I have a friend who lives in the boondocks who is without question the foremost expert in this Country on a certain vintage turntable. I will leave the particulars out so as to avoid making him the focus of this discussion or letting someone else figure out who I am talking about. He said something to me recently that I always knew on a certain level but have not seen "transparently" until his comment. His statement is this; "audio magazines including Stereophile are useful for birdcages and if you run out of toilet paper and nothing else". This was in the context of discussing Mike Fremer's preference for 9" arms. I have concluded that he is absolutely correct, but only for those who have the guts to really dive into audio with open eyes and willing to expend the effort to focus all of their attention and for lack of a better word, devotion, to figuring out the truth for themselves. This person I speak of has unquestionably done that. He has engineered his own products that make his turntable of choice as good as it can get. He thinks outside the box. Convention or "accepted thought" mean nothing to him. The analogy that comes to mind is wine. I know of many who will not buy a wine unless some critic has given it a 90 or above. When someone points out how silly it is to rely on published numbers from someone they don't know, they claim that they rely on experts and numerical ratings because they lack the patience, time and resources to taste wine options for themselves. What it boils down to is intellectual laziness. I intend to filter out 100% of what I read in magazines and even audio boards as absolutely unreliable. I have no doubt that I will fall short, but it is a lofty goal nonetheless. We all ought to forge our own trail(s) with sweat and effort and open minds and avoid laziness. Apologies to those who don't appreciate sermons.
OP clarification accepted and appreciated! turns out my filter inverts phase and feeds it back in to inputs !!!!! i value the inputs and opinions of others for sure one way is humble yourself and start listening to what others have on TT, CD player or streaming..... big fun
+1 2psyop! I called Fremer out for promoting some $6K PC's! I did not slander or call him names! I have been interested in Audio at least as long as him (maybe longer). Paying that much for wire did irk me, especially after reading his hyperbole and fulsome praise of said product!
Fremer lost most of his cred with me when he raved about sticking a ridiculous SR PHT (tiny metal jujubee) so called "transducer" on a tonearm, and consequently never mentioned them again because he doesn't seem to actually use the things.
Outsider looking in here. Sorry if it is not my place to comment on such weighty matters but this seems to be a topic that generates a lot of navel gazing among serious audiophiles. There always seems to be some level of fetishism that seems perfectly reasonable to some but unreasonable to others. And to be honest, for those of us on the outside, the fetishism of even moderate audiophiles seems rather extreme to us. But that is neither here-nor-there because at many levels the outsider is in fact uninformed.
And this is a problem, if you want to call it that, in most serious and expensive hobbies, especially those in which there is a large subject element like hearing, seeing, tasting and simple preference. I see this same thing in photography.
And there are also gear heads in most hobbies of this nature. Their joy seems to be not in the music and not in the photograph and not in the performance of a sports car on an actual race track but in the specifications and potential capabilities of the audio equipment, car or camera or lens. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. But their objective and enjoyment is going to be different from those in whom the music and the actual image and actual lap times matter the most. In photography they are often called pixel peepers. Many of them have lavish gear. Many of them often can't recognize are truly good photograph much less make one. Many a 911 owner couldn't keep up with me in an old 350Z on a race track.
Then there are the name droppers. Who has the mostest and the bestest and the latest. Those who will pay $2000 for a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23 and not be able to tell that it is hardly any better if better at all than a $110 bottle of Blantons. Nothing wrong with that either as long as they don't try to persuade someone that the Pappy is $1800 better.
I dabble in a number of 'high end' hobbies. One of my joys, and maybe this is a stupid fetish too, is getting to that point where I can appreciate something that is truly good but also recognize where the increments of 'better' become of little meaning and high cost. That's subjective too of course.
i also dabble in the exotic and somewhat esoteric but i also enjoy ( several..maybe even 3 ) very salty Johnsonville Brats with my Seasmoke Ten life is much to short to argue much....
there are things to be learned from anyone...including Fremer...
Outsiders looking at the audio hobby oft perceive ritualistic behavior, psychological trickery or traps, obsessive compulsive behavior, fetishism, masochistic behavior, lack of cost benefit analysis, peer pressure, crass salesmanship, trolling, shilling, behaviors of addiction, a general inability to express characteristics of sound without being trite, glib or hackneyed. Yet the outsiders perceptions of hobbyists are not necessarily false.
n80"here always seems to be some level of fetishism that seems perfectly reasonable to some but unreasonable to others...
I dabble in a number of 'high end' hobbies. One of my joys, and maybe this is a stupid fetish too, is getting to that point where I can appreciate something that is truly good...
