Comments per Brand in Discussion Forums

Jim,
to my mind you make excellent sense. My compliments also regarding the rationality and equanimity of the phrasings by which you presented your post. My thoughts in this matter are far more cynical and would hardly prevail before the critical eyes of the resident censors.

On the other hand of course we do depend upon what others tell us, especially if we are not as deeply informed as we perhaps should be, when we are seriously engaged in this hobby and deeply drawn into it. It is only in time that we learn to discern and form opinions of our own. You can see this by closely following the work in progress of our eldest and most experienced members, should they present their systems to us. Most of them, I find, no matter within what price range, are highly eclectic, selecting their gear often enough not so much within the mainstream, often more from what you call the "quiet" brands. This strikes me especially of Audiogoners, whose love of music seems to exceed their fascination with the gear, although they are mostly highly knowlegeable as well as far as "the machines" are concerned.
The more you know, the less you will fall for the hype of the advertisers and meet the accolades of reviewers with healthy suspicion, but since you wish to be informed, in time also the "quiet brands" will find your attention, often enough on these pages, because someone has discovered a "sleeper", which one can try to be informed about and dig - perhaps also aurally - into.

Thank you for starting this thread. I hope you will be rewarded with a lively discussion.
Cheers,
Detlof

A good topic, Jim, thank you.

I'll add that those brands who do not get as much mention could improve things, if they felt there was any benefit in doings so, by taking a more active role in the discussion.

AtmaSphere and Merlin clearly benefit from their front men taking a very active role in Audiogon. Likewise, people like Charles Hansen do the same at Audio Asylum. Other brands, like Zu, stay away from the threads, but have a loyal following who keep their components at the fore.

But, I will caution that discussion and "energy" in the threads do not necessarily equal success or sales volume, as brands like Cambridge and Music Hall do well despite not being discussed much. Maybe they're not fashionable, but the reality is that there are a lot of people who are serious about music, and have the means to spend $500 on a well built, good sounding high-end audio component, even if they or the manufacturers inject much into the discussion.

My apologies, thanks to Trelja's post I see that I misunderstood the meaning of Jim's topic, which is confined to Audiogon and which I misunderstood and saw in a much wider context. So my post above is really off topic and I wish I could withdraw it. What I had in mind were the mags, the advertising and all the other hype thrown around, not my fellow Audiogoners. I am sorry if I inadvertedly stepped on anybody's toes.

It's a conspiracy. Unspoken, unwritten agreements to not talk or write about certain brands. They're keeping secrets about the really good stuff to keep it to themselves. You know... THEM.

More seriously, Human nature is assuming that whatever path taken and whatever destination reached is the right one, if it seems better than where they were before. Then, they yell, "Come over here", because they found "The Way". The lesser known brands are for people finding their own paths and they usually aren't the type to yell but, if you meet them on the path, they might nudge to some unique views on another hill.

Detlof: I think your initial response is clearly relative
to this great topic. It is only through our experience and homework that we arrive at a system. We all started somewhere. In the beginning, we all had that inner fire for this thing of ours. Honestly, how many of us can honestly say that out of nowhere, we walked into a hifi shop and put together
an entirely musically satisfying system? I doubt many of us can say that. Why? Because when we knew that we liked audio, we sought out magazines like Stereo Review and Audio magazine,
and whatever came before and after that. And we lusted for the next issue just to see what would be in there. Then we were lured in by the great ads. Then we went to the store and found that that speaker wasn't really that good. And so on and so on. Then, came this wisdom with time. Then we got better paying jobs, then we afforded better equipment.
But let's go back to the original poster: How many of us,
at any time, dreamed of hearing that big krell on those big wilsons? Let's be honest here, advertising has a huge impact on what we think we want. Then we all got wiser.

its a given that this website's mission is to sell epuipment. the forum threads are going to mirror the classifieds.

Great topic Jim, you could ad several more brands in both categories. I would include VPI in the latter.

Thank you Jorge and how rightly you mirrored also my way to (relative) wisdom.
May your ears be blessed and your pocketbook filled (:
Cheers,
Detlof