Is Naim dying?

When I was five years of age my father bought me a mono cassette recorder and to me at the time this was amazing, my sister also, friends too. From that day on I have always strived for a better system to play music because the music was amazing (material).

Everyone I knew at the time were doing the same...upgrading to get a better listen to their music, this went on for a good two or three decades, now it's the complete opposite although i'm still hanging on..hoping.

Now I have four children and a grandson and not one of them or their friends consider music as important as it was for us, yes they listen to their I pods on occasions and they have parents with pretty good systems although not the best. They are all more into their bikes or scooters or games or whatever, not music.

This pretty much sums it up for me of what is changing times...is Audiophile HIFI dying? well .. looking at it in a real sense my answer to that is a big fat YES.

Vinyl maybe stirring things up recently for the young because of it's retro appeal but I don't think it's going to save it. Computer audio has got the young interested because of it's convenience although from what I see they would rather play games or go on social media as first and second place.

I think it's fair to say that it is only us fuddy duddies that are keeping HIFI alive - it's far too expensive for the young anyway and therefore in my view it is completely out of touch with real world.

The only place left in my view is the foreign (eastern) markets but again I don't think it's going to save it.

More people have posted on this thread than any other in the last week. It says it all!!

Have a pint of Smithwick's at the Stag's Head for me, will you Simon ? And go rob Claddagh Records !

Hi Maurice, I will be down near Grand Canal in Dublin 4.. I am sure I will have one or two to quench my thirst 

My email address is in my profile, if you are at a loss some evening and want to listen or talk about Naim. 

If not it would be Guinness in Mulligans I'd be recommending. 

SJB

So why is there an Irish bar in every city in the world (or so it appears ). You can even get a decent pint of Guinness in Moscow!

And on this topic, there's a story in my (Dublin) family that one our our number worked at the brewery until he drowned in a tank of Guinness.

A very sad story...it apparently took him three hours to drown.....

....coz he kept getting out to go to the loo!

You can even get a decent pint of Guinness in Moscow!

Really?

Why would anyone except a Russian go to Moscow?

ATB from George

Designing satellites with the Russians.

It's called Silvers    http://www.silverspub.com/en/

just north of Red Square....and a nice pint!

I have to ask myself what Russians might use satellites for, but then I is thick. The last lot of Russian satellites have spent the last sixty years trying to [and eventually succeeding in] escaping from the problem.

The Ukraine is a case that is still trying ...

ATB from George

Mostly what every other country does........weather, government propaganda, 50 million porn/shopping/realityTV channels, and helping idiots who can't read a bl00dy map get from A to B in their cars/cycles/walks......

Next, please?

My ex used to have a sat nav - me: I sat and I navigated.

Now I've been replaced with a box of electronics!

Probably why you find a British pub in most large cities oversees as well .. Because the beer is good 

I do remember when I was younger working in and around Stanford in California, and delighting about being able to go out into Stanford with my buddies on a Friday night  getting well and truly tanked up on Newcy Brown along with the university students.. Stanford seemed to remind me most of home, not least because of the British and Irish pubs (and US micro brewery pubs) .. But people  walked around from pub to pub leaving their cars behind enjoying themselves...  Happy days . I hope Stanford is still like that....

Simon

I won't argue with a Dubliner on such an important matter, SJB !  It's just that, until very recently, although Guiness was everywhere, Smithwick's wasn't available anywhere where I live. And the Stag's Head is just a fading memory of a club sandwich with a pint (or three) of... Guinness, a long time ago. Don't know Mulligan's, I believe.

In most of Africa,  west coast in particular,  Guinness is considered to be a powerful "afro"dysiac & puts all nite concret in a guys pencil.    

Any white guys seen drinking it will get the locals into "nudge-nudge wink-wink" looks & girls will go into hilarious giggle groups.  

I was once in a bar on Lagos's Creek Road & a pale skinned redheaded guy with a Cork accent appeared,  just arrived & was still full of BA "hospitality" & it transpired he was heading off on a 12 month contract at the oil fields - tomorrow.

