Photo: Carl Thomas Hriczak

It's 9:45 on a mid-September weeknight in Greater Toronto. Having spent the evening reveling in the glory of her 9th birthdaycandles blown out, presents open, pleasantly full of Wegmans' Ultimate Chocolate CakeOur Birthday Girl has one additional request:

"Can we please play 'Happy Birthday Polka'?!"

Emily's referring to a 10" 78rpm recording by Tex Williams, on a red-label Capitol I brought home for $1, mainly for the near-mint outer sleeve it came in. The first time I played it, she was sitting on her bean bag chair, counting the change from a jar of coins over and over and making notes and drawings on her sketch pad. As the stylus settled into the surprisingly noise-free discit looks worse than it soundsa descending passage from the flutes was joined by fiddle and (early) electric guitar in what could pass for postmodern Boccherini. Williams then crooned: "Happy Birthday! This is your day / but we have all the fun! / Gather 'round the piano / And let's harmonize a tune . . ."

Emily jumped up and started dancing: "I love this song!" She's a Weird Al Yankovic devotee, and if this record isn't a direct ancestor to the great Alfred's output, I don't know what is. The sound is A-plus, too.

To watch Emily derive so much joy from a 78 is to return to my own audio-loving roots. It's history repeating itselfin a good way, for once. When I was her age, I was blessed to have audio experiences that shaped me into the audiophile music aficionado I am today. Equipment my family couldn't otherwise afford was given to usby none other than family friend and noted pianist Glenn Gould.

I have no memories of Glenn: He passed away when I was 10 months old. Yet the sound system he left us led to my lifelong obsession with music, sound, and circuitry. Our Marantz 2230 receiver has been functioning flawlessly every day since 1973; I no longer use it for amplification, but it remains my daily-driver FM tuner. Imagine that: In my 37 years, every day, save for travel, I have listened to WNED-FM through the 2230. I refer to it as my older sibling: If gear could talk, oh! the stories that receiver could tell . . .

Around 1995, I began to get serious about high fidelity. I began picking up and thumbing through and eventually buying copies of Stereophile. And in December 1996, I read Michael Fremer's review of the Rega Planar 3 turntable. I hungered for better LP sound. I saw the price: $695. I could and I would afford that.

I had my goal. I saved every paper-route penny from then to the summer of '97, and by mid-July, I was the proud owner of a Planar 3, complete with a Grado Reference Platinum cartridge. But it didn't begin well. The tech, if you want to call him that, badly misaligned the cartridge. I was almost in tears when I heard how much worse it sounded compared to the demo. The shop offered to loan me a DB Systems protractor, and days later I was tracking distortion-free. I didn't know about VTA and SRA yet, and there was a height mismatch, with the stylus raking at about 87 degrees. Still, it was so much better than the aging table it replaced that I enjoyed the combo until 2002.

Then, after reading Art Dudley's never-ending ode to the Denon DL-103 cartridge, I put one on the Rega, and it's been my go-to since. After raising the arm with Rega's 4mm spacer, the SRA is spot on. I'd venture to say that if someone were to design a turntable around the Denon and not the other way around, the result would be a Planar 3. It's another of those matches made in heaven.

Incidentally, it's historically significant to own a Rega Planar 3 in Buffalo-Niagara: The glass platter was pioneered in Buffalo by the Kurtzmann piano company. A phonograph designed by them in 1920 featured a platter nearly identical to the one Roy Gandy uses. It only played vertically modulated records and had a "permanent" sapphire stylus, as well as a see-through case with a top plate made of glass.

The equipment I can afford these days is not that of sonic platitudes. I cherish every piece I can bring to (or order from) my home, even if none of it reaches as high as Class B. No matter. We are enjoying our music with great detail and a decent amount of tone and touch. Perhaps someday our financial fortunes will improve and we can go for the Clearaudio Goldfinger cartridge, or maybe a Lyra Atlas or Ortofon MC Anna. Until then, it's a delight to read about these divine creations, and to feel comrade-ship with the staff of a publication that has a cherished place in our hearts and home. My equipment may not be exciting, but what we do with it every day is exciting. Here, hope abounds.

Footnote: Carl Thomas Hriczak is a freelance photographer and private music educator. He photographs people and teaches piano in the bi-national Buffalo-Niagara region.