The Skipper on Music Aboard

Over the years I have installed many sound systems on my little succession of boats and, however fine the quality of the reproduction of the music, they have all succumbed to the environment eventually. The vigorous crashing and banging, in air that is salt laden, corrodes even me.
Our last music centre gave up on us somewhere out on the Atlantic ocean, in September last year, having given us four sterling years of great sound before dying.

The task of choosing the replacement machine was left to the First Mate, she is, after all the ship's musician, and the walk up to 'Modelo', the large and tempting supermarket nearest to Horta marina, our base whilst in the Azores, would, I felt, be invigorating for her. She returned, virtually empty handed but, inside the carrier bag she held, were two portable CD players, mine a Sony Walkman (model D-EJ611), 12.5 centimetres in diameter and 2 centimetres thick, complete with headphones, purchased separately at a specialist store on the way back. "It's not an extravagance" she said "I just can't stand having those horrid little earpieces stuffed in my ears!" Fair enough.

The Sony MDR150 headphones are so light that one forgets that one is wearing them. They also have very conveniently 'hinged' earpieces that can be flipped outwards to enable one to hear what is going on outside the world of music with one ear whilst remaining tuned in with the other. 

Printed on the lid of the circular, slim, silver CD machine that the First Mate handed me, were the words 'G . Protection Jog Proof'. The First Mate is generally red hot at finding the best way to approach most problems but a Walkman? A bit separationist, I thought. Was she trying to tell me something? I need not have worried. The headphones definitely have their uses but it is also very easy to plug a set of battery powered speakers into the Walkman and produce first rate, big, sound reproduction, without the need of the huge black speaker enclosures (boxes) that had been part of the old system. 

We committed our mouldy tape collection, to which we had been clinging in spite of the un-playability of most of the tapes, to the dustbin. Since the laptop sports a DVD drive, we also got rid of all the video tapes, releasing three cubic feet of space, a vast area in boat terms, in which other clutter would soon take up residence, but that's another story. Thus we have gone entirely over to CDs for music and DVDs for the film library. 

Rather than keeping the CD-Roms in their plastic jewel cases, we were introduced to the joys of using rigid-spine CD-Rom organisers, of Danish manufacture, that hold 28 CDs and, once again, save on weight and space. 
Incidentally, you can ignore the hype about not needing to protect your CDs - I wrecked several before realizing that they need to be handled like photographs or the vinyl records of yesteryear and they are definitely more safely stored in one of these purpose-made cases with pockets having soft backs and non-vinyl transparent fronts.

Now that I have become accustomed to having the freedom of movement afforded by a portable music system, I frequently use the CD player in walkabout mode, stuffed into my back pocket where, I presume, my body heat dries out any condensation that may be trying to form.

We'll keep you posted on the performance and longevity of our 'new' toys, six months old, so far...and so good!