Pioneers in the history of higher end/accurate sounding components....and you..

I left out the Michael (I think it was) who was VP of the record label Holly Cole recorded Temptation on because I am still embarrassed to have forgotten his name. But he’s another one I learned a lot from. He came to visit our audio club and play us some demo tapes on the release of their newly remastered Kind of Blue, their claim to fame being having tracked down a master tape and researched the deck and figured out all the Kind of Blue everyone has been hearing for years and years is at the wrong speed.

Michael Fremer by the way, this was 1992 or something like that, no internet, hardly any email, people would write actual paper from dead tree letters to Stereophile. Or fax. Mine was faxed. Thought long as I’m going to the trouble asking questions might as well include a couple phone numbers. This was before cell phones too so put my work number on there. Lo and behold Mikey calls me at work! Ha!

My life has always to me seemed rather normal. Looking back on it though, meeting Carl Sagan, Paul Newman, Jerry Seinfeld, and Mario Andretti, being on set with Michael Douglas and Dennis Miller, if all you do all day long is peck out pointless whiny blather it must all sound unbelievably fantastic.

Oh well.

Eric Alexander and Duke LeJeune helped me a lot with speakers. Keith Herron helped me understand the importance and meaning of timing. Krissy Tetrault proved the signal is not what we think it is. Chris Brady helped me with the ideas and a lot of the Teres Audio components that went into building my turntable. DJ Casser taught me a huge amount about vibration control, with components and concepts that 30 years later still pay big dividends even though they have been massively improved on by what I've learned from Rick Calder and Max Townshend.

Stewart Marcantoni started it all, introducing me to Caelin Gabriel and Ted Denney, and pulling the strings that got me into the Talon room one year at CES. So probably better include Mike Farnsworth of Talon.  

Oh, and Michael Fremer. When having narrowed it down to a VPI or a Basis I could not make up my mind, Michael Fremer called and we had a nice long talk. At the end of which I had learned one of the most important lessons of all: that the way to do it is to talk about how things sound, because once you know enough about that you will not need anyone to tell you. You yourself will know what to do.