davidbowerkingwood

A Tribute to God’s Unfailing Faithfulness

The Book of Ruth is the bright light at the end of the dark tunnel of Judges. I feel depressed after reading the Book of Judges; I’m saddened by Israel’s refusal to follow God’s directions for success and happiness. Although there are moments of return they always seem to quickly stray away on a path of their own and wind up getting into serious trouble.

Judges ends on a very sad verse, Judges 21:25 which tells us the bottom line of Israel’s plight, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” This sounds a lot like anarchy to me; a dictionary definition of anarchy is “a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority.”

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

 But then there is the Book of Ruth which to me is like a refreshing breath of pure air after emerging from a dark cellar filled with putrefaction and decay. What is of particular interest is the events in Ruth are actually taking place during the time frame of Judges.

What we are seeing is God’s faithfulness to His plan for mankind’s redeemer being carried forward in spite of the willful disobedience of his chosen people. The nation who was to bring blessing to the world may have seriously stumbled but God’s plan was faithfully preserved by a gracious God who would not be thwarted by Israel’s disobedience.

Although it is not precisely stated in the Book of Ruth it is believed that the story of Ruth took place during the time Gideon was Judge over Israel. Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and his two sons Mahlon and Kilion left Israel because of a famine in the land and moved to Moab. Later Elimelech, Mahlon and Kilion all died in Moab and Naomi decided to return to Israel.

Ruth, a Remarkable Lady

Naomi’s sons had married Moabitess women named Orpah and Ruth and Naomi urged them to remain in Moab but Ruth insisted on accompanying Naomi back to Israel and made the statement which has come down through the centuries, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” Wow, talk about a powerful conviction Ruth surely had one!

In retrospect we can see the hand of God working in Ruth’s life, giving her a certainty that would not be denied that her future was in Israel with Naomi. Well what do you know, that turned out to be just the case for Ruth; God had a wonderful plan for her life that did require she move to what was for her, a foreign land.

As the book progresses we see her meeting and eventually marrying Boaz but it is to Boaz that I wish to devote the remainder of the blog. We will need to consider the law of the kinsman-redeemer first.

The Law of the Kinsman-redeemer 

In Leviticus 25:25-34 we read of the law of the kinsman-redeemer; in verse 25 we read, “If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold.”

Boaz was Naomi’s nearest relative except for one kinsman who is never named. In the 4th chapter of Ruth we are told of Boaz’s confronting the kinsman who refuses to step forward because it would involve taking Ruth as his wife and raising children to the name of her dead husband. This opens the door for Boaz who agrees to serve as kinsman-redeemer to Naomi and marry Ruth.

Why is Boaz thought of as a type of Christ? This takes us back to Genesis where Adam sinned against a direct command of God causing him to die spiritually and also costing him the entire earth; Adam sold his birthright to earth for a piece of fruit. Satan is now master of the earth and has been since Adam’s sin.

God’s solution to this loss was to plan for a kinsman-redeemer for Adam and the entire human race. The problem was that there was no earthly man with the spiritual resources to redeem the earth from Satan. For such a man to exist he must be free of original sin and no man had ever been born who could qualify until the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ as Mankind’s Kinsman-redeemer

With Christ we now had a candidate for kinsman-redeemer who was fully qualified to redeem mankind’s inheritance from Satan; he was a kinsman and He had the resources to pay for the redemption. When Christ stepped up to die on the cross in our place He was dying for our fallen sinful nature and redeeming our inheritance as well from Satan.

Christ will return to reclaim mankind’s inheritance at the Second Advent; earth will be restored and Christ will reign on earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

As you probably know, Ruth became the daughter-in-law of Rahab, the harlot, the great grandmother of King David and in the direct line of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a fantastic account of God’s grace at a time when Israel was stumbling.

The Book of Ruth is encouraging to me as a reminder that God is always faithful and never fails to provide for His children and ensure His promises will be fulfilled exactly according to His plan.

Even today as we look about and see the discord and unrest all over the world we can be fully assured that God’s plan is being carried forward in full accordance with His will. God is faithfully preserving His plan and all who have received Christ as their Savior.

Digital Audio, the New Kid on the Block

The big advance in the LP came with the development of the stereo LP. This technology recorded one signal on the groove on one side and another signal on the groove of the opposite side. The difference in sound was immense due in no small part to the advances in cartridge design. The new stereo cartridges were a vast improvement over the older mono cartridges such as the GE cartridge on my Garrard changer and the spatial sound stage was very exciting indeed for those of us who had followed the industry.

