He was right. Plugging headphones into my stereo to listen to Prince’s newly released double album Sign O’ the Times, a new technicolour world revealed itself. Intricate rhythms flittered from left to right; previously unheard instruments and strange sounds emerged from songs I thought I already knew. The alarm clock at the start of ‘Starfish & Coffee’ made me jump out of my skin.
Soon I started exploring more records in the same way, starting with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles, which had been reissued on CD in 1987 – the same year that Sign O’ the Times came out. I remember the fanfare at the time, with the in-store promotional cardboard cut-outs and notices proclaiming ‘It was 20 years ago today!’ (the CD release coinciding with the album’s 20th anniversary). With the headphones providing my own cocoon, familiar songs were refreshed by the clarity of CD. A muttered intro here, the squeak of a guitar string, even the tape hiss – it sounded like I was in the room as they were experimenting. At one point, I remember becoming obsessed with the LED lights on my stereo’s graphic equaliser – a syncopated lightshow, the intricacy of the recordings mapped out in miniature.
Then, aged 15, the thought that an album could be have been released 20 years ago (five years before I was even born) – and yet still amaze and excite seemed incredible to me. Fast forward 33 years and it’s now Sign O’ the Times that is receiving the reissue treatment – in the shape of a ‘Super Deluxe’ boxset, consisting of 92 tracks (63 of them previously unreleased) across eight CDs.
But this time, as I prepared my deep dive into the album once more, I didn’t heed Alan Hazel’s advice – at least not to the letter. In the intervening years, I’d upgraded my audio equipment. And so instead of simply using headphones as my cocoon, I’d expanded my listening bubble to fill a whole room. Thanks to modern technology and a basic understanding of the physics of sound, it’s relatively easy to use the dynamics of a room to amplify the sound – taking into account its dimensions, and the placement of speakers in relation to the walls and hard surfaces.
It helps if you have the right hardware, of course. KEF’s new LS50 Collection combines great loudspeakers and cutting edge technology to reveal every detail of the music – a truly immersive sound, the speakers themselves melting away as you’re transported to another world, taking you away from the here and now. This is the magic of music itself – and one that’s as precious as ever in these strange and challenging times. It’s also a reminder that isolating oneself, existing in your own self-imposed bubble, can still be a blissful experience too.
As the months of lockdown have dragged on, I’ve found solace in creating my own space to escape into, losing myself completely in an album for 90 minutes or so (or even longer in the case of the Prince boxset). In the absence of live music, it’s even possible to recreate the atmosphere if not the entire experience at home – using the LS50 Wireless II, an all-in-one wireless speaker system with built in amplification, you can create an enveloping sound to pair with a streaming device. Maybe you can’t physically be in the moshpit with Idles at the Bataclan in Paris, but stream their live album A Beautiful Thing, close your eyes and you could be right in the middle of the mayhem. (Better yet, play it via your YouTube app and you don’t even have to close your eyes.)
Sometimes, however, a more sedate moment of calm is required. Letting the heartbreaking beauty of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No 3 wash over you, for instance, losing sense of time or place. Using the LS50 Meta speaker with a traditional hi-fi set-up, not a nuance is missed thanks to the most advanced technology – eliminating high-frequency distortion for a purer, more natural sound. Just as those early days, discovering CD sound for the first time or surrendering yourself to headphones, it’s like you are in the room with the musicians, the sound swirling all around you in 3D. Alan Hazel would be proud.
About Mark Hooper:
Mark Hooper is an award-winning editor, journalist and author. He was the founding editor of Hole & Corner, which was named one of the top five independent magazines by The Guardian. He was also deputy editor of i-D, associate editor of Arena and Esquire and editor of Channel 4’s music website. He began his career writing for The Face and consulted on its recent relaunch. He also contributes to Wallpaper*, The Guardian, The Observer and Wired. He lives in Kent, England has just finished his second book, The Great British Tree Biography (Pavilion).