Well that is fine if your sexual life and sexual satisfaction is inextricably associated, linked and dependent upon your hobbies and audio life and that you may be unable to sexually "perform" without these hobbies and the equipment you acquire to indulge those hobbies but for you to assume based upon what you have read here that others share this particular sexual deviation is misguided on your part. I pass no judgment on you apparently use this equipment to achieve sexual satisfaction but probably the rest of us would likely prefer that you not infer, deduce or speculate about our sexual preferences, practices and interests on this site. Personally I feel very sorry for you that you suffer this problem and I do not mean that in a judgemental way at all you probably need help and I hope you are able to find it so that you can function as a human being without relying on things such as equipment used in Music Reproduction Systems to achieve your sexual gratification and fulfillment.
clearthink, that is very funny. I did not take into consideration that everyone might not know the various meanings of 'fetishism'.
But just so you know, even though you might not have intended to be judgmental, you probably offended the very very large numbers of people who do actually swing that way.....
n80" I did not take into consideration that everyone might not know the various meanings of 'fetishism'...you probably offended the very very large numbers of people who do actually swing that way"
A fetish is "a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc." and if that is how you get your little jollies it is fine by me but it is a mistake for you to assume, deduce or infer that participants, contributors and readers of this forum or audiophiles, music lovers or musicians share your dependence on audio equipment for sexual performance, gratification and fulfillment and no I am not judging you in any way but I think you might need professional help so that you can function as a more complete human being.
onhwy61"Have you never looked at the reflex port on your loudspeakers and wondered? Wait, are your loudspeakers rear-ported?"
No I have never considered, fantasized or contemplated having sexual intercourse with audio equipment and it is increasingly evident that you have had such urges and I encourage to you seek help for what many would consider a sexual deviation that will prevent you from enjoying happiness in a sexual way with an actual fellow human instead of an inanimate object that can not love you back I feel very sorry for you and others that have these urges and I guess it's one more reason I never buy used equipment you never know where it has been or what fluids may have been injected in to it.
While I agree in essence with original post I have to wonder about it's practicality. But if that's how someone wants to live their life who am I to argue? Who has time to test every audio product available before purchase? Some guidance in narrowing down the lists can be helpful.
When you are getting older and closer to dying... And, you think that now is all we get? If you have lots of money? You will spend all it takes to try to distract yourself away from your deepest fear. "What a beautiful shiny tonearm!"..."Now I need something else that is the very best (expensive) to keep me distracted." etc.. etc.
I think their fear of dying drives them. They need to own the very best now. Mix that with having money, and audio manufacturers will oblige that dark need. They feel its almost their duty to charge exorbitant amounts to make this slowly dying soul feel something which is all absorbing. And, then they die.
Although Michael Fremer’s attitude occasionally deserves a raised eyebrow or two, how did his personality become a topic of this thread?
Does everybody on this thread even agree what "high-end" means? I asked on multiple threads what high-end is and I have never gotten an answer. Just like amg56 I have gotten many labels for myself, though.
Does anyone think that pictures of equipment, in Stereophile at least, do not help figuring out how the piece looks like? Angles are usually not conductive to getting a true idea of the looks.
I like the audiophile mags, and I like audiophile discussion forums. Without the Absolute Sound, I might never have found Harbeth speakers. Or chosen the AudioQuest Dragonfly as my dac. Each on opposite ends of the price spectrum, but both major players in my happiness.
Because they make the music I love sound amazing.
PS: one unsung thing about the audiophile mags is how much music i’ve discovered through their reviews of equipment. Great.
Most Bentleys have very delicate fuel injectors and EFI processors that control them. Standard cheap filling station pump hoses tend to spend ages out in the elements and particularly in warm climates the heat that the hoses are exposed to can cause the release of certain hydrocarbons that can be misinterpreted by the sensors in the EFI system as indicating a lower oxygen content in the fuel than is actually there. This causes the EFI system to retard valve timing slightly. This does not harm the engine or the EFI but can result in a slight decrease in performance. Some say it is imperceptible but serious Bentley owners say they can feel it in the seat of their pants under hard acceleration.
As a reminder...I find out about many great recordings I would have missed because of Stereophile reviews. Music...remember that part of this passion? Try it out, go to a few live concerts per week and relax folks...
So, I make this comment again and again for all who wish to read it:
As a former dealer, I can tell you that we picked products based on their sound and quality as well as manufacturer support in the way of handling customer complaints, fixing broken items, and providing advertising co-op funds. If you were a dealer, you would understand all this--being funny with that statement, of course.
Any dealer who will not let you listen to a component IN YOUR LISTENING ROOM is not worth dealing with, period. Your room, as we all know, is the most important part of the listening experience.
