Upon first site of ’Andrew Singer Of "Sound by Singer" passed away yesterday’ I immediately thought there’ll likely be more than a few ’ugh finally’s floating around the hobby today.
I met him once, probably 30 years ago, as a pair of hands while accompanying a dealer friend with some business to handle with him. I found him quick & pleasant. That said- it was rare to hear a good word about him whenever his name came up. Maybe it was ’Hating’, maybe it was the ads. He did alot of expensive advertising back in the print media days and no one in the hobby got to escape that imperious black & white gaze- even if you were an audio guy in the furthest reaches of Alaska terrain. There were sometimes pictures of equipment, but the most prominent image in any of the ads would be of him.
He was selling him.
There were lots of dealers in the heyday of this pursuit, he was good enough to position himself at the top of the heap and that in itself always inspires hatred in any business. The pulling up in the ’Mercedes in Armani with Rolex...’ bullsht always rears it’s ridiculous cliche head throughout audiophilia and as a former (and sometimes successful) sales professional, I can tell you with complete certainty that that particular moan almost always emanates from either a tire kicker/timewaster/dreamer or a complete schmuck, all of whom are usually spotable upon first utterance.
The cat lived a good life. He did what he wanted to do and did it well enough to pay some very high rent and still have enough leftover to show the entire audio universe his face somewhere everyday of the year for decades.
Good for him.