Stereo sound had been available on stereo tape since the late 1950’s but stereo LP’s, although available as early as 1958, didn’t really catch on until the mid to late 1960’s.

After the excitement of stereo LP’s had started dying out there came a period of little or no real advancement in home audio technology. There were refinements here and there but not exciting enough to dispel the “ho-hum” attitude that seemed to infect the industry. Then the digital age arrived.

Video is Added to the Mix

The first laser equipment and hardware to surface that I know about was done by Magnavox/Phillips and was called DiscoVision. This was a 12 inch disc that was shiny and looked unlike anything we had seen before and provided both an audio and a video signal. An early commercial can be found here: DiscoVision

When I first started shopping around there were two competing formats; the laser DiscoVision and RCA’s Selectavision which used a stylus tracking a grooved record turning at a 450 RPM and offered video resolution only slightly better than VHS tape.

For me that was a no brainer, I saw the laser technology as the future and the stylus tracking a record groove as the past; I immediately preferred the newer laser technology and time has proven me right as demonstrated by the CD, DVD, and Blu-ray discs.

The laser technology offered one immediate advantage over the LP in that it didn’t have groves into which grit could insert itself. The snap, crackle, and pop associated with LP’s could be banished to outer darkness where it deserved to stay. The wear factor also disappeared as nothing touched the disc during playback but a beam of light.

The early Magnavox DiscoVision players were a huge challenge; the challenge was to keep them working and that was extremely frustrating. Pioneer came out with what they called a LaserDisc player which seemed to solve all of the mechanical problems Magnavox couldn’t resolve. More on my first DiscoVision player can be found here: MagnaVision by Leonard Nimoy.

The last time I took the Magnavox player in for service yet again I wound up telling the technician he could keep it for parts and walked out of the store feeling as if I had just been granted my freedom.

Digital Technology Hits its Stride

I then bought my first Pioneer LaserDisc player and used for it for several years; to the best of my knowledge it still works although I gave it to a family member. Shortly after that the CD hit the market using similar laser technology and the industry was on a roll once more.

The CD was followed by the DVD and it was clear that the audio scene had changed forever. As always happens with new technology there was a learning curve whether it’s in the design of the equipment or engineering the recordings that were to be played on the new equipment and this time around was to be no exception to that rule.

Some of the early CD’s had a rather strident upper frequency response which caused strings, especially massed violins, to sound somewhat harsh and unpleasant. The problems causing this were eventually resolved by refinements in the equipment and the recording techniques. Today good equipment can make even the old CD’s sound much better.

Recording technology branched out to dead ends a couple of time with the SACD and the DVD-Audio discs. Although both provided outstanding music reproduction their intense battle for dominance caused both of them to fail which to me is a sad story.

The Blu-ray Disc Opens New Doors

The advent of the Blu-ray disc opened up data storage possibilities that permitted the uncompressed recording of audio. This has resulted in new uncompressed formats such as DTS HD Master Audio, and Dolby True HD both of which offer special opportunities for high fidelity audio reproduction. As before the recording engineers are going through a learning curve which has produced some less than optimum recordings to date although many are real winners.

My Dream System is Started in 1996

During the 1990’s I had become excited once again by the progress and the equipment available for the home audio hobbyist. I knew I wanted to start work on my ultimate dream system and, true to my pipe organ focus, the first part of my dream system to be added in 1996 was a Velodyne F1500R subwoofer which I still have and still continues to amaze me.

(Update November 2016) The Velodyne finally stopped working and has since been replaced with a Hsu ULS 15 Mk2 which, if anything, is doing an even better job than the Velodyne did.

In February of 2000 I added five Infinity brand speakers because they sounded good and they were on sale. Infinity was closing out their old line and I had the opportunity to buy their formerly top-of-the-line speakers for a substantial discount. I went ahead and bought five matching speakers and still enjoy their sound today; along with the Velodyne (now the Hsu ULS 15 Mk2) they produce the full range of the pipe organ and have an almost perfect tonal balance.

I finally arrived at my present system configuration in December of 2010 and have found much pleasure in both movies and music as reproduced in my home. It almost appears that we have reached another temporary plateau in the development of new equipment which reminds me of that period between the development of the stereo LP and the development of the laser technology.

An Exciting Future?

We will reach the edge of this plateau sooner rather than later I suspect but I only have hints where the next big technological breakthroughs will lead us. They seem to be moving in the direction of combining personal computers and massive digital storage with the audio and video of the home theater. That in conjunction with streaming audio and video could eventually replace the individual disc recording and make the CD, DVD, and Blu-ray disc’s all obsolete. Streaming audio and video is already starting to make significant inroads with the consumer and sales of CD’s have fallen dramatically.

