VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA — Not a single audio show goes by where someone doesn’t ask me…
“What’s Rafe Arnott up to these days?”
It’s been since the spring of 2018 when Rafe Arnott departed Part-Time Audiophile for an opportunity that offered new challenges, new experiences, and health benefits. Rafe’s lasting impression at Part-Time Audiophile not only left a massive influence on us, it also left our readership wondering what exactly his next big thing would be. Here were are, at the end of summer of 2020 and we find ourselves glowing proud to announce the existence of Resistor Magazine.
What is Resistor Magazine?
It’s Rafe Arnott’s newest media project. Is it related to hi-fi? Yes, and no. It departs from the traditional tropes of the usual ‘Features, Music, Reviews, News’ and instead works to spotlight the world that surrounds our modern hi-fi lifestyle. It could be argued that traditional hi-fi journalism has been too conservative, too formulaic, and too drab for too long. The multitude of publications and writers seemingly only looking backwards, and only looking to repeat/compete with how grandpa-hi-fi decided it should be.
Anyone with a pulse would recognize that there is a whole new generation of audio connoisseurs who embrace parts of the audiophile hobby as just a piece of their larger collection of interests. Rafe Arnott has set out to foster and nourish those who just can’t quite find a comfortable seat at the ‘audiophiles only’ dinner table.
What Resistor Magazine will eventually grow to be is not exactly clear, and from our perspective that’s the best way for it to be. Resistor lives as an evolving state of being for the staff editors and coming writers. It’s a space where the individual talents and rising voices will become more the creators of the mold, rather than the breakers of it.
For instance let’s look at this description of Resistor Magazine, taken directly from the website’s about page: “Resistor Mag is based beneath the fossil-fuel smudged horizons of Vancouver, British Columbia. Usually found squinting at the sun with a laptop, headphones and a coffee, we look for inspiration in all things music, art, design, hi-fi and eclectic-culture oriented.”
Resistor Magazine is set on becoming a journey of discovery, and we’re excited to see where this existential expedition takes Rafe Arnott and his writing team. Enclosed below is a ‘statement‘ recently published on Resistor Magazine, written by Rafe Arnott, Editor and Scott Eastlick Editor-at-Large. Enjoy!
Press Release Enclosed
In life I’ve sometimes had to leap before looking and tend to follow my gut instincts. Have they let me down? Yes, but not often.
Resistor Mag is a leap I took when I was let go from my previous gig and was staring into a pandemic-centric future. I figured being your own boss has plenty of upside, and if I couldn’t make a living running the site and the PDF magazine I plan to publish twice a year to accompany it, then I could always make it a labour of love and classify it as a side hustle.
So, what is Resistor Mag? Well, it’s not a traditional hi-fi site for starters. It’s an open concept that will grow and follow a path over time as more and more stories, features and reviews are published. It is not a fully-formed entity, it is and hopefully always will be, a work in progress – reflecting the changing times.
When first asked to describe what I wanted to create with this site I told a friend it was going to be like a Brian Eno album… or sitting down to lunch with Chuck D and Gordon Gano. We laughed, but the sentiment stuck and started taking on a more corporeal form as time went on and I committed to starting up online.
So, Resistor Mag favors cultural over commercial impact; handbuilt craftsmanship over effective branding. We will remain fairly indifferent about measurements and specifications, while placing a premium on the more enduring aspects of arts, culture and the musicality of playback from hi-fi.
We realize that design and architecture are about more than just aesthetics. We are more inclined to venerate the things we love than to disparage those we do not.
More specifically, think of Resistor Mag as the tape on a reel-to-reel for laying down the tracks of writers, photographers, artists, musicians and entrepreneurs who are resisting the temptation to be basic and will work towards a shared goal of being interesting, inspiring and humorous.
“Nobody sits like this rock sits. You rock, rock. The rock just sits and is. You show us how to just sit here and that’s what we need.” —Albert Markovski
