(Yeh, well, you’ll have to just take the fractured English, cos I say so. So there. *heh*)
A couple of months ago, a very generous Lovely Daughter and Husband gave this to me:
OK, so it’s an eight-year-old semi-mini-system they had already scheduled to be donated somewhere. I’m not belittling their generosity, though. Quite the contrary. It’s still more than enough sound for the 18.5’X12′ room I put it in, and produces a little better sound than the 17-year-old Pioneer tuner and KLH speakers I had been using there. And it even plays DVDs very nicely. No remote (at the time), but there was a solution for that. A couple of weeks ago, Lovely Daughter even brought up the remote they’d found.
Bonus: while I’ve been getting some work done here, I’ve been playing this:
Also free, sent to me for listening/commenting on an Internet “radio” site six or seven years ago. The set I have isn’t exactly like the one linked. It has just disk one and disk two (both in the Samsung CD/DVD changer now) but also includes a booklet with the text of Bush’s September 20, 2001 address to Congress. While that’s nice to have on hand I would probably prefer to have disk 3, and will have to locate and purchase that. Amazon, I suppose.
See the list of pieces performed for the recordings below the break. Some aren’t actually American in origin (the “Colonel Bogey March” stands out there) but have been adopted into the American experience so thoroughly as to be “American” for the typically expansive values that characterize the melting pot America*. 🙂
Enjoying (and enjoying this break as well :-)) the music and the sound system. Thanks, generous folks, all!
Disc 1
God Bless America; Armed Forces Salute: Anthems of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines & Air Force; El Capitan; Liberty Bell; Porgy & Bess; Shaker’s Melody; The Yellow Rose of Texas; Liberty Fanfare; Hoe Down; Strike Up the Band; America the Beautifu; Stars and Stripes Forever.
Disc 2; American Salute: Fantasia on”When Johnny Comes Marching Home”; Fanfare for the Common Man; Boston Pops March; Bill Bailey; Jeannie With the Light BrownHair / Beautiful Dreamer; Washington Post March; Battle Hymn of the Republic; America Patriotic Themes (America the Beautiful, Anchors Aweigh, Dixie); Old Folks at Home; Hoe Down; Colonel Bogey; Star Spangled Spectacular: Yankee Doodle Dandy.
*”The “melting pot America” isn’t quite like I have at times characterized the English language (“lures unsuspecting languages into dark alleys and mug them for useful participles” *heh*), but was once the most inclusive society on earth, incorporating and making distinctly American anything of value in contributing cultures. It was quite distinctive from the “cultural diversity” balkanization society is tending to nowadays. *sigh*
Note for “Oddiofiles” *heh*:
No, the sound coming from the 5+1 Samsung tuner/player/speaker set doesn’t sound “live” any more than any other reproduced sound, and in fact less so than the 5+1 sound on my desktop (in an even smaller room), even less “live” insome ways than when I use a very nice set of ear buds and play CDs through a computer, though ear buds certainly lack the physical presence of sound external speakers can supply. But, at full (or nearly) volume levels, the Samsung certainly does a decent job of sound reproduction in this room, and playing DVDs on it is a very nice experience indeed.
Free is indeed the right price for many things. And it makes even things that you might not have thought quite the right choice suddenly become the right choice. 🙂
Indeed, Nicole. There were things about both of these freebies that would have steered me to something slightly different were I to be buying, but both are adequate, and indeed good, in their own ways, and I am grateful for the generosity of others.