"Electricity Is Like Blood": Inside Japan's Audio Obsession

For some Japanese audiophiles, the perfect sound requires the purest electricity possible—and they’ll go to pretty extreme lengths to get it.

To think that some people still quarrel over mp3s vs. vinyl! The quest for the perfect sound has gone to even more pedantic and absurd lengths after a Japanese sound fanatic installed a 40-meter personal utility pole in his front garden for $10,000.

According to the audio-obsessive in question, Takeo Morita, a $60,000 amplifier and German-engineered theater loudspeakers aren’t gonna get you that extra something out of your records. What will is pure, uninterfered-with electricity straight from the grid 2 u. “Electricity is like blood. If it is tainted, the whole body will get sick,” Mr. Morita told the Wall Street Journal. “No matter how expensive the audio equipment is, it will be no good if the blood is bad.” Well, at least there’s a final option out there for all your 128kbps youtube rips, then.

For more must-have audio quality insanity, read on about über-expensive custom built headphones here or discover some audio artists changing the way we perceive sound.