Fidelity High

Two test tone records designed to calibrate pricey sound systems are transformed into a pair of speakers that broadcast the contents of their own grooves. In this transformation the standard gauge of the test tone record is put literally to the test with its function inverted: the record -- the source of the sound of the calibration -- is coupled to a driver and turned into a speaker, thus rendering the test of fidelity one in which the vinyl platter is used to measure its ability to reproduce its own sound -- its measuring capabilities audibly audited.

The name of the piece refers both to the audiophile impulse for the contact high resulting from hearing "perfect" sound reproduction and to the nostalgia surrounding such an impulse. Alluding to a now fading era in which rumbling grain of the phonograph needle (actually its lack thereof) signified the degree of sonic purity that could be achieved, the title describes a phase of aural adolescence delimited by the obsessive measure and remeasure of sound reproduction in seach of a clinically perfect moment.

Here the amplification of the contours of the microgroove to the macromovement of the vinyl fluctuating in space tests not only the fidelity of the sonic object as it reproduces its own sound, it tests our assumptions about the standards which we require our technologies to meet.