OTHER TECH

Any albums that stand out for you as go-to LPs? Led Zeppelin. The Stones. Jimi Hendrix. They just come down on you, man. Listening to albums on a good pair of headphones - that's an unbelievable experience. Hey, you know what? That's when I sit down and listen to music and do nothing else.

I was glad to see Aerosmith put out [2004's] Honkin' on Bobo (Columbia) on vinyl. Yeah, we really tried to stick to our guns on that one. Everybody in the band was into it. There are certainly some advantages to CD, no doubt. But you go to all this trouble to get to 96k, and it still has to get squeezed back down to 16k because that's what CDs are.

Let's talk surround sound. We discussed it when your solo album, Joe Perry (Columbia), came out in 5.1 in 2005, and it was f***ing great. Well, thanks. I think if you're a devout fan and spend time sitting down and really listen to music, 5.1 is a fun way to go if it's been done right, like they used to do with the old English records. That's how we got all those cool Beatles records with all the vocals on one side and all the music on the other. That drove the Beatles crazy since they didn't record it that way, but as fans, we hear a Beatles song basically a cappella with music on the other side. It's fascinating, almost like getting a bootleg of a studio cut, or something that they would have mixed to take home that night as a work tape. They would say, "Geoff [Emerick, their engineer], run me off a cassette so I could listen to it overnight." Very often, as a musician, you'll do that: Put all the guitars on one side and the vocals on the other, or just the drums on one side. And that's what these records sounded like, so as fans, it was a blessing. The artists didn't look at it like that, though: "This isn't how we wanted it to sound. We're selling these to America?" It was a whole different era.

Did you hear or see the Beatles' Love project? The surround mix on that one is pretty cool. Oh yeah, I saw that show in Vegas. [My wife] Billie and I went. It had been open for a couple months when we saw it. It brought up so many different feelings. Growing up during that period, those songs were the soundtracks of our lives. That music accompanied so much of what happened in that era.

It's living history, the chronicle of the last 45-50 years. And we're still alive to hear it. We talked to the sound engineer, one of the guys who worked with George [Martin], and found out how they put it together. The masters are actually in the vault there in Vegas, though maybe they're not there now. They really made sure every single thing was right. They dedicated it to George [Harrison], as well as to John [Lennon]. The project was George's pet thing. He was the one who really wanted to see the thing through. He didn't get a chance to see the final product, but he did see some of the early stages.

You must have crossed paths with George Harrison one time or another during your career, right? Never did. I met John at the Record Plant in New York, in passing, in the hall. He was working upstairs. He had sealed off that floor. Ringo [Starr] was up there too, I think. I just happened to be in the hall and he walked by. I was totally starstruck. I said hi, he said hi, and then he walked by me. I met Ringo when he was doing one of his All-Starr Band tours. I got to meet him backstage for a minute. I mean, he's a Beatle.

So you never crossed paths with Paul McCartney? Well, actually I did, now that you mention it. It was at the MTV Awards, or something like that. Had a chance to talk to him for a bit. That was all.

Anybody else you'd like to meet? Dylan. People have asked me many times, "What would you still like to do?", and I think to sit in on a Bob Dylan song session in the studio - I could die and go to heaven after that. Someday . . .

Tell me about your home theater setup. I have a three-lamp Vidikron projector with a Stewart Filmscreen screen. We have a Runco flastscreen TV for daily viewing. The bulbs on the Vidikron only have so much time on them, so I like to save them for when we're watching something big and with a lot of action. I'm still a big believer in the analog projectors, kind of like vinyl records. You really have to get the thing tuned every once in a while. People who are used to the clarity of the HD of the Runco go, "How come it looks a little dark?" You have to have the room dark and set up right.

I also have Bryston power amps. I use a lot of Bryston in my downstairs studio. We just have regular cable with TiVo. I like the way the TiVo looks. It's very intuitive.

I have B&W mastering speakers for my stereo with a Mark Levinson amplifier. I've got Ariel speakers for the fronts, sides, and for the back, and a B&W subwoofer. And then I have a Sony Blu-ray Disc player and a Toshiba HD DVD player.

Any DVDs or Blu-ray Discs stand out to you as favorites? Most of the stuff I've seen recently has been on HD DVD, but I guess I'll have to concentrate more on Blu-ray now. One movie that really knocked me out is Shoot 'Em Up. I love that movie - the production values, the story, the whole thing. It's great. Paul Giamatti is one of my favorite actors. It's the first time my wife and I have ever watched the same movie twice in a row. It blew us away so much that we had to watch it again.