Robb Report


If anyone can take a look at this months issue....there are great pictures of a couple of very expensive  turntables and speakers.  I want everything advertised in this magazine.
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I’ve been following Audiogon Forum for a few years now, but never jumped in before. The Forum is a guilty pleasure I enjoy a few times a week. It’s not unlike a cigar, where for a few brief minutes, I can forget about pressing issues of health, business, politics or global warming. Many of the folks who regularly post here are as brilliant as they are entertaining, so I’ve learned a lot. Sincere thanks for that. 


Robb Report is kind of like our forum, or that cigar. It’s a Mozart divertimento, not Bach’s B-minor mass. Which is why I always marvel that its subject matter often raises so much ire. The magazine is serious about its subject; it’s meant to inform and entertain—but it’s not a medical journal. 


I’m the guy who wrote about the high-end gear in the June issue, and regularly contribute to the magazine, mostly about cars, old and new. When the feeling moves me, I’ll do a little something on two-channel audio gear that I’ve purchased for my own use, and subsequently thought was worth sharing, or have heard, and that impressed me. It’s not my day job: I own a creative agency (think Mad Men, but much smaller, and regrettably without the booze and sex). Most of our clients are luxury brands, but whether automotive or audio, I never write about them in the magazine; that’d be a conflict of interest.


Many of us have heard $1m-plus systems, and some of those are as groundbreaking as that $3.3m Bugatti Chiron, which I’ve driven and admire. Why some people see this stuff as the spawn of Satan is lost on me. Most is created by serious minds with a vision of something great. As some here have explained, expensive gear reflects a lot of investment in R & D, materials, marketing and so forth. One of my clients makes $250k amps and another sells $299/pr speakers by the container-load. Neither rips-off their customers.


Please don’t judge Robb Report too hastily. I know many hundreds of the readers personally, and most are thoughtful, philanthropic and “self-made” men and women looking for a little diversion from a busy life. Maybe they’re even too busy to learn everything there is to know about diamonds, for instance, but want a little primer on what’s what. About which, one of my clients, a noted jeweler, explained—and showed—what distinguishes natural gemstones from artificial ones. My take is that they are to be preferred, in part from the feeling you get knowing that one is natural and the other is not. Think old Shelby Cobras or Mustangs. Replicas abound, and they are in no way inferior to the originals. I prefer the genuine article, but don’t disparage someone who can’t afford it, or chooses not to be burdened by the responsibility of ownership.


For me, it’s all good, and everybody can play in the sandbox, no matter which toys you own. Cheers!

—Robert Ross

 

P.S. about my music and gear:

Around 500 recordings (LPs and CDs) of stuff composed before 1650, almost as much through 1750, and mostly radio silence until we get to Miles and his cronies. Maybe a little classic rock—Hendrix, Roxy Music, whatever—when the mood strikes. The speakers won’t bring down the house: KLH Nines lovingly rebuilt by David Janszen; Quad 57s resurrected by Wayne Piquet, and Harbeth 40.2s—a nod to the 21st century. Stax SR-009S headphones are for drilling deep.

P.P.S.: A subscription to Robb Report is about $79 for 12 issues, and I understand that barely pays for printing and postage. Audiogon affords as much entertainment for free. Nothing to argue about there!