I’ve been looking for a great-looking and great-sounding speaker system for my Mac. And just so we’re clear: great-sounding is for classical music, and I expect equal or better than my Celestion/NAD system I bought for ~10.000 NOK when I was 15. My problem has been that either the speakers filled too much in my office space (3.5 m2), and/or they looked really bad.

My brother-in-law recommended BOSE, and specifically the Companion system. I didn’t find anywhere to hear them, but I took a gut decision and ordered one. They simulate a 5.1 system, and in that they actually do a quite good job. The tweet/high frequencies isn’t all that great, but if you’re playing computer games, watch movies or listen to something else than classical and jazz, I’m sure out of the box you’ll have no problem with it.

What’s funny is that I’ve grown used to them, and having set the equalizer in iTunes to boost the high frequencies a bit, they actually do a fine job. For sure, I still prefer my HiFi system, but it comes pretty close at a third of both the space and price. I still believe there’s room for great-looking speakers that are worthy of a low-end HiFi system (meaning the equivalent of a relatively cheap Denon receiver with some not too expensive stereo speakers) that can outperform the BOSE, but until they come around this is a quite nice setup. They don’t fill much and listening to Fontana’s Sonata Secunda with one of my favourite recorder players is pleasant. Not like a HiFi system where it feels like the performers are in the room, but still really nice. And for those occational games, the 5.1 emulation works great.

ETE had a little note in Jyske Vestkysten today

I just found the page of a guy called Geejay who obsesses over the recorder. A fun read. Speaking of fun, what a concert this must have been:

In this last quote Mattheson’s Der vollkommene Capellmeister, we go back to religion. There are just a few things that a good capellmeister cannot afford not to know:

“…to God even a thousand years is like the day which passed yesterday, and the angels’ days are years, as is known by the theologians.” Mattheson quotes Luther here from Daniel.

But let’s return to the origin of music: “Angels, though they are spirits, can assume bodily for, can use instruments and appear in flesh and blood, as Michael did, as often as they want. And since in the hereafter we redeemed men like them will be in body and soul, it is easy to divine what a magnificent quality the harmony of these heavenly musicians must have had.

Thus it is not true that vocal music is actually and originally older than instrumental: for all sort of instruments are also ascribed to the angels and saints in the Bible, especially harps and trombones, as string and brass instruments, and they certainly played just as well as they sange before Adam was created.”