As for the OP, no big deal. Take everything you want home and see if it meets YOUR needs. If not, take it back. A customer, especially a high-dollar customer, is the most important part of the triangle. We all read the "trades" because we are interested in them. People who believe everything they read get what is coming to them. Most here are not that gullible, so the OP just reinforced that thought, I think.
Take it home, hook it up, listen, and then buy or don't buy. Pretty simple, and no "advice" needed or your vote against "advice" needed. The end.
(PS If the OP is using the trades to line his birdcage, he has more $$ than I do to waste. Why not cancel your subscription and buy a newspaper when you need bird cage liners?)
This thread has nothing to do with listening to music. Instead, it is an opportunity to use language to establish credibility. As satisfying as it may be to see your expression published on a forum, in the end a writer has to choose between enlightenment or self-aggrandizement.
I would encourage writers in an informational forum (like this one) to steer clear of using platitudes and fallacious arguments to support their positions. The purpose here is to support fellow audio enthusiasts, not to assuage some deep-seated feelings of insecurity.
I am not kidding at all. I am really curious why an owner filling a tank would be a poser. I did notice some post earlier mentioning a Bentley car, but post about filling a tank confused me.
Thanks for explanation about Bentleys and gas stations. It is an interesting theory, and probably a Bentley practice. I wonder how other manufacturers go around it, if it is really a problem.
Now, the actual post about Bentley owners filling their own tanks being posers is still a little unclear. It seems that the problem would be with the gas station and not the person who is holding a hose.
Fremer is a total mouthbreathing uppity snob, who debunked his entire "Hi end" career by comparing the love of his life (that piece of overpriced glitter) Caliburn tt against the el cheapo Technics 1200. It was soo refreshing to observe all that hot air escape his lungs and deflate the chest cavity...LOL!!!!!!
Glupson, my explanation about Bentleys was pure fiction. A little satire aimed at the audiophile stereotype. Not really my place to do so since I am a beginner at this and have other hobbies that likely sound equally ridiculous to those outside the hobby.
I, kind of, hoped it was a fiction, but in these waters similar things get fiercely defended so I accepted it as a possibility that someone would be considering. Most of the hobbies are ridiculous to outsiders and some aspects are really hard to swallow even for those in the hobby. Just take a peek at cables threads, fuses, and what not.
Having said that, automobile-associated hobby is less prone to these debates as acceleration, speed, forces, etc., are widely-accepted parameters and are relatively easy to measure so people have less ground to argue on. Not that things do not get debated and, at some point, it may get silly, too. Now, acceleration when driven hard with and without air conditioning...does it matter as much as blue vs. green fuse?
Can anyone answer this question? Why does glupson come across so frequently as an intruder, an interloper, a leering 12 year old, nervously paging through his first Playboy? Or am I being too harsh? Is this another case of me shooting fish in a barrel? Was glupson raised by wolves? All the lonely trolls, where do they all come from? 😳
One cannot really argue with the fascinating hobby of audio or how many people will spend ridiculous amounts of money on fancy boxes of wires that make musical noise. We all like what we like. To me, what is more curious and telling is what it reveals in people. Some who are arrogant, some who are instigators, others who are intelligent and reasonable and many who are helpful. Many are just stubborn salesman who want to push a brand they like. The hobby is fun, the people in it do not often know what they reveal about themselves.
Michael reviewed an early turntable of mine. I had never been in the industry before and it was my first product so I was surprised that he was interested. During the process he couldn't have been more professional.
2psyop One cannot really argue with the fascinating hobby of audio or how many people will spend ridiculous amounts of money on fancy boxes of wires that make musical noise. We all like what we like. To me, what is more curious and telling is what it reveals in people. Some who are arrogant, some who are instigators, others who are intelligent and reasonable and many who are helpful. Many are just stubborn salesman who want to push a brand they like. The hobby is fun, the people in it do not often know what they reveal about themselves.
Glupson, it gets just as crazy if not more so in the automotive world. There are so many more intangibles than the simple physics would suggest. The fancier and pricier the cars the worse it gets. Any given machine that performs too well and too effortlessly is presumed to have lost some sort of spiritual essence..... for example.
The car car world is fortunate to have race tracks though. That is where all the hype goes away. That is where a moderately experienced driver like me blows the doors off a 911 Turbo driven by a new or cautious driver in my pedestrian Nissan 350z while a gifted driver in a Miata on slicks passes us both and we are all made to look motionless by a Ferrari Challenge 458 that arrived in fancy 18 wheeler. The stopwatch does not lie.
