The Chalcolithic and Digital Ages

My Sansui Amplifier

The other day my friend Russ Adams called me on the phone.  He has been calling me about every second day since I was hospitalized this summer.  The conversations are light and witty, and Russ has been a fountain of support throughout this difficult time. 

Somewhere in our conversation, I mentioned that on that day I had bought an amplifier at a thrift store for $45 for my and Aidan's new apartment.  It is a Sansui analogue amplifier, without anything even remotely 'digital' about it. 

To me it is a gem, and represents the very height of sound engineering before that particular world embraced the digital age.  My Sansui receives composite jacks on two sides, and has four channels; it then amplifies the sound beautifully through our speakers. 

Chalcolithic period mace-head

Our conversation then led to the Chalcolithic.  This was the period at the end of the Neolithic and while people were using raw copper to make ornaments and some tools and weapons.  Copper by itself is very soft, and so these copper implements did not completely replace the stone tools and weapons.  The height of stone age manufacture in the Near East was in fact during the Chalcolithic. 

And there it is: the Sansui amplifier was made in a time when other things, like computers, had gone digital, and represent the very best of the analogue amplifier world.  My Sansui analogue amplifier is a Chalcolithic stone tool. 

Thanks, Russ!

Jim