Rafe Arnott

Hello darkness, my old friend. Sigh. It was inevitable, really. Using Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” as a metaphor for the Aurender W20 Music Server. As soon as I switched over to it from the Aurender N10 the difference was noticeable enough that the song leapt to the fore of mind and I blurted out. “Shit.”

There’s something to be said for big monitors hooked up to hi-fi racks bursting with gleaming alloy boxes in a chic, modern, designer showroom.

It was only a matter of time until, arguably, the biggest service provider on the planet brought Thor’s hammer down on the competition.

I had a friend who would chuckle at me every time I put an LP on my turntable. I would use a soft dust-brush to wipe down the record, then give it a zap with an antistatic gun before I dropped the just-cleaned stylus… this he thought was humorous because of my preoccupation with keeping the album as quiet as possible for playback.