Herculodge

Some Important Considerations Regarding the Grundig Satellit 750

Radio lovers are drawn to the rugged looking Grundig Satellit 750 and it appears to be enjoying the buzz of cult status. But there may be compelling reasons to hold off from buying the 750 or not buy it at all. Here are a few:

1. At $300, the 750 is way overpriced. Its features shouldn't command more than $200.

2. At $100-125, you could get equal performance, in both tuner sensitivity and speaker sound, with the Kaito 2100. In fact, the more I appreciate and enjoy the 2100, which I bought for $99, the harder it is for me to justify spending three times the cash on the 750.

3. Don't be surprised if the new 750 comes with bugs, which are common with Satellit models according to reports.

4. For $300, the 750 should have a sync detector.

5. I imagine the majority of buyers will get all their tuner needs met and even better speaker sound with a $79 Sangean PR-D7. 

In spite of its high price, I predict it will sell-out because I believe it is the coolest looking radio ever made. I myself remain conflicted about buying it and have not decided if I am going to cancel my pre-order or not.

Will Radio Exist As We Know It in the Next Twenty Years?

640 KFI's Leo Laporte, "The Tech Guy," gleefully announced today that the FCC's action to take away VHF from TV and replace it with digital in 2009 is a good thing that will create more "real estate" on the airwaves. He also speculates that the FCC will do the same to radio, making it go digital. Some of the technical details are clearly explained on Wikipedia. Is this digital move inevitable? The FCC seems to think so. Here they tell you how to get ready for digital radio on the Official FCC Site. For an even more technical explanation of "going wireless and digital," CLICK HERE.

I'm no techie and I don't know what the ramifications of going digital means, but I suspect radio as we now know it won't be recognizable. The nostalgia part of me dreads the change, but in the end I am no luddite.

Narcissism and Indulgence Equal the Death of Common Sense

Yesterday I heard on Larry Mantle's Air Talk (89.3 KPCC) that there are laws in the works to make it illegal for drivers to have dogs and cats roaming freely in their cars because of the obvious potential dangers. So today I hear on the morning news that a woman crashed her car into a power pole after her cat, sitting on her lap, scratched her.

In a society built on common sense and a sense of accountability to others, these laws would be unnecessary. But as people become more and more narcissistic and indulgent, local, state, and federal governments will have to play the role of nanny issuing correctives for a population suffering stunted emotional growth. Therefore, we can expect these types of laws to grow like weeds.

The theme of a nation that never grew up because it decided that adulthood is a scam and a dud and that the best life of all is one characterized by the indulgences and narcissism of teenage life is well explained in Joseph Epstein's essay, "The Perpetual Adolescent" and in Tom Perrotta's novel Little Children.

A Second Chance for the Sangean WR-2 Pays Off

Back in 2005, I purchased a Walnut Grain Sangean WR-2 with great look, feel, AM, but the FM disappointed me, especially as I tuned in 89.3 KPCC. Sometimes I'd compensate by keeping a Grundig G4000 or a Kaito 1103 on top of the WR-2. Then about 2 months ago, I was initially impressed with a Boston Acoustics Horizon Solo. I sold the WR-2 and used the BAHS, which got all my stations with great ease and power.  However, the BAHS started misbehaving, as I describe on  THIS POST, and I relegated it to the exercise room. What would replace it? Another WR-2, this time in black. Why? Because I was hearing reports, especially from Ed Strnad who lives a mile from me, that his WR-2 was getting great FM reception, including 89.3. I realized my Walnut Grain WR-2 was an early model. Perhaps almost 3 years later the WR-2 had improved. So with great anticipation I opened my black WR-2 from its box and placed it on my bedside table. Of course the first thing I did was tune to 89.3. Presto! Perfect reception! And with the wire antenna not even elevated. What's more, the speaker sounded warmer, fuller, richer. Was this my imagination judging the speaker? Was the high-gloss black altering my senses? I don't know. All I can say about the new WR-2 is happiness and ecstasy.

