Hall of Shame

Ezmerelda,wow your advice is as valuable as fish guts. All tube stuff sucks eh? You have a real credibility problem. All quality cables? All vibration controll devices? Your advice is rather misinformed, closed minded, and frankly(kooky) incorrect. Go and listen to what I am sure sounds like a big table radio and quite dolling out advice.

Why is so much of the advise in this forum worse than my spelling? Many of the contribuors here belong in the hall of shame! So many nay sayers and philastines. I do see that there are a few careful listeners with genuine and helpful info here but the rest seem to think that they need to have something bad to say about so many products(based on the fact that they can't hear it,don't know how to measure it or don't "beleive" in it, and probably never herd it at all or not under controlled cercumstances), perhaps to show that they are descerning"critics". These are the same people that in a different time would have been the "critics" that refered to the Expresionist painters animals and paned their work as trash. I applaud the open minded few that give out genuinely helpful advice. The rest I am sure are hopelessly condemened to a hell of listening to their own horrid(and I am sure very thin,edgy,and bright) systems. As it should be!

People come here in need of advice, they may be new to this or just lack some small bit of experience. Others propose to be the protectors of the flock or the audio equivilant of the "morality police" to defend the sheep from the evil audio establishment who is bound and determined to rip them off. Those rotten dealers and criminal manufacturers. Yea right! The emperor has no clothes,eh? Bull#$@t! Oh yea, you who are of closed mind can sit there and say this crap, having no real experience or credibility. I for one was a retailer in the high end for more than ten years and am offended deeply by these assertions by kooks that the industry is just a bunch of snake oil salesmen that are out to fleece the unsuspecting public. There are some very bright and serious people out there who are innovators in this industry and dealers who care about their clientel, otherwise you would all be listening to shit made by milti-national corporations and sold by places like Wal-Mart who don't care about audiophiles and their sensitivities.Take the original Sony CD player for example.Talk about the emperor has no clothes, if it weren't for people like myself and a few others who stood up and cried foul when this junk was proclaimed to be "perfect sound",this is all you would have gotten. It is the small independent manufacturers and dealers who make this "hobby" possible. So when you make foolish claims or defend such claims, i.e. that all tube gear and all hi-end cables are only noteworthy enough to be in the"Hall of Shame" You are slandering the people who have made it possible to attain the level of musical reproduction that is possible today. You are attacking people like Bill Johnson of ARC,Bill Conrad and Lew Johnson, Ray Kimber,Bruce Brisson,.....these are people who have done something other than sit in a damn chat forum and dole out stupid and bad advice to the unsuspecting who come here to really learn how to get more enjoyment from their music. Again I will say that there many here that adress the questions and issues of the people asking for advice with good information based on experience. Unfortunatly there are those among us who should keep their uninformed oppinions to themselves!

Seantaylor99 should I assume that your post is directed at me? Let me say that I won't post an "attack " until someone says something completely preposterous. So i can assume when a person says "all" of whatever sort of component or device is crap, that they have carefuly listened and considered the qualities of "all" of these products available. The point is that you are only impeding others who come here to learn. I personaly am imune to this sort of dogma since I am aware of how to get good sound and it won't hinder my system a bit, although it does pose a problem to people who might really belive you. And since it must take alot of time to "review" every single component that you and ezmerelda procede to label as audio fraud, I would assume that you may not get out much yourself. I have run into this for years, the "expert" oh brother! why don't you just start your own audio component company or better yet start your own Audio Journal, let's see what could we call such an interesting publication where they can't hear the difference or see the value in anything they can't or more to the point don't know how to measure , I've got it! "Stereo Review" have fun "Julian".

"All high performance cables.." this would include the Kimber pbj at $72 a pair, not hard to fit into a budget system. I assume you have auditioned these and found them to be a poor value or of no use at all? This would also include the Custom Power Cord Co. $129 "High Value" power cord. You might have to skip meals or panhandle to fit this one into your budget, but alas you have tried this too and found it to be "very little bang for the buck" or worse yet a rip off.
"All vibration control devices.." again this would include the $6 Vibrapod, which are very helpful under CD players or speakers, again not a megabuck item. It would also include Audio Research tube damper rings which are also quite inexpensive but can improve the performance of almost any tube component for about $20(I forgot,"most" all tube designs are worthy of scorn anyway), again I will asume that you have tried these products and found them of no benifit? I know of people who squander lots of cash upgrading components that say "cables make no difference" only to find out that their new(fill in the blank) sounds just as bad as the old one did,i.e. too bright, or too harsh,or whatever the complaint was. This is because the brightness,harshness, or hardness, or whatever came from their cables and not the component. The system does not have to cost a fortune to be able to hear very real improvments from items like these.
all 1 the whole quantity, substance, duration, amount,or degree of;2 collectivley, the whole amount or number of, as of individuals or particulars............... Opinions are like,hummmmmmmm? what was that?........everyone has one.

Will,This remindes me of the scene from Monty Python's "The Holy Grail", where the English knight comes upon the castle enhabited by the French. Well, Will, "I already got one". And this might be the point in the scene where I dump crap on "you English bed wetting types". "Now go away or I will taunt you a second time".

Wow, what a gas bag? you invited people to take shots at you and then you get defensive. $75 CD palyer, man. More like a Wild Turkey than Makers Mark.

Hey Killer, interesting Poly Sci thing you got goin' there, I myself see this place as more the Hobbsian "state of nature" sort of thing. It's lawless and leans tword anarcy. Kill or be killed.
The very anononimity here leads to people to try to be something they aren't. Some her know what the hell they are talking about. Some here want to be "athority" figures.Some are just misfits and malcontents,while still others want to impress us with their flowery "ivory tower" verbosity. ok. It's as if they can have some sort of vicarious life here as the audio superhero defending us against all of these god awful products. It's just if you say something that you know full well is loaded you better expect someone to call you on it and don't whine if someone roughs you up a bit for it. You asked for it. I got fired from a job because of the first Sony CD player. I hated those things for years. I didn't buy a player until 3 years ago. But I kept an open mind.I found one I love. But I am sure Makersmark you have herd it and found it to be of no value. I must not have had my hearing aids turned on. Once again here is another example of condeming "all" of a class of product.(my peve if you haven't guessed by now) So Makersmark you have listened and carefuly considered the performance first hand under controlled conditions of every CD player costing over $75. Wow you are my audio Green Lantern. Sorry to offend you but the statement you made is foolish at best. I play rough with the slow kids sometimes but it is for their own good. Tough love, Right? And buy the way get yourself some 15 year old Rip Van Winkel bourbon and give it a try, you might enjoy it. I like it best but I don't say "all" other bourbons are worthy of "shame" when I have not tried them "all".

Man! audiophilistine, damn why didn'y I come up with that?