After thirty years, my stereo amp finally gave up the ghost. I might eventually fix it; I really like its sound. But for now, toast.

Now that I have a new one, I've learned that having a separate component equalizer is a thing of the past. That's really too bad. And I don't have my new amp hooked up to a TV, which is what it apparently now uses to view all your equalizer settings quickly. Not to mention all but one preset assume you have four to five speakers. I should add I'm mostly using this as an output for my iMac and to play vinyl on my 30 year-old turntable (which now needs its own pre-amp for this amp to play it).

I really want to be able to reach over, grab a knob, push up/down a specific band, tweak the sound a touch, and go back to work. I don't want to have to hit seventeen different buttons in a row on my stupid remote (remote?! For a stereo amp? You've got to be kidding me) to make one album sound a little better.

Look, kids, sometimes nostalgia for the past really is remembering a better way of doing things. When we couldn't make everything work through the same digital interface, we could often access different settings with ease. /sigh

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