OTHER TECH

EgglestonWorks.

Yeah, Eggleston. I just said, "This is what I want, if it will give me that same sound in my house." And I'm thrilled with this system. These are mastering speakers, I believe - the ones that Bob Ludwig used to master the Stones SACDs. I got a few other SACDs, but none of them sound much different from the originals. So the difference must be in the remastering. That evening, at the listening party - which was attended by my friend Phil Spector as well - they were talking about how they did the remastering. And I'm a very non-technical person, but what I did get from it was that they spent a considerable amount of time doing it, and they did it lovingly. That's a great way to put it.

How did you decide on this room for your system?

We had just built an extra garage, and my wife Cathy said, "You can have the room above it for your office. You can have everything in there the way you want it." I'm not really the type to put in a studio, because I don't really have anything to record. That takes time, and between the daily Letterman show and trying to be a dad, that's all the time I have. I like to come up here on Saturday mornings and turn on Felix Hernandez's all-R&B show, Rhythm Revue, on [WBGO] 88.3. That's why I have that FM tuner. It's from a guy named Mario at a place called Toys from the Attic. I love it that, when I do get the chance to put something on, I know it will sound great.

Have you ever been a vinyl collector?

No. I do have a turntable, though, you notice. At the time I was acquiring this system, a guy gave me a record of a pipe organ, and I got a turntable so I could play it. And when you put that record on, you really do hear what a great transmitter of sound quality a vinyl record is. I can put it on and just fill this room with the sound of a big pipe-organ concert. It's recorded beautifully on vinyl.

The original incarnation of the Late Night World's Most Dangerous Band (from left): Hiram Bullock, Steve Jordan, Paul Shaffer, and Will Lee.

When you were a kid, which did you find yourself gravitating toward: 45s or albums?

Not too many of either, because I was mainly concerned with learning how to play the songs on the piano. Whereas another kid might put on a 45 of the Beach Boys doing "I Get Around," I would just come home after school and sit down at the piano and learn it.

In other words, you'd rather play it than collect it.

Right. So I never collected it. But I did have some records - a couple of Supremes albums I remember. When the recordings were just so good that playing them on the piano wasn't enough to get me off, I really had to buy them. But when I went to college, I left those albums at home. And then I had quite a good collection when I was in college that started to include things like Herbie Hancock; Head Hunters had come out of that time. I started to get interested in jazz.

I didn't know you had a jazz background. I always assumed it was more R&B.

Well, I love R&B. That's really my heart.

Are you a movie person?

Not really.