But my elation was short-lived. I then tried AM and my heart sunk because I got static, even on the powerful 640 KFI. My God, a new WR-2 that fixes my previous FM problem but gives me abysmal AM? But not so fast. I discovered the problem: My JBL On Stage iPod Speaker, just inches from my new WR-2, was the culprit, causing AM interference. I moved the On Stage about a foot away from the WR-2 and the AM was fine--just as excellent as my previous model. Happiness and joy had returned!

So what more can I say? I gave the WR-2 a second chance, this time in black, and I'm glad I did.   

A $700 Clock Radio That Does Everything Except Make Espresso: Denon S-52 Wireless Network Music System with Built-in Speakers and Alarm Clock

The $700 Denon S-52 leaves no stone unturned in its quest to meet all your diverse radio technology needs: conventional or terrestrial digital AM/FM tuner, HD, satellite-ready (just buy a $20 dollar cartridge), WiFi from a wireless Internet connection, CD player, alarm clock, premium speakers. All I can is wow.

However, the $700 S-52 doesn't appeal to me as much as the $500 Denon S-32. No HD, but I don't care since I'm not a believer in so-called "HD" radio. Also no CD player but I hate playing CDs. I prefer the S-52's iPod dock, which you don't get in the more expensive S-52. You don't get satellite-ready either. But I don't want to pay monthly fees. And you still get WiFi. So for me, the S-52 is the one to get.

Are the Lost Survivors Pawns in a Chess Game?

ABC's metaphysical thriller Lost makes no secret that it's influenced by such literary sources as Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman and Philip K. Dick's Valis. We see some Lost characters, such as Ben reading Valis, reading these novels and it is apparent that the Lost writers are teasing us with clues about the metaphysical components that make up the Lost world.

The influence of Philip K. Dick became even more important last night when watching Episode Nine, Season Four's "The Shape of Things to Come," it occurred to me that Ben Linus and his arch rival Charles Widmore are playing some kind of game with set rules and that Widmore broke the rules when he killed Linus' daughter, making Linus change his game. Linus also referred to his daughter, about to be killed by one of Widmore's minions, as a "pawn." What's interesting about all this is that Philip K. Dick envisioned human beings as being pawns in a chess game going on in the minds of two Other Beings.

Lost appears to be matching Linus' chess skills against Widmore's. I wouldn't bet my life on it, though. It's not unusual for the Lost writers to make us feel like we know where we're going only to find ourselves going in the opposite direction--just like the Lost survivors.

Panasonic 3700 Digital Radio Available Soon

The Panasonic 3700 Digital Radio is being featured on Amazon today even though it appears it won't be available for another month or so. It features FM/MW/LW and 32 presets and goes for $96. A web search reveals that it's been available in the UK for some time now. I did an Internet search and came across an excellent radio blog with several radio reviews and comparisons. The blog, Stephan's Virtual Shack, reports that the 3700 has been available since the mid 1990s and that its FM reception is not remarkable and even less impressive on AM. So my desire for this new Amazon offering has just disappeared.

Man's Misguided Search for Success

Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece  Man's Search for Meaning has been translated in close to twenty languages. English editions have sold more than 2.5 million copies. Frankl appears chagrined by his own success and when interviewed about the phenomenal sales of his book, he must speak the truth: That his book’s robust sales are, Frankl explains in his book’s Preface, “an expression of the misery of our time: if hundreds of thousands of people reach out for a book whose very title promises to deal with the question of a meaning to life, it must be a question that burns under their fingernails.”

Reading Frank’s Preface, it becomes clear that he had no intention to be successful or famous or rich from writing his book. To the contrary, his original intent was to publish his book anonymously. Only at the “urging” of his friends, did he at the last minute put his name on the book. His desire to be anonymous was rooted in his “absolute conviction” that literary fame would obscure the purity of his objective: “that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones.” It ended up being both “strange and remarkable” to Frankl that the one book that he deliberately wanted to be published anonymously ended up being the one book that would become a huge success.

