AKG Q701 headphones
The kids are all crazy about their Beats By Dre headphones, but if you want to hear how a recording was truly intended to be heard, you need a good set of studio headphones. The AKG Quincy Jones signature headphones offer superior sound quality at a similar price point, and are just as suitable in the living room as they are in the recording studio. Comes with gold-plated jack plug and contacts. The Sound Room, 2025 West Broadway, $325
Thorens TD 550 Turntable
This is a record player that costs as much as a new car. The award-winning Thorens TD 550 turntable is the gold standard for turntables, and with high quality comes high price. (Shockingly, the TD 550 is not the world’s most expensive turntable, however. That prize goes to the Goldmund Reference II, which retails for a cool $300,000.) This carbon fibre belt-driven beauty comes with a suspended chassis, electronically controlled start-up, and a silent AC synchronous motor. There’s an old adage in regards to musical equipment that the heavier something is, the better the quality. Well the TD 550 weighs in at a whopping 44 pounds, owing to the fact that its platter is a 14-pound slab of aluminum. Commercial Electronics, 1565 West 7th, $14,899
Aaron Chapman’s Live at the Commodore
Chapman has exhaustively researched the history of Vancouver’s legendary Commodore Ballroom in his latest, Live at the Commodore. The book details the rise and fall and rise and fall and rise of the club from its beginnings as the plaything of a wealthy rumrunner, to its years as an incubator for experimental rock and punk music, to the world-class live venue we know and love today. There’s some amazing photography and no shortage of crazy stories. Simply a must for any Vancouver music fan. Arsenal Pulp Press, $28.95
Mophie Space Pack
Technology is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to bring a TV, telephone, computer, flashlight, recipe book, note pad, calendar, your music collection, and the sum total of human knowledge with you wherever you went, you’d need a U-Haul. Today it fits in the palm of your hand. The Mophie Space Pack allows you to add up to 64 GB of storage to your iPhone 5/5S while extending your battery life by 100 per cent with their sweet snap-on phone case. That means you can store about 18,000 more songs on your phone, or 32,000 pictures. Future Shop, various locations, $180 (32GB model)