And trust me, the amateur photography world is nearly as bad as the audiophile world. And you can have a $30,000 Phase One body with a $10,000 lens and take bad pictures all day. There also seems to be quite a niche in photography for people who love the gear...and make no mistake, some of it is exquisite to behold...who rarely take pictures. They will tell you your $2000 Nikon is junk and they have the engineering knowledge to tell you why. And yet some of them do not have the talent to produce an actual work of art. Rather, they tend to produce what Ansel Adams called a sharp photo of a fuzzy concept.
To to bring this around to the OP’s point, the manufacturers and the retailers prey on these aspects of all of these hobbies. And why wouldn’t they? For them there is nothing worse than someone deciding that what they already have is all they really want and need.
@n80- I agree that there is as much snark in the car world on the Internet, but because most of the fora are marque specific, it filters out a lot of people who would go on Rennlist (or whatever) and trash Porsches in favor of something else. Most of the performance of cars is down to the driver in my estimation. (Obviously, we aren’t talking about top speed runs, but those are of little interest to me). I know there is a huge aftermarket for tweaks and performance improvements, but as you’ve said, they’re measurable for the most part- increased HP, torque, whatever. (I participated in one of those some years ago by agreeing to pay for a fancy exhaust system if it won the test, with the understanding that the manufacturer would refund me if not; it didn’t and I got my money back without a problem). The best car analogy I can draw is that despite performance figures, "better technology" and overall better performance, safety and convenience, there is something so immediate about driving a light, old, well balanced car- road feel and not being cosseted in an environment of comfort that removes you from the driving experience. New bling, whether hi-fi or cars, doesn’t really get my attention or interest. I quit reading the car mags quite a while ago too, and am well out of it when it comes to that world now. (I did get to have one of my cars reviewed by R&T as the feature car some years ago, and that was a blast, but it really didn’t change the driving experience or the value of the car at the end of the day. It was just a fun opportunity that I got to take advantage of, during the years when I would be humiliated on the track by much better drivers).
Huh, I accidentally lucked out by never going on the track. It would have been humiliating had it not been for self-conscious acceptance of my very low limits. At least I am fine at the stoplight. Same with audio-equipment, buying better than a boombox while accepting that someone else will set up something better, and me not feeling the urge to convince the whole world my set-up beats theirs is sort of a blessing. Still, intermittently reading magazines and forums brings some new light to approaches I may never even consider undertaking. I keep my cars and audio equipment stock while learning what else may be done with them. As far as Michael Fremer's reviews go, they are a little too excited and frequently appear predictable for me to continue reading more than two, or at most three, paragraphs. They may be valuable reading for someone else and are probably worthwhile altogether, but they do ooze polarization. No wonder that readership opinions appear to be extreme opposites of the spectrum. I think his articles are a perfect example of "There is someone who will appreciate it so let it be. If you do not like it, skip it and do not get mad."
No, I was not. I was raised by my parents. This is the second time you are asking about my parents. Is there any particular reason your interest in them is unexpectedly high?
There are certain reviewers in the camera world that garner a following mostly due to charisma and attempts at being iconoclastic. Even when they are shown to be inconsistent and even dead wrong their “followers” will admit no flaw.
As as far as cars, performance and race tracks the single most effective upgrade on any car of any type is tires. The very best of them won’t last a weekend. They’re not called ‘black crack’ for no reason.
Anyway, I have found the internet to be a truly excellent tool in all of these sorts of things. The challenge of sorting out the signal from the noise can be daunting. Finding the right forum with the right people is huge. But they’re out there. I’ve only had my high end audio equipment for a week and have never had any desire or pretense to be an audiophile before I got it. Whether or not this forum is one of those jewels or not I can’t tell yet. But so far I’ve gotten excellent advice despite my level of ignorance in the matter and I’ve learned tons in this short week thanks to a number of kind and patient folks here
I can tell that there are a few here that do not suffer fools and who may lack a little tact. But that’s not always a bad thing in the right measure.
No, I was not. I was raised by my parents. This is the second time you are asking about my parents. Is there any particular reason your interest in them is unexpectedly high?
>>>>I didn’t mention your parents. I suggested you were raised by wolves. They wouldn’t be your parents. Are you a wolf? 🐺 Sensitive today, aren’t we?
I am not sensitive today. There are things whoever raised you, and you over time, should have taught you. Do not make fun of anyone’s cancer and do not mention people’s parents (in words or implied) in any way that could be taken as an insult to those parents. While you are at that, if you ever get tempted, do not mention people’s children either. Even if it is a mostly anonymous Internet forum, do not spill the garbage that you would not tell a person to their face.
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