A poet’s audio obsession, from collecting his earliest vinyl to his quest for the ideal vacuum tubes. A captivating book that “ingeniously mixes personal memoir with cultural history and offers us an indispensable guide for the search of acoustic truth” (Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan). Garrett Hongo’s passion for audio dates back to the Empire 398 turntable his father paired with a Dynakit tube amplifier in their modest tract home in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. But his adult quest begins in the CD-changer era, as he seeks out speakers and amps both powerful and refined enough to honor the top notes of the greatest opera sopranos. In recounting this search, he describes a journey of identity where meaning, fulfillment, and even liberation were often...
Publisher: Pantheon (February 22, 2022) Pages: 544 pages ISBN-10: 0375425063 ISBN-13: 978-0375425066 ASIN: B093YTQR8Z
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GARRETT HONGO was born in Volcano, Hawai‘i, and grew up on the North Shore of O‘ahu and in Los Angeles. His most recent books are Coral Road: Poems and The Mirror Diary: Selected Essays. A regular contributor to SoundStage! Ultra, Hongo lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon.