To spot or not to spot, that was the question

Some time ago I was given a demonstration of Spotify on an audio system flashy enough to involve valves and was rather impressed.

Then last week I was given a further demonstration on a telephone by an apple buff. A jazz buff attempted to catch Spotify out, and scored one in seven attempts. I was so impressed that I did not think to try to catch it out by asking for particular recordings of classical music, which I dare say one could, not that my ear is anything like good enough for that sort of thing to matter. At least I don't think so, never having been much bothered by which recording hitherto. The apple buff seemed very confident that I could plug Spotify into my audio system via a laptop.

Home, thinking that this might be a good way to liberate 3 metres of shelf space in the study, presently occupied by vinyl. But the sockets on the amplifier did not look much like those on the laptop, so off to Sevenoaks (one one in Epsom that is) in the morning, where the same person who had sold me my stuff back in 2011 was able to turn up my records and offer me a gadget from Denon called an HEOS link, a snip at £299. This would wireless enable my Marantz amplifier which would enable my wireless enabled laptop to talk Spotify to it. I could buy further gadgets to extend the sound around the house. Spotify itself would come in at around £10 a month, the same, as it happens, as Amazon would charge for access to their similarly huge kindle library.

All very swish, but rather dear, given that the 3 metres of shelf space is not presently a problem. Maybe something to come back to when we downsize to Abbeyfield or some such, there being two or three houses for this particular lot in the borough.

PS: coincidentally, a recent Guardian ran to two full pages about the glories of vinyl. A bit heavy going and I have not managed to read very much of it, but it does nothing to re-energise the now dormant move to Spotify.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Marc+Reisner.

Reference 2: http://www.denon.co.uk/uk.

Reference 3: http://www.abbeyfield.com/.