When I received that recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 for Christmas one year, the 78 RPM record was the standard; they were heavy and offered very low fidelity. The fact we didn’t know any better helped to offset the poor quality being offered. The progress through the LP, the LaserDisc, the CD, the DVD, and now the Blu-ray has been a very exciting ride to a hobbyist I assure you. I feel privileged to have been a part of that ride although I was only a consumer, an end user. For those of us who love music this has been a marvelous time indeed!

Should the Lord tarry we may still be in for some more exciting rides in the field of video and audio high fidelity; by God’s grace I’ll be watching and waiting with great interest.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my recollections on almost 60 years of interest in audio; there are fewer and fewer of us alive who lived through that era and can tell the story first hand.

The Korean War Intervenes

The later events described in my last blog were taking place during the Korean War and unknown to me my number was about to come up for the draft. In retrospect I still have a hard time understanding how that came about. I was married, in college, in the Naval Reserve and a Naval Officer Candidate; how was it under those circumstances I could get drafted? That is just one of the mysteries of life to which I’ll never find the answer; my draft notice came in and I was shocked by it.

The first thing I did was contact the commander of my Naval Reserve unit and asked him what could be done. He told me once I had the draft notice there was nothing he could do; I had one choice I could make and that would be volunteering for active duty in the USN and that way I could avoid going into the Army or the Air Force. Since I was already a non-commissioned officer in the Navy I chose active duty in the Navy and spent the next two years on board ship. Enough of that sad phase.

A Civilian Again

Things moved rapidly in the field of high fidelity so by the time I was discharged from the USN progress had been made in the marketing of sound equipment. Somewhere along the line of my earlier equipment searches I had met a couple in Ft. Worth who owned a TV repair shop. By the time I got out of the Navy their business had shifted from TV repair to hi-fi sales and service.

They had a nice store and I liked to spend as much of my spare time there as I could listening to all of that great equipment they had for sale. I still had my first system which I really enjoyed and appreciated but I continued to read everything I could get my hands on and became fairly knowledgeable about high fidelity equipment.

Much to my surprise they offered me a sales job selling the equipment about which I was so enthusiastic. That turned out to be a match made in heaven; I had a ball being around the equipment and my enthusiasm and knowledge of the equipment helped turn me into their ace salesman.

One of the biggest differences between component high fidelity equipment and the standard Magnavox open back type console that had been the norm was the extended bass response offered by component high fidelity.

I Discover the Pipe Organ

In order to demonstrate that difference most effectively the audio industry started utilizing recorded pipe organ music to demonstrate the low base response their equipment offered to the buyer. As a result of that process I was being strongly influenced regarding pipe organ music; the pipe organ had the most extended bass range of any instrument and quickly became a favorite among “high fidelity” audio hobbyists to display the frequency response of their subwoofers.

In the process of displaying my subwoofer and hearing other enthusiasts display their subwoofers I actually fell in love with the instrument and its music. When I finally designed my dream system I made sure it could reproduce the full range of the pipe organ.

Fortunately for me I met a remarkable and patient man who was professor of pipe organ at TCU. Amazingly he took me under his wing and went out of his way to communicate his enthusiasm for the pipe organ to me. It worked to perfection because that enthusiasm has never gone away. It is my privilege to still call him my friend.

Later when we moved from Ft. Worth back to Houston, I easily found a job selling high fidelity equipment at a new hi-fi store in Houston and held that job until I graduated from the University of Houston.

It was ironic that after I graduated and started teaching full time in the Houston Public Schools that I had to take a pay cut to be a teacher; I was actually making more money selling sound equipment part time.

Next, the digital revolution

Accidental Exposure

I suspect I was no more than around 8 years old when I accidentally discovered classical music. My mother and step-father were not particularly interested in music but when they did listen it seemed to be mostly country-western.

I remember that Sunday afternoon with great clarity; it was quiet and boring so I decided to turn on the radio and see what I could find. By accident I found a broadcast of the New York Philharmonic and discovered a whole new world of sound that I didn’t even know existed.

I was instantly transported by the music they were playing and it became engraved in my memory never to be forgotten; much later I discovered the music I heard was the “Donna Diana” Overture by Reznicek. This was the beginning of a journey which has yet to end, my pursuit of classical music and the reproduction of “high fidelity” music at home.

Many years were to pass before I got my first classical recording, a 78 RPM recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Although all of my 78 RPM records were sold by me when the new LP’s came out I was able to acquire an LP mono recording of this same performance which I’m looking at as I write this, RCA LM 1047.

