The Perfect Sound

A Memoir in Stereo

By: Garrett Hongo

Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith

A poet’s audio obsession, from collecting his earliest vinyl to his quest for the ideal vacuum tubes. A captivating book that “ingeniously mixes personal memoir with cultural history and offers us an indispensable guide for the search of acoustic truth” (Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan).

Garrett Hongo’s passion for audio dates back to the Empire 398 turntable his father paired with a Dynakit tube amplifier in their modest tract home in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. But his adult quest begins in the CD-changer era, as he seeks out speakers and amps both powerful and refined enough to honor the top notes of the greatest opera sopranos. In recounting this search, he describes a journey of identity where meaning, fulfillment, and even liberation were often most available to him through music and its astonishingly varied delivery systems.

Hongo writes about the sound of surf being his first music as a kid in Hawai‘i, about doo-wop and soul reaching out to him while growing up among Black and Asian classmates in L.A., about Rilke and Joni Mitchell as the twin poets of his adolescence, and about feeling the pulse of John Coltrane’s jazz and the rhythmic chords of Billy Joel’s piano from his car radio while driving the freeways as a young man trying to become a poet.

Journeying further, he visits devoted collectors of decades-old audio gear as well as designers of the latest tube equipment, listens to sublime arias performed at La Scala, hears a ghostly lute at the grave of English Romantic poet John Keats in Rome, drinks in wisdom from blues musicians and a diversity of poetic elders while turning his ear toward the memory-rich strains of the music that has shaped him: Hawaiian steel guitar and canefield songs; Bach and the Band; Mingus, Puccini, and Duke Ellington. And in the decades-long process of perfecting his stereo setup, Hongo also discovers his own now-celebrated poetic voice.

For Stereo Hounds

Staggering depth, but a tour de force of the author’s ongoing quest. Recommended for the stereo and music geek alike.

Affecting Memoir Mixed with Audiophile Musings

Very enjoyable memoir with great writing. The best part of the book is the first two thirds where the focus is on childhood memories and early encounters with music and audio. The book diverges into a primer on the history of music reproduction, which while interesting, held less personal biography. We skip from early career quests to retirement almost immediately. I would have liked to read more about the middle section of Mr. Hongo’s life. All in all it was an enjoyable read and an invitation to a part of an interesting life. Recommend for fans of poetry and for fellow audiophiles.