The success was not the aim. The aim was to be meaningful and to write about something that was born of necessity. Frankl learned this lesson and felt compelled to share this wisdom with his students. He would repeatedly say to them, “Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success; you have to let it happen by not caring about it.” He concludes by telling his students that “success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

People who care too much about success--much to their detriment--were the subject of today's 89.3 KPCC radio show Air Talk. Host Larry Mantle interviewed Carl Honore, who discussed his book Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting. Honore talked about tunnel-visioned parents who are so hell-bent on their children's success that they both coddle and bully their children into becoming extensions of their own narcissistic selves. These parents accompany their children to job interviews. When an adult child is reprimanded at work the parent will call the supervisor to complain of "harsh treatment," as if the employer is equivalent to a school. Honore said these parents have an all-or-nothing view of success: Either my child goes to Yale or he is homeless under a bridge." He spoke of this binary code of base one or zero. Also he is fatigued of going to social events and the only conversation is about how people's children are doing. Such a narrow definition of success will inevitably result in an emotional crash. I imagine these children will someday feel a "burning under their fingernails" and pick up a copy of Viktor Frankl's book. 

Two Very Different Personalities in Two Very High-Performing Clock Radios

Ripping out of his baseball jersey, self-proclaimed steroid and HGH expert and author of Juiced, Jose Canseco barged onto the Major League Baseball scene and razzle-dazzled us all with his raw talent, but he soon fizzled out. Injuries, a surly personality, legal troubles. The more his inner character showed, the less esteemed he was and this potential Hall-of-Famer will always be looked at as what could have been. He is analogous to the Boston Acoustics Horizon Solo. Its able tuner is on steroids, its speaker is full and brazen. But over time, you become disenchanted with its college dorm-room appearance and you find its bugs, warts, and foibles annoying. The clock runs slow when the radio is on. AM will buzz for some disgruntled owners. The sleep function won't work for others. The alarm won't work. The interface will flash. In my case, the biggest problem is that when scrolling the tuner knob to 89.3, the radio sound makes a crashing sound, which can only be alleviated when I lift the antenna. As I reported earlier, one Target store in Arizona had all their BAHS radios returned because of some defect or other. Quality control problems. The new Boston Acoustics kid is audacious and muscular, but he's prone to injuries and downright rude behavior and makes us sigh for the good old days when the Boston Acoustics Recepter, now retired, was our radio hero.

In contrast, the less flashy Sangean WR-2 doesn't knock you over the head with its performance. It's quietly confident, upscale, consistent, free of problems. It's the Ken Griffey, Jr. of the clock radio world. You take its long-term performance for granted. I did. Two months ago I sold my WR-2 because I was so swooned by the BAHS. Now like the prodigal son, I return home. Today a black Sangean WR-2 will be replacing my BAHS as my bedside clock radio. Ken Griffey, will you forgive me?

The Grundig Satellit 750: The Manliest Radio on the Planet

Responding to my complaint that the Kaito 2100, for all its great tuner sensitivity, has unrefined, harsh audio sound, Ed wrote:

If you didn't like the sound of the 2100, cancel your pre-order for the Grundig 750 immediately, Jeff. No shortwave radio has the premium sound quality you evidently place your highest priority on. In "communications receivers" (ie, SW radios), the ability to dig a signal (any signal) out of the noise is prized, not sweet highs and punchy bass. The Satellit 750 is guaranteed to be a mid-fi performer at best, like the S350 and the 2100. You are looking for apples, but buying oranges.

Ed of course is asserting his usual logic, wisdom, and perspicacity. For $300, the price of the 750, there are far better choices out there if fidelity is the concern. But there comes a time when every  man has to look in the mirror and ask himself the crucial existential question: What kind of radio would Jack Bauer use? And the answer is no doubt the Satellit 750.

As I pondered Ed's wise comments and found myself agreeing with him intellectually, I was overcome with shame and remorse for having lost sight of my manly priorities as I had let myself get caught up in such sissy pursuits as "refined fidelity." Then I realized that in buying the Grundig Satellit 750 I would not really be buying a radio: I'd be purchasing a Shrine to Uncompromising Masculinity. I must once and for all renounce my high-fidelity aspirations and join the spirit of Hall of Fame pitcher "Big Train" Walter Johnson who became enraged one afternoon when his teammates put a cushion on the dugout bench and the usually affable "Big Train" threw the cushion off at which time he lectured his teammates on the importance of not getting soft. My friends, the 750 is the dugout bench without the cushion. And I long for it.