Okay, ARC charges $510 for the cover. Shame on them. But shame on he who buys one, too. ARC has learned how much their repeat customers are willing and able to pay for ARC product. The only thing that will change that is for those customers to stop doing it. |
Mark and Mitch, it was when my '84 528e starting needing new parts every year that I decided it was time to let it go. $1500 a year for a couple of years was more than the car was worth! I did enjoy driving it for twenty-four years, though, and got 230,000 miles out of it. |
Pehare---I've done exactly that. My RM-200 MK.2 amp is the last one I'll ever buy. |
Ha! That is so funny, and so great. Roger sees the designs of a lot of expensive electronics as gratuitous and vulgar. He can point to particular aspects in the results of a John Aldridge Stereophile bench test, ascribe them to elements of the circuit's design, and predict the behavior of the circuit with different speaker loads. He did just that with the D'Agostino power amp, wondering why anyone would want to own or even listen to such a poorly designed amp. He tore it to shreds, one design aspect at a time. Absolutely brilliant! Being an expert in tube amp design, Roger highly disapproves of amps with large numbers of tubes, explaining exactly why it is a bad idea, and why.
Roger is very different from a lot of the designers in High End, having a normally-sized ego in spite of his vast knowledge, abilities, and creativity. I'm sure he and Keith Herron would get on great. If I was in the market for a lower powered tube amp, the Music Reference RM-10 would be my first choice. Roger's new products include an ESL speaker with a dedicated, direct coupled, transformer-less tube power amp. For owners of high-efficiency speakers he has a number of low-power triode (SE and otherwise) amps at very reasonable prices.
Why Roger and his products aren't more widely owned and talked about is a complete mystery to me. Sure, he isn't much into marketing, and doesn't have a vast dealer network (thankfully I had Brooks Berdan, a big fan of Roger and his products, as a dealer. And Brooks was extremely critical.). But if I know of him, I see no reason why anyone else can't. |
Pehare, I neglected to mention the amp of Rogers that should be of particular interest to Magneplanar owners. The RM-300 is a 300 watt mono block (with the same basic circuit as that of the RM-200) which may be the best tube amp available for driving Maggies. Why? Because, unlike all other tube amps of which I am aware, it's power output increases with falling impedance, not decreases. Many Maggie owners have to settle for solid state amps because tubes don't like the very low impedance load the speaker presents an amp, when they would rather use a tube amp. The RM-300 makes that possible. Unfortunately the amp is $9000, $18,000 a pair. Still, that's less than a lot of the more well known and owned amps that Maggie users buy. |
Hey, I didn't say it about D'Agostino's amp, Roger did! But as Roger pointed out, so did John Atkinson, in his comments on the results of his bench tests of the amp. Between the lines of course, as Roger also pointed out. For anyone wanting to read an evaluation of the amp's design from a circuit design expert's perspective (recommended for anyone contemplating it's purchase), it should be easily found on the Music Reference Audiocircle Forum.
As for Roger's credentials versus, in this case, Dan D-Agostino's, it reminds me of when back in the 70's Frank Van Alstine had the nerve to offer a mod for the Audio Research SP-3. Why, the SP-3 was designed by Bill Johnson, the best designer in High End! Who does Frank Van Alstine think he is? He doesn't even make his own products, just modifies those of others. Frank claimed his mod corrected a number of faults in the SP-3 (inaccurate RIAA equalization, insufficient gain at low frequencies, circuit instability, etc.). And guess what---it did, as Harry Pearson wrote in TAS. After that, every owner of an SP-3 wanted the Van Alstine SP-3 mod. The fact alone that Dan D'Agostino has a higher profile than Roger Modjeski---does that invalidate Roger's evaluation of Dan's amp? |
Just so you'll know, Roger Modjeski is not one of those guys who finds fault with everyone else's designs. He thinks highly of Mike Sanders (Quicksilver), Tim DeParavicini (EAR), and Ralph Karsten (Atma-Sphere), amongst other current designers.
Brooks Berdan, the most critical listener I've ever know, sold only products he liked, business be damned. What he liked in tubed electronics were VTL, Jadis, and Music Reference. Period. In solid state he found little to like, but loved the amp of Richard Brown, the BEL. Like Roger, Richard had an underground cult reputation for his design abilities. Talk about a low profile! Brooks couldn't keep the amp in stock---every time he demoed his, the listener bought it! It would take months to get another, as Richard built them on his kitchen table, one at a time. Does the fact that Brown Electronics Company had few dealers, were never reviewed or talked about on Hi-Fi sites, and are owned by almost no one, mean that Richard's opinion of an amp's design would not be not worthy of consideration? Or that his qualifications to even have one are in question? If so, I suggest no one ask Jeff Beck to evaluate the playing of, say, Eddie Van Halen. A bad analogy perhaps, but you get the point. |
Good story from you too, Statman. I didn't see eye to eye with Brooks on all audio matters, but that was okay. My fondness for the Decca cartridge "amused" him, but he shared my enthusiasm for Quad ESL's (he was a dealer). I think he liked me coming into his shop 'cause I had a girlfriend he liked a lot! His wife Sheila (who now manages the shop) asked me to get a band to play at his 50th birthday party, and the happiest I ever saw him was on my drumset playing "Wipeout" with the band. He had been a drummer in High School, and hadn't played in years. His favorite drummer, by the way, was Ron Bushy of Iron Butterfly. At least he had good taste in Hi-Fi ;-)! |
I was in the LAOCAS in the 90's, and attended all the shows in California. I also accompanied Brooks to CES every January for years, but dropped out of Hi-Fi for awhile, visiting Brooks only occasionally. He became a customer of mine, buying a bunch of Vintage Drums (60's Ludwig and Rogers).
I'm slowing down in my old age, and getting back into it. If you remember seeing a 6' tall guy with a long ponytail who wasn't Ralph Karsten, it was me ;-). |
