Bang & Olufsen

I made a decision to put away my favorite stereo today.   I bought it when I was in my first house, shortly after graduating from college.   I had always wanted a Bang & Olufsen stereo but they were outrageously expensive.     It was sleek, it was sexy, it was different looking—it hung on a wall.    When I got it in 1993 no one had anything like it.    Sometimes, people would know the brand and would ask all about it.    Mostly, people just thought it looked interesting.

I don't know how loud the volume went, but at volume two, the sound was barely audible and yet just as clear and beautiful as the sound at volume forty-five.   I never turned it up louder than forty-five because my ears would have revolted.  I could have added seven sets of speakers total to this little thing and it would have happily played sound to all of them, but I only ever used the one set it came with.

I didn't buy it new, it was far too expensive.   I got a refurbished unit from one of the few stores in the United States at that time, in Atlanta Georgia.   I called on the phone paid for it with a credit card and they mailed it to me.   I spent $3,500 on it in 1993 which was outrageous, but I have never regretted spending that money for a single day.  Did I mention it was heavy?   I never put it on a scale, but it easily weighs fifty pounds so hanging it on the wall was something I did carefully.

The glass doors on the front were motion activated  When you moved your hand in front of the controls, the glass doors quickly swooshed to the sides just like elevator doors did in Star Trek.   This was made possible by two small motion sensors at the top of the unit I never quite figured out the location of.   When both beams were broken, it knew you wanted to interact with the controls and the doors slid to the sides.

The model I had had a CD player, an FM/AM radio and an audio cassette deck.   Just a few model years later, the tape deck was removed as it was almost outdated even when I got it.   It's the only means I have at this point to play any old audio cassettes I still have (I think I still have some somewhere).

The CD player had it's own motion as well.   The door to the CD player would glide upwards, letting you remove the CD from the spindle on which it was carefully balanced.    It was so graceful to watch; people thought it was a neat bit of technology.

As I'm writing this now, everything about the stereo seems so common, (aside from the cassette player and the weight) but back in the early 1990's, it was neat stuff.  

Ever since we moved into the new house I haven't had the unit plugged in.   It's been sitting on a dresser in our bedroom, looking elegant and technologically beautiful, not doing a thing.    Within the past six months right behind the corner of the stereo I've had a little Bose SoundLink.   This tiny thing is cordless, connects via Bluetooth to my phone in five seconds, goes anywhere with me and sounds terrific.   So it seemed the time had come to put the Bang & Olufsen away.

Today I lugged it to the attic.   It wasn't easy.   I didn't trust myself to put it on a high shelf because of the weight and unwieldiness of the shape.    As I put the remote beside it struck me that it's been over  twenty years that I've had that stereo in the bedroom with me.   I'm going to miss it; but I'm definitely not getting rid of it.

Below is a picture of a model a few years newer than mine without the cassette deck.

The Big Boy Update:  My son does this Transformer thing he's made up.   He lies down completely flat with his legs straight, his arms straight by his side and his head lying down.    When he does this he's in, "vehicle mode" he tells us.   (Transformers have bot mode and vehicle mode.)  He will do this anywhere, including the middle of the street.    The other day coming home from the grocery store, my husband was talking to my son but he wasn't responding.   When they got home my son told him, "I couldn't talk, I was in vehicle mode."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I went up this morning to check on the children.   I walked in and was immediately concerned because my daughter wasn't in her bed, but there were no sounds coming from anywhere indicating she was awake and playing.    As I looked to the top bunk to see how my son was, she say up in his bed beside him.   I'm not sure why she wanted to sleep in his bed, but they were both apparently comfortable.

Fitness Update:  Fast three miles (well, slow-running, just not much time) this morning in the dark.   I think we would have made four but we got side-tracked on an iPhone issue and stood in the road, cold fingers not working the touch-screen well, to see if we could figure out a solution.