All information in these pages is copyright (c) 1989-2003 by Roger Nichols.
All rights reserved. Permission for personal reference only, and may not
be reproduced by any method without written permission.
Gear Sluts
by Roger Nichols
Well, it's official. This week I am President of Gear Sluts. Last week Walter
Becker was President. What is Gear Sluts? I'm glad you asked.
Walter and I formed Gear Sluts. Gear Sluts is a club whose members will
do anything for equipment. We have come up with a crest and a motto and
everything. The motto, in Latin, of course, is "We're Only Here For
The Gear". Sort of catchy, huh?
To become a member of our exclusive club, you have to spend at least 20%
of your income on equipment, and in the process you must have not been able
to get some item that was budgeted as a necessity. Let me explain. You couldn't
afford to buy a new backpack for your kid to carry his school books because
you just purchased a new B&M blower and fuel injection for your Z-28.
How about if your neighbor's dog just had a litter of puppies because on
the day you were supposed to get your dog fixed you were down at the music
store plunking a deposit down so you would have the first ADAT in your neighborhood.
There are other symptoms that potential members display. The newest and
biggest hard disk comes out and you run down and buy one at three times
what the going rate will be in six months. A year later you buy another
one of the same hard disk because it is on sale at 1/20 th of what you originally
paid. You didn't really need it, it was just such a good deal and you should
have one for a spare. You never took it out of the box and now both of them
are out of production and obsolete. But wait a minute, check out this new
Erasable Optical Disk!
Someone who is a "loner" is not really as inclined to become a
Gear Slut. Part of the fun of getting all this "stuff" is showing
it to your friends. Do you think for a second that all of those kids with
the 5000 watt sub-sonic car stereo systems have them because they enjoy
them? No way! It is so you can enjoy them, every time they drive by your
house. The kids in the car aren't enjoying themselves at all. With that
much sub-sonic energy they are bound to be having uncontrollable bowel movements.
Imagine how much fun it would be to invite the boss over to watch an advance
copy of the first of the new Star Wars Trilogy, you open up your video cabinet
and reveal your new Sony D-2 digital video deck. Remember how cool it was
to send a DAT copy of your ruff mixes to the record company and they didn't
even know what it was. Have you walked into Tower Records lately and asked
for blank CDs? "You got any blank TDK CDs like this one? No? Well I
guess I'll have to try Goody's down the street". As you walk out the
door turn and look at all of their mouths hanging open. (Hopefully it's
not because they think you're a geek).
Someone I know went with John Denver in his Learjet (talk about Gear Slut!)
to Canada to get the first U.S. version DAT machine. We (oops) got it there
because the Canadian machines don't have to have those stupid little transformers
on the AC cord like the Japanese versions do. John would book a tour in
Japan just so he would have an excuse to go pick up the latest un-released
Nikon lenses.
To make it a little easier on potential Gear Sluts, Walter and I have decided
to review equipment that would be worthy of purchase by a Gear Sluts member.
In essence we would be giving the "Gear Sluts Stamp of Approval"
to equipment that should not be passed up as long as your credit card is
under the limit. We have acquired the appropriate test equipment and access
to the facilities necessary to run each piece of equipment through the Gear
Sluts Gauntlet. The first such test is of the Alesis ADAT and appears elsewhere
in this issue.
Well by now you should have a good idea of what it takes to be a Gear Slut.
Maybe in the future we can have Gear Sluts membership cards. Yeah, maybe
we could get discounts because of volume buying. Maybe someday there will
be a Gear Sluts Depot across the street from your favorite shopping mall.
DCC vs. Mini Disc.
The middle of last August Phillips brought a production unit of the DCC
machine to Nashville for me to listen to. Everyone in the room could tell
every time which was the DCC and which was the CD. The overall sonic quality
was acceptable for what the machine is supposed to do, that is, to replace
the analog cassette. I still prefer the Sony Mini Disc. The preference isn't
because of sound quality one way or the other, it is because of format.
I don't think tape is the proper format. I think that Optical is the way
of the future just as CD was a Decade ago.
Both Sony and Phillips could have come up with something that would have
been an improvement over CD. The reason they didn't is because of the investment
that everybody has in the CD. All of those CD pressing plants cost umpteen
million dollars. If a new format like holographic ruby crystal came along,
then Phillips and Sony and all of the investors in all this equipment would
be up the creek. The same thing holds true for cassette duplicators. A lot
of them have just invested in digital bin machines and all sorts of new
high tech stuff to make cassette duplicating better and more profitable.
With Phillips sticking to a cassette based system, most of the equipment
used to duplicate the old analog cassettes can be modified to duplicate
the DCC tapes. Oh yes, and Phillips still gets their royalty. Actually,
isn't the patent on the cassette about to run out? Ah, now I get it.
Phillips said they did a survey and most people preferred cassettes instead
of CDs. Really? I decided to do my own survey. I went to Tower Records in
Nashville and started asking questions. They were:
1. How many CD players do you own? 86% owned a CD player. 52% owned at least
two. 20% owned three or more.
2. How many cassette players do you own? 100% owned a cassette player. 76%
owned two, while 51% owned three or more.
3. What are you buying today? 62% cassettes, 17% were buying both.
4. Which do you play more at home? 92% play CD more at home.
5. Which do you play more away from home (car, jogging, camping etc.)? 87%
play cassettes when not at home.
6. How many cassettes have you ruined? 100% have ruined cassettes. The tapes
had been eaten by the deck or pulled out of the shell by an animal, child
or spouse. No one had lost fewer than four tapes.
7. How many CDs have you ruined? 32% ruined CDs on purpose while trying
to show someone else that they couldn't be ruined. One guy was there trying
to return a CD because it wouldn't play after he microwaved it. 9% melted
them in their cars.
8. Do you copy CDs to blank cassettes? 82% of CD buyers copy them for use
in their portable and car cassette players.
9. Did you think that a DCC tape would play back on your existing cassette
player? 93% thought they could.
10. Which of these would you prefer DCC or Mini Disc? I showed them samples
of both. 71% preferred DCC until they found out that you couldn't play the
DCC tapes on their old players. 100% preferred Mini Disc after. Nobody cared
that they could play their old analog tapes on the DCC machine.
11. If you bought a new deck (DCC or Mini Disc) would you get rid of your
cassette deck? 100% said no.
12. Would you prefer a DCC or Mini Disc car player? 60% said they would
prefer the DCC in the car only if it would play analog tapes also.
13. Would you prefer DCC or Mini Disc portable? 89% leaned toward Mini Disc
because of potentially smaller size.
14. Would you buy fewer CDs when DCC and Mini Disc become available. 92%
said no.
Well there you go. I thought that everyone would prefer CD and Mini Disc.
The one thing that sticks out for me is that everyone thought that DCC tapes
would play on the machines they have now. They said the ads said that DCC
was completely compatible with their existing cassettes. What's a little
misleading semantics among friends? It's all in how you look at it.
That reminds me of a joke. A horse wanders into a bar. The bartender looks
up at him and says, "Hey fella, why the long face?"
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