PTA HEADQUARTERS—We are proud to announce, the greatest addition to our Part-Time Audiophile website toolbar in over a decade—we bring to you, COLUMNS.
It has been discussed amongst our staff of writers, and decided that now-better-than-never is the perfect time to update our website’s navigation toolbar, thus making our editorial content that much easier to find.
The new COLUMNS tab, and included drop-down menu, contains linkage to all of our favorite Part-Time Audiophile editorial columns from the past, present, and future.
With our existing brain-trust of pro-audio experts, hi-fi industry veterans, technical gurus, eagle-eyed journalists, explorers, gourmets, philosophers, and historians on the writing team; we felt that it was time to set our rich column archives free from the search bar and entrust them to the navigation toolbar for quicker access.
The Contributor Columns
For all of our long-time Part-Time Audiophile column readers, please know this: we appreciate your investment of time (and ad-clicking) towards our success, and for your patronage we bring forward some of our most revered content for a second (or third) helping.
Returning are industry columns like Scot Hull‘s Publishers Desk, along with lifestyle columns like Nina Sventitsky‘s Reluctant Sommelier, Brian Hunter‘s Spirited Away, Marc Phillips‘ Smoking Jacket, and Lee Shelly‘s Selective Focus. Do check in on these sections occasionally for both new and existing content.
Our most popular column, Marc Phillips‘ The Vinyl Anachronist, is primed for extensive deep-cut vinyl spelunking. While the more eerie and mysterious column entries from our most elusive contributor—Modest I. Predlozheniye, in the Far Corners—have become even stranger. Yikes!
In the Audiophile Journal you’ll find the road-going adventures of Eric Franklin Shook. Like his visit to Gravity Records in Wilmington, NC where he hosted Part-Time Audiophile’s first ever Audiophile Road Show—a Record Store Day hi-fi event for the vinyl loving public. Or that time when Eric covered Ember Audio + Design‘s Public Vinyl Demo and discovered just as much about society, as he did about KEF Blades. There in the Audiophile Journal you’ll also find Eric’s coverage of the Audio Show Nightlife scene, which includes his popular Under Forty Dinner series.
In our Audio-Life section you’ll find a drop-all-point for oddball content like: road trips, factory tours, dealer visits, expensive dinners, late night travels, and random-audiophile-shower-thoughts. In this area you’ll find travel and adventure pieces like Mohammed Samji‘s visit to Audio Element in Pasadena, CA where he first listened to Wilson Audio’s Sasha DAW, or that time when Richard Mak ate soft-cheeses with a Canadian Harp Goddess.
Special Guest Appearences
Even our emeritus’d Rafe Arnott can be found among the archives, where he was once (or twice) nearly driving off of an 80-ft cliff while riding in a Uber-van (article here). Along with these fun finds, guest contributors will often make appearances. From friends like Marc Boyle (of VPI Industries fame) who captured the essence of Chicago dining and questionably-legal-high-speed-thrills while on the way to RMAF (article here), or friends like John DeVore of Devore Fidelity who looked down at his wrist for the time, and was inspired to dig deeper into the deepest of eternal questions—what is time? (article here)
Welcome Two NEW Columns!
The Ivory Tower by Dave McNair
One addition to the column section is Dave McNair’s new ‘think-piece and couch-born-adventure’ column The Ivory Tower. Where all in the audiophile lands will be privy to the sacred scrolls of the divine-eared Dave McNair as they are graciously sprinkled down upon us from on high.
Scraps from the master’s table will include topics such as: studio recording, album mixing, producing, mastering, active listening, psychology, analog vs digital, system assembly, music history, recording artists, vinyl, reel-to-reel tape, digital-to-vinyl, and other musings to be donned upon our little heads by his McNair-ness.
You may have already become familiar with some of Dave’s notable works:
- Hi-Fi: How Do We Listen?
- Hi-Fi: What Does It Sound Like?
- Breaking News: Local Man Wants His Music Mastered Loud
Stay tuned, as there is always more to come.
Nan Pincus by Nan Pincus
What genre exactly would you classify the multi-media artist known as Björk? Don’t worry—I’ll wait.
Are you done yet? Most writers work to develop a persona, a voice, a taste, a sense of sagacity. Nan Pincus was born with all of those things intact. She is her persona. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that Nan Pincus (say that name a few times, it rolls off the tongue nicely) was born in a house that she built with her own two hands. She very well could be the most interesting and life-affirming person in the world. But aside from all that, she finds herself interested in the obscure, the meticulous, and the challenging. She’s got a thirst for exploring and a hunger for beauty. For an editor to classify her set of talents and interests as anything but in-her-own-genre would be a foolhardy exercise, a daft attempt at reaching out for the worn-out ham-and-corn of our language.
Her upcoming contributions to the Nan Pincus column reflect a hodgepodge of interests that include FM radio, all-things-analog, classical music history, DJ-ing, ham radio, interviews, horology, international travel, fine dining—and maybe some hotels, hostels, and caves.
You may have already become familiar with some of Nan’s notable works:
- Pitch Don’t Even: The Global Quest for a Lowering of the Standard Tuning Pitch
- Rat Tale: How a Fictional Audiophile Got Me into Hi-Fi
- “Beethoven Pleads The Fifth” Won’t Stay Silent
Stay tuned, as there is always more to come.
Who are we?
Well, I’m Eric Franklin Shook, and the point of the contributor columns is this; we’re more than just a group of tired old audio reviewers—heck we’re not even a bit tired and nowhere near old.
We are a ragtag bunch of real-life-audiophile-misfits, with a collective penchant for good sound, adventure, and a story to tell.
We’ll still bring our A-game in providing gear reviews, show coverage, industry news, and humor. But we promise to also do our best in guiding you closer to: the music, the people, the places, and the true spirit of the audiophile community. It’s these things which make writing about this hobby a worthwhile adventure.
Did you know we even have our own audio-show walk-up theme music? (click here to listen)