My Next Big Discovery, Component High Fidelity

As I began the shift from 78 RPM to 33 1/3 RPM LP records I realized I had to get a player that could play them and found a small Philco tabletop player that could handle both. That had to suffice for several years and was all I had even after I got married which followed rather quickly; I was 19 years old when we got married.

In 1951 I joined the Naval Reserve and by the time I was a student at TCU I had become a Naval Reserve Officer Candidate. As part of my training I had to attend training at the Naval Station in Long Beach, California. While there I made another life-changing discovery, I discovered component high fidelity equipment while in Los Angeles.

This was just about as big a discovery for me as the Donna Diana Overture had been years before. I had no clue that reproduced music could sound so good. When training ended I returned to Ft. Worth and went to the Ft. Worth Library and asked about books on high fidelity. The librarian said they didn’t have any books on the subject but had just ordered one. Would I like to be the first one to check it out; you can imagine how quickly that yes came out of my mouth.

I read the book and was totally fascinated by what I read. The only home music I had heard was from Magnovox type open-back cabinet systems that were better than nothing but only just.

Public Address to the Rescue

I started looking for high fidelity equipment in stores but I couldn’t find any “high fidelity” stores in Ft. Worth that sold that sort of equipment. By accident I was visiting an audio supply store which sold intercoms and public address systems and asked the clerk if they had any hi-fi equipment and he said they had some in a back corner. You can imagine my excitement as I walked to the back of the store to see what was there.

The nature of the store should have immediately provided a clue as to what I would find; what was going on was public address equipment was being adapted for home music systems. The first hi-fi amplifiers usually had volume controls for microphones as well as for phono inputs; this was public address equipment being adapted to home use.

Even the speakers were being taken from the public address domain; a famous early hi-fi speaker like the Klipschorn used drivers and speakers designed for public address use.  Once I had discovered a possible source of equipment I started touring and calling all of the audio and electronic stores and checking out the hi-fi equipment they had in stock.

I Take the Plunge

It didn’t take too long before I could no longer resist the call of that equipment. My challenge was to figure out how to do that on a very slender shoestring budget; for me, that was part of the fun. The aforementioned Klipschorn was completely out of the question as it cost in 2012 dollars over $5,000 for a single speaker.

Klipsch made a cheaper version of his folded horn called the Klipsch Shorthorn which was available as an unfinished cabinet only model; that was just the raw wood enclosure without any speakers. I could just barely afford that and so that’s what I got.

Next came the challenge of the speakers so I decided to match the Klipschorn as closely as I could. All of the speakers components except the midrange horn and the crossover network were stock PA equipment so I decided to match those items for my new system.

Klipsch made the midrange horn specially for his big speaker and it was both too large and too expensive to use in my Shorthorn version. His mid-range driver, the University SAHF, was, however, stock PA equipment and was not too pricey so I ordered that along with the PA horn to which it was normally attached but this introduced yet another problem with which I had to deal. The Shorthorn enclosure was too small to hold even that mid-range speaker but the problem was only in height, not in width.

Klipsch had solved the mid-range problem on the Klipschorn by building a separate enclosure on top of the folded horn so I did exactly that with my Shorthorn, I added an enclosure on top.

My Very First Hi-Fi Speaker

  I was surprised and pleased to find this photo, I wasn’t even sure I had one left. What doesn’t show up in the picture is the beautiful top or the beauty of the wood finish. I applied five coats of finish to that wood and it was a thing of beauty, at least to me. As I recall it was just over five feet tall and had to be placed in a corner of the room.

The final product had the same speakers (except for the University C15W woofer and the mid-range horn) and drivers and crossover network that the Klipschorn had for a fraction of the price. From a hobbyist’s perspective that speaker was a major accomplishment, 90% of the big speakers sound for just a fraction of the cost.

I think this was the model Pilot I owned, it looks similar and was first offered by Pilot at the right time.

The balance of my first system included a Pilot 10W amplifier and a Garrard record changer with a GE monophonic cartridge. The fantastic efficiency of those PA speakers, including the University C15W woofer, permitted a hugely magnificent sound from that 10W amplifier let me assure you!

Next time, the draft board has unexpected plans for my life.

A Special Friend and Brother in Christ

Tuesday morning, May 22, 2012 the phone rang and my wife answered it; after a brief conversation she hung up the phone and came in to tell me that Jim had died. It was a good thing I was sitting down as I felt a wave of shock flash over me when I heard the news. This special Jim was an old and dear friend.

