A couple of weeks ago now, in a moment of recklessness, I lashed out on a new mini hi-fi* - nothing really expensive, of course, but something of a luxury given there is one in the living room & the various radios & computers & iPods & iPads that have accumulated around the house. But the point is: this was for the bedroom.

One of the compromises you accept in marriage & subsequent Dad-existence seems to be the inevitable relegation of "your clutter" (ie stacks of CDs) to elsewhere and pleas of "can you turn it down ... the girls are trying to sleep" etc.. Where once, life was a one room Crusoe-like island & music a type of fortress against irritating co-tenants or consolation for yet another solitary night, day, week, month ... recent times have seen music consigned to headphones or ear buds.

Anything for a peaceful life ...

So to suddenly hear music in three dimensions again has been nothing short of a revelation. The proportions of the bedroom relative to the power of amp & speakers seems exactly right. Downstairs the music disperses amongst the kitchen clatter, fridge hum, goings on. Here, however, CDs I thought I knew sparkle again. I hear all sorts of subtleties that the headphones & iPods just don't deliver. (As now, track 9, 'Lament' off Miles Ahead - utterly ravishing).

What fun! & yes, the pile of CDs is back.

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* if you're wondering - a Sony CMT-MX700Ni they'd knocked 50 euros off (presumably because it won't take the new iPod connection. Who cares?)