**** The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: The Virtue of Cassette Tapes on a Dominican Stereo

While this work is sufficient to stir the imagination, what it lacks is a character that I can relate to.  Generally, I am unable to feel much empathy with these characters, and even less so in the book than in the movie.  Though this book is well read – Rob Inglis did a good job - for the next book in the trilogy, I will try actually reading it instead of listening to it to see if that allows me to enjoy it more.

The recording was done on cassette tapes.  Wow!  What a blast from the past!  Additionally, this recording came out before the event of the movie, 1991.  It required me pulling out from the closet an old Aiwa amplifier/compact disk player/cassette recorder that I used back when I attended college.  The compact disk player part of the system has long been broken, but the tape player still works.  In fact, I thought of throwing it out, but then I decided to save it so that I could show my son Alex a piece of history, cassette tapes.  These things I can only do when he is old enough to understand.

I also have a compact disk player walkman that I used to plug in so that I didn’t have to buy a new stereo system when the compact disk player in this system broke, and an old pair of compact computer speakers.  The amplifier and the original speakers worked fine, so I thought to myself; why throw out the stereo if only one part of this is broken?  When listening to The Hobbit, however, I didn’t use the original speakers, however, but the compact computer speakers.  I didn’t need the volume or the quality; and, I desired to save space because my family has only a small apartment.

I call this a Dominican stereo, yet perhaps it is not loud enough to even call it that, as the stereo systems in the Dominican Republic are often a collection of random leftover parts.  The ability to adapt the compact disk player to the system comes via a common stereo cable that plugs into the headphone jack of the compact disk player walkman and selecting the auxiliary source to be amplified on the amplifier.  The speakers of the system have their own amplifier, such that it requires a male adapter to go from the large male plug in the system and the small male plug, which connects the speakers to the system.  That is though it is not a very large system, the power from the amplifier, if sent directly to the compact computer speakers would overload them, as the compact speakers require a load about the level that a head phone jack gives.  Thus, it is such that the volume on the compact computer speakers needs adjusting and the volume on the amplifier needs adjusting, and if the compact disk walkman is used, impossible in this scenario as this recording of The Hobbit was on cassette tapes, a third volume knob is added.