On rare occasions someone comes into our lives that makes a profound difference; when that happens one can only feel blessed by God’s grace. Just over ten years ago I had that experience although at the time I didn’t realize the significance of what had happened.

My wife and I met Jim and his wife at church; I do not remember the exact circumstances of our meeting for the first time but all of us must have felt there was something there worth cultivating because our families developed a loving, caring friendship that would last many years.

A Shared Love for Classical Music

As we later discovered, Jim and I shared a love for classical music and what was even more unusual, we shared a love for classical pipe organ music. Again I cannot remember the exact circumstances surrounding our discovery but I suspect it didn’t take too long for me to tell Jim about my audio system and invite him over to hear it.

I had been an audio hobbyist for over 50 years and had developed a love for organ music; when I designed my dream system I made sure it could reproduce the full range of the pipe organ. When Jim heard my system he was delighted with the sound; it pleased him just as much as it pleased me.

We both agreed we would need to have more than one “music afternoon” and it developed into a regular thing that meant a lot to both of us. Once it started it never stopped; earlier Jim would come over and we would go out for lunch but as Jim’s physical condition became more of a challenge for him he wouldn’t come over until just after lunch and we would enjoy music until late afternoon.

Concert Level Music Enjoyment

One of the things Jim and I both enjoyed was playing back our music at concert level and by that I mean you’re either on the front row or standing on the podium concert level. After we were done for the afternoon my wife would have to go around and straighten all of the paintings which had been knocked sideways by the loud music. Jim and I had a great time!

Usually about mid-afternoon I would ask Jim if he would like some coffee or tea and he would always say he would if I was having some and I always did. The music stopped while we were having tea or coffee and we would start talking about something in which we had a mutual interest, it could be the Bible, politics, or some aspect of the world situation but our conversations could go on for an extended period of time.

My wife would usually join us in the conversation and we would have a great time talking about whatever we choose. On more than one occasion we would keep on talking right up until it was time for Jim to go home; he liked to coordinate his return home with his wife’s schedule.

Physical Challenges Increase

As Jim’s physical condition became more of a challenge to him I started noticing he tired more easily. Jim always sat in the same recliner/rocker and enjoyed slowly rocking while he listened to music. I started noticing out of the corner of my eye that the rocking motion would sometimes stop and I would look over and see Jim’s head would have fallen forward and he was asleep; usually that was for a brief period as a change in the music would awaken him and the rocking would start again.

I was so pleased that Jim felt relaxed enough in our home to fall asleep; this was to me a touching indicator of the depth of our friendship.

In addition to our music afternoons we also had movie nights that included husbands and wives from three families. This developed into a monthly event and we would all bring sandwiches and eat together at our breakfast room table and enjoy spirited conversation around the table.

Following our sandwiches we would retire to the den and watch a movie usually chosen by vote. This was a happy time for all of us and will occupy an important place in our memories. By God’s grace we hope to continue movie night with one chair empty; that will be difficult but the general consensus seems to be that it is a good idea.

My last music afternoon with Jim was on April 4, 2012; we had an enjoyable afternoon and no idea it would be our last. One of God’s rich blessings for His children is to not know the future; it is entirely sufficient that He does.

After Jim’s death, Jim’s wife called me and asked me to say a few words at Jim’s memorial service on Saturday morning as Jim’s friend and I felt honored to have the opportunity to speak about Jim.

One of the points I made was to tell those there how easy it was to be Jim’s friend as he was one of the finest Christian gentlemen I have ever known. Here was a man who exhibited a Spirit led walk and manifested the fruit of the Spirit in his life always without exception in my experience.

The Friday afternoon before the memorial service I was sitting in the den thinking over my friendship with Jim and trying to choose those things I would say the following morning. It was so easy to remember him sitting in his recliner slowly rocking. I was hit with a great sadness as I realized I would never see him in that chair again.

I forced myself to imagine him home with the Lord and having a marvelous time seeing and experiencing those things of which we can only dream. It helped overcome my sadness to imagine his joy and laughter as he enjoys being in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jim’s home-going leaves a hole in the lives of all who knew and loved him. For his family it is a formidably large hole and for his friends it is a painfully large hole. Jim’s wife asked me to mention a Bible verse and she happened to mention Proverbs 3:5-6 among others; when she mentioned those verses in Proverbs I told her those were my anchor verses in times of testing and immediately decided those were the verses I would use.

When a loved one goes home to be with the Lord there is no hope of understanding; the only viable alternative is to trust in the Lord who loves us and gave Himself for us. My anchor verses in Proverbs tell us, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Jim will be sorely missed.