The tale of this guy's life is one that many here should reckon with. While I am a bit obsessed with my stereo, it does not interfere with my family and I respect the value of the dollar too much to take my desires to a level that makes people uncomfortable. 10 foot speakers, IMHO, would be fitting for a listening room full of 10 foot tall people!! And don't get me started on those identical grandfather clock sound dampeners!

Ken's life is a sad story on how any focus on any one thing can lead to failure in all the other parts of life that have much greater value in life...reminds me of all the people who can't put their phone down!! 😒

@emergingsoul 

The entire youtube video is Ken talking about him and his system. Numerous times during the video you hear grandfather clock chimes going off. And so the audiophile in me went into critical listening mode wondering if I could hear all four of them separately or whether or not he had them sequenced. Honestly, I think I may have heard quadrophonic chiming - for the first time! - and it was quite alarming, but I think you are right and it was just sensationalizing by WaPo and his divorce and estranged son sad story prose was sensationlized and did not happen and perhaps maybe produced by the underground pizza human snatchers. 

@yesiam_a_pirate 

The WP writer seems to imply that striving for excellence is a mental illness. 

Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others.

Obviously, Ken did not care about the feelings of others. All the attributes are there of one who has a mental illness. Someone mentioned OCD, and that would be validated by his obsession and compulsiveness, but not his disregard for the feelings of others. That has to be explained and I find it unlikely he was bi-polar (which would explain his lack of empathy and sympathy for others), but the signs of a sociopath is evident. How mental illness manifests itself is tricky, and only recently (last 20 years) has it been tackled within the pharma industry to provide medical solutions for many of the mental illnesses that have inundated our society. 

Ken was of age that in his youth there was no treatment for these diseases. Back in those days, we called people who had such diseases "fidgety" or "excitable" and/or any number of adjectives that described being different. None of them were very kind. 

Having family members who are dealing with such diseases - most successfully! - I see many of the attributes in Ken that I have personally dealt with. I do not profess to be an expert on the subject, but the lack of empathy hits home and is a crushing emotion when your child does not care about what you ask of them. Certainly, the other way around - having a parent that is disinterested in their own offspring can be devastating. 

Ken's room and system has some oddities. He incorporated four of the exact same grandfather clocks into his room plan. His stereo setup had three speakers. His plan for extended bass had two other speakers instead of say, subwoofers. And subwoofers are the easiest DIY assignment. I am just pointing out that what he did was not what most of us here would do with a room like that. Sure, you may include some RCA dogs (nipper and chipper) but IMHO, no one on this forum has ever said, "Nice listening room, have you thought about adding a grandfather clock? Or four?". Hey, grandfather clocks may have nothing to do with mental illness, but four of them have something to do something that no one here can explain.

I find it amusing how we view his system setup and immediately feel that it MUST have sounded heavenly. It is a visceral reaction. Perhaps confirmation bias because, well, a million dollar system HAS to sound good, right? But truth be told, it may not have sounded good. While I did not watch the youtube video in its entirety, what I read and saw of it, there was not one person who claimed it sounded great. Is that important?

@pos5129

Success often requires sacrifice and discomfort; an idea we can't commit to without some level of obsession. 

Obsession Is the #1 Habit of Highly Successful People

Obsession has been defined as “the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, or desire.”

“The people who succeed are irrationally passionate about something”

I realize this is social media but these kind of observations have no relevancy without citing where you found these words. Maybe "inspirational quotes" on Brainyquote.com?

When we discuss things that are debatable, even if it is not audio, we should always have a source for where you have rooted your point.

There is no link between obsessed people and success. Take all the obsessed people in the world and, unbelievably, they are all successful? 50% are successful? And what are the parameters on success? Obsessed?

I would say that 100% of serial killers are obsessed. I would also state, without providing a link, that 100% of obsessed people are generally disliked, probably difficult to deal with, and treat others poorly. 

There is no silver lining with respect to obsession. 

Obsessed by definition is: A persistant disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling. (Pulled from Merriam-Webster dictionary). 

It would be helpful if we could have debates that are rooted in something else than a saying or a quote. All humans deserve intellectual conference, rather than a shot in the dark or an off the cuff remark that has no root in the truth.

Meandering thoughts by Jack Handey.

@waytoomuchstuff 

Touche! 😄

@emergingsoul 

Ken was not a part of Audiogon because he could not have cared less of what others thought of him. 

I tend to believe that most who post here have learned something from interaction with others who have similar interests. If there is a lesson here to be learned from this article it is not to lose $800K on a lifetime dream of building something for yourself. 

And that was it. It was all about him and his system. His family grew tired of it, and it was a hard read because of that fact. Had he cared about others, he would have used that $800K to build a commercial sound room and system that others could have enjoyed and perhaps even could have made a profit. 

@tcotruvo 

The article - oddly - made no effort at all to evaluate how good the sound quality was.  Yet it was supposedly an article about creating the best sound system.  It seemed to go off track and focus on flaws in his personal life.

So true. At the end of the youtube video, he states, "I'm Ken Fritz and I believe I built the best stereo system in the world." Maybe the WP author went off track because during the time it took for Ken to build it (5-years) his marriage fell apart and his son became estranged. Now that he and his system are gone, there are only hard feelings left. The long-lasting flaw of fulfilling your own dreams while blatantly discounting others. 

@deep_333

All the  stereo purists appear to be suddenly in awe of Ken, who was very much a multichannel audio enthusiast..

Isn't that the truth. As Ken stated, he used Krell amps with four balanced inputs for home theater. I use 4 speakers in my stereo setup and I can't mutter a word about that on this site without getting dissed by those that claim anything beyond two speakers is a transgression against somebody's god. 

@erik_squires

Sociopathy gets overused and thrown around when a number of obsessive compulsive disorders could be used.

Sociopathy (Antisocial personality disorder) is triggered by a genetic element or environmental factors such as neglect and abuse. Sociopathy is not related to OCD. OCD is about having too much conscience (living with guilt). Sociopaths have too little; or none whatsoever! 

I don't make this stuff up. This is clinical data:

Below are estimates of the prevalence of “Cluster B” personality disorders listed in the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), according to various scientific papers.

• Antisocial personality disorder (including psychopathy) — 3.05 to 3.8 percent
• Narcissistic personality disorder — 1.0 to 6.2 percent
• Borderline personality disorder — 1.9 to 5.9 percent
• Histrionic personality disorder — 0.3 to 1.8 percent

All together, therefore, 6.25 to 17.7 percent of the adult population are sociopaths — people who could be diagnosed with antisocial, narcissistic, borderline or histrionic personality disorder, or psychopathy.

@tcotruvo 

Do you know something about my life that I don't? How am I a hypocrite?

The WP columnist, Geoff Edgers, is a superb journalist who frequently writes about music and starred in a documentary called "Do It Again", about his attempt to reunite The Kinks. It is on youtube. I have followed him for years at WaPo. Suggesting he merely "click baited" about Ken's system has no basis in truth.

What is truth is that Ken was not a good father - clearly displayed narcissistic behavior - and wasted seven years of his life creating something that caused a breakup of his family. Yeah, maybe he wasted his children's inheritance on himself. Maybe he thought he deserved it. Maybe he had good intentions. But the results speak for themselves and Geoff Edgars is hardly the target for you to aim your arrow. Maybe mainstream media is the cause of your dismay?

before you criticize the splinter in your neighbors eye, you should remove the timber in your own eye.

That is not the correct passage you used. It is Luke 6:41, which states, "Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother's eye."

Oh, this guy!