose Soundlink Mini is a great solution for music lovers. It is small enough to tuck on your desk and you will finally be able to really hear the music! It makes a wireless Bluetooth connection and runs off batteries so no wires to worry about. It easily connected with both my iMac and Chromebook and delivered hours and hours of very satisfactory sound reproduction especially in the bass range. Your whole desk will vibrate!