He spotted the Guinness & set about topping up the BA hospitality & soon noticed a group of young "business" ladies in the bar in the usual Guinness giggle huddle & they were pointing at him - the rest is censored. 

Anyhow cutting to the cut,  I met up with him 3 days later,  he had been with the girls for 2 days & missed his transport to the new contract - its amazing what Guinness does for a bloke.    

Mr SJB thanks for the offer, I'll see how it goes, though I suspect I'll have a few late ones with my colleagues at Slattery's Pub between Shelbourne Road and Grand Canal Street Upper on Wednesday evening. If you see an intoxicated englishman with some Irish colleagues propping him up say hello 

That's a bit lazy, isn't it? I don't think it takes too much imagination work out that if you are gay, or a dissenting journalist (they tend to get bumped off or disappear), or any kind of separatist, Putin is very, very much worse than either Obama or Cameron.

No I'm not a fan of either, before you ask. Obama is weak and Cameron is just another clueless upper-class bully boy. But Putin is a flailing despot, caught in a weird strongman circus show of his own making, from which he will probably never escape. A tragic tyrant, if you like...

Because it's well worth visiting, and there is a lot to see (and I have visited the city in both the Soviet and post-Soviet eras). Russia is a country rich in cultural, architectural and other treasures. I would urge anyone to go.

It woudl take too much of my time to easily dismantle that Western propaganda fueled argument.

OK - Putin murders journalists? Well Obama murders women and children - Vlad could go on quite a killing spree before he could even get within shouting distance on kills of innocents to the current and previous American president.

This is the kind of guy our counties back up (on the viewing left):

Center here:

Methinks you are the one being a bit lazy.  Western journalists are a freaking joke...take the 2 BBC chappies who reported that Ukraine had attacked and damaged a Russian armored column that had entered Ukraine; claiming to be eyewitnesses to such an event, they somehow couldn't even manage low-res cell phone pics.  (The whole world has cell phone cameras, including nearly destitute Ukrainians, but neither of these guys could muster one pic - must have left both their chargers home, right?)  And it must not be true, because if it were, the USA would be screaming "invasion!!" at the top of their lungs.  But it comes under the "get your lie out first" because the average dolt reads a headline and nothing else, and that becomes his "reality".  (See: saran gas, Syria, for one such example.)

I have a good friend from Kherson; the atrocities being perpetrated by some of the far-right groups that we are backing in order to get a coalition in Ukraine are a disgrace.  She and her family were in Odessa during that massacre, which got swept under the carpet by our "fair and balanced" Western media.

In the grand scheme of things, Putin's big sin is growing his country's economy - considering the shambles it was left in it has made some pretty great strides...and they are essentially debt free.  (For now - sanctions are going to change that.)  Would that our 2 insolvent nations could say so.  This growth violates the Paul Wolfowitz/neocon approach to foreign policy...which is what this entire thing is really all about.  (That and desperately trying to hold off the next economic collapse like 2008, which will be coming sooner or later.)

Putin aside, the comment pretty much trashed all Russians; I know a young lady who went to my most recent college; born in Russia, arrived in USA at age 8, American citizen, came home crying in junior high school because the kids would push her around & call her "commie" (mind you, this was around 200-2002, well after the Soviet Union was dead & gone.)  Complain to school; nothing. But use the n-word and watch how fast you get suspended.  I'm sorry, but one is as bad as the other.

Umm, and how did we get here? If I want politics, I've got my fb page....

In his case, hopefully a big shot of penicillin was sufficient to cure him of what ailed him.  Now-a-days, it would be a lifetime (vastly shortened) of anti-virals  

My ex replaced me with a cardboard cut-out ( literally! ) A book will be written one day and no-one will believe a word of it. Thank God for the invention of corrugated.

Mm,I am going to have sausages for breakfast and a nice cup of tea.

In a very soothing voice...

And now back to the music...Michael Jackson's "Make this world a better place".

and Long live Naim....life would be very quite otherwise.

or just Random Shite thread.