By When I was in college and working with Joe Cali and Mark Levinson, selling the world’s most expensive audio systems at Cello Music and Film Los Angeles, I wanted to be just like my mentors. I know that I am a very good audiophile salesman, but Joe Cali is the audiophile G.O.A.T. and Mark Levinson was the biggest name in our business long before the Lexus deal. When Mark took me on as a young-gun audiophile salesman, I wanted to do everything like him. He introduced me to jazz legends like Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. He taught me how to physically indentify wealthy men, specifically in Los Angeles (belts, shoes and watches – but never cars), but there was one thing that I always wondered about.
Levinson, an audiophile God in my book, rocks a bit of an Einstein look, physically. Bushy eyebrows, sometimes silly faces, but most importantly hair flowing from his ear holes. Einstein is pretty well respected. Mark Levinson is a New York Times best-selling author (buy his book at Amazon) on what most women consider their favorite topic. How could following their style guidance be a bad idea?
The Latest Audiophile Trend That is Going Viral
Perhaps you read about it on R/Audiophile or AVSForum.com, but audiophiles who are looking to get to the Nth degree of excellence are doing something that few men have done before. They are waxing their ears. I am not talking about those weird little hairs on the outside of your ears that sprout up without notice. I am talking about those little but tightly cropped hairs the look like the top of a carrot sticking out of your ears. People are getting those hairs waxed out of their ears. Men are. Audiophiles are. It looks like it’s a viral trend.
How Many Vietnamese Women Do You Need to Get This Audiophile Tweak?
In my case, the answer was four. It was a slow day at the less-fancy nail salon across the street from me here in Marina Del Rey, thus there was plenty of talent looking to sell me their services. A few years ago, it took me a lot of nerve to walk into the nail salon in Pacific Palisades (don’t look for it, as it burned down in the fire) and they were great to me. I tried other salons in the Palisades and they weren’t as good or friendly, but don’t fret, as most places are happy to see the male gender walk into a nail salon. Just be forewarned that they might be looking to make an up-sale.
That’s how I got suckered into the latest audiophile trend. I came in to get my toenails trimmed and my fingernails smoothed out. It is known as a “male mani-pedi.” I love being sold to, as most professional salespeople do. One of the free beauticians started massaging my neck. Others were working on my hands and feet. Then the fourth one came over with hot wax and wanted to work on my eyebrows. I hesitated, as any reasonable person might, but the young woman told me that I looked like George Clooney and that I would look even better with this done. I was closed.
The next part was a little bit invasive, but I lived. She plucked a few storage eyebrows. Next, she trimmed them, so that I looked less like Mark Levinson or Einstein. I was spinning with self-doubt, but then came the next close. “We do your ear,” she said, without really commanding the use of plural forms of the words that she chose, albeit in an endearing way. The next thing I knew, there was warm wax in my left ear. WTF was going on here. Then came the ripping effect. And it wasn’t once as much as it was about five times. By the time she was using small scissors on my ears, I was numb. She moved on to the other ear. The ripping of the ear hair out wasn’t as bad as one might expect, but the whole experience felt a little bit out of body for me.
It didn’t take the fourth girl to be done and the other three told me that I did, in fact, look more like George Clooney (after a meth binge, perhaps but not under normal circumstances), and gave me all sorts of thumbs up. They wanted to take photos to share with my girlfriend. I was still in shock.
Listening Post-Ear Hair Waxing
After walking home to my deluxe apartment in the sky (I am moving to a smaller one soon, as the owner wants this one back, and I can’t really justify the absurd rent anyway), I went right to my audiophile system and sat down for some listening. From Amazon Music, I was streaming some well-recorded and great-sounding tracks from their 1970s R&B channel, specifically “Float On” by The Floaters, which is about as good as the genre of 1970s soul gets. The outfits. The introductions. The astrological signs. This is as strong of a jam as I can think of. How was the audio improvement post-ear hair upgrade? Not audible, I found. After volume-matched A/B testing, I just couldn’t hear much of a difference, but I was not deterred.
I went to a more modern track in Michael Bublé’s rendition of the classic “The Best Is Yet To Come.” The mic sounds tubey and like a Neumann. The dynamic range is shocking and the dynamic window goes from delicate to fantastically bombastic. Bublé’s voice is rich and smooth. The horns have depth and vibrancy. The stand-up bass walks in the 40 to 50+ Hertz range with authority. And the track sounds just the same as it did before waxing my ears. Did the track sound great? Yes, it did, but it was the same great that I heard before I walked over to the nail salon for a 3:30 break from the office. I just couldn’t hear a difference. Not one percent of a difference.
Now, if anybody knows audio and ear hair, it is Michael Fremmer of The Tracking Angle. The king of all vinyl might suggest that what I was missing was a listening track on an LP. Well Mike, I just got some fancy new 180-gram One-Step pressings from MOFI and I cued up Michael Jackson’s Thriller. On “Human Nature,” there are chimes way back in Quincy Jones’ mix that, on a less-than-killer system, you just can’t hear the resolute musical detail. On my increasingly insane reference audiophile system, you can hear the chimes, easily – both before I went to the nail salon and post-me getting my ears waxed.
The Moral of the Audiophile Story
The moral of this story is not to be a schmuck on wheels and buy into every bullshit trend that we read about on social media, in the extremist audiophile publications and elsewhere. The audiophile hobby is beyond susceptible to complete and total flaming bullshit, such as the notion that getting your ears waxed somehow helps you hear better. Piles of Mpingo discs might change your audio chakra, but it doesn’t change your sound in any way that you can really hear and certainly not justify the acquisition costs, as piles of Mpingo discs can really add up.
Being in search for the Nth degree of performance is in every audiophile’s DNA. It just is. Falling for total bullshit upgrade ideas is not in our DNA, yet they are floated all of the time to us, and at often obscene costs. I was talking to a fellow reviewer at another publication and he had the chance to review a $4,000 electrical fuse. Did it change the world for him? No. In fact, it didn’t change a Goddamn thing sonically. It would have lowered his credit score if he had bought the fuse, but I digress.
The big reveal will be with my girlfriend, Kristy. Fighting all stereotypes, she loves listening to music with me, but I would never tell her that I got my inner ears waxed for audio purposes. She would have me committed to a 5150 hold at Cedars Sinai inside of the hour. Now, did I tell her that I got suckered into this absurdity at the nail salon? Of course I did, and she thinks of me as her metrosexual boyfriend who does what it takes to be her audiophile George Clooney. At least, that’s what she calls me these days, because turning my ugly, ex-stereo salesman ass into George Clooney is an upgrade very worth investing in …
What audiophile trends bother you the most? Have you fallen for any (green paint on CDs, sawhorses for your speaker cables) that you regret? Do you go to the nail salon? If so, what color polish is your summer go-to? Share with us in the comments below.
