Yes, I knew that. And thanks. But others do care…

But I was really just using your question as an opportunity to address some of the deeper issues. Sorry about using your comments as a foil

… and here I go again…

Essentially, we are looking at a possible massive expansion of Audio Federation… But can we keep doing the things we love… playing music for a living, doing show reports and maybe a magazine, meeting people for private auditions, helping people design their personally perfect system, shootouts, etc.; be financially viable; AND still keep our ethical standards [i.e. follow the Golden Rule…aka not being ‘bad’].

Many people tell us no.

But I say - let’s think outside the traditional solutions box…

An axiom here is that, say, 90% of people would like to have a nice system in their home.

Support for belief in this axiom comes from the fact that most people have some kind of system now.

I personally think that the reason why these are not higher quality systems is because of the rampant incompetence [systems at dealers sound bad, sales people can be obnoxious] and corruption [audiophiles are treated as ‘marks’, the press is bought and paid for, etc.] in our industry. We are seen as the ‘used car dealerships’ of the consumer electronics world.

So a 2nd axiom would be: if we can fix these problems among at least a significant percentage. easily identifiable part of the industry - and change/update people’s perceptions of this part of the industry, then this industry could do as well as, well, smartphones for example [I do think we will have to be more copacetic with video being in the system as well].

The sound at shows if often quite good on a price-performance basis. People will like this stuff if they can get to hear it. But how to get it to them? What percentage of the public wants to go to a show to hear this stuff? [and separating the wheat from the chaff, i.e. finding the good stuff, requires a lot of walking and really good shoes ]I went to the Denver Auto Show once - not all that many people went… certainly much less than even 1% of the car-driving public. Shows can be inspirational but not the greatest sales vehicles in my opinion.

I’ll write full posts about all this when the show report is over, in about 4 weeks or so…

Thanks,
-Mike

I was just kiddin’ you about being a dealer, BTW.

That status matters little to me as I read your work.

Anyway, keep up the great work. This industry is often a beech, but love of well-played music makes it OK.

Bob

Thanks.

Yeah, yeah, everyone loves to hate dealers.

Funny, though. In actuality, I think magazine writers and distributors are tied for highest percentage of unethical members / corruption among their ranks.

Then comes dealers, I think.

And then manufacturers.

I think it is this way because manufacturers, once they go bad, they really limit their market.

And dealers usually do not make so much money that they are corrupted by the temptation to be bad [and when they go bad, they cannot usually carry good gear, which further limits their abilities to be bad].

Distributors go bad because they have opportunities to be bad and can hide it from everyone for a long time and manufacturers can feel ‘locked in’ to a particular distributor and/or their dealer network.

Magazine writers / press go bad because they have nothing invested in the industry - rarely do they make their living this way - and they just don’t give a hoot. For a past or future discount or long term loan they will say anything. There are some honest writers - Bob Neal, Fred Crowder, Larry Borden… and Mike Fremer and some of the established writers - but 90%+ are bad IMHO.

Where does that leave us? If we were somehow not dealers and if we, somehow were not distributors [and not manufacturers] then would we not be joining the ranks of the press? And then we’d REALLY be keeping bad company!

I know, I know, people think we are incentivized to say good things about the products we carry that are being exhibited at shows. It really doesn’t work that way - long sales cycles of the ultra high-end being what they are. Because we try to carry only the ultra high-end, and the ultra high-end does have a tendency to sound best (funny, that), we do sometimes like the sound of the gear we carry at shows. We are thinking about moving to a “never put any system that has something in it that we sell on a ‘Best of Show’ list” approach. This is, however, misleading if one of these systems IS the best - and Nordost et. al. are in a LOT of systems. So we’ll see.

It is a quandary. What to be when we grow up. [Assuming we want to grow up ]. Other ideas are ‘what if we carried all high-end products?’. Then we would be incentivized to like everything and nobody could accuse us of favoritism [well, I am sure some would accuse us of liking the highest margin products best. There will always be some people out there like that…]. ‘What if we were Audiogon?’. Similarly raising us above the fray.

—–

Thanks! We’d LOVE to visit and to hear your rig. Keep hearing that Bob Seger song… ‘get out of Denver baby, go! Go!’ [tho we will miss the area - and everybody being so physically fit - and something like 75% of Boulder’s populace above 22 having a college degree. But it is time…]

Take care,
-Mike

I even agree with the vast majority of your points! lol

Keep bloggin’ - you have one of the most intelligent and well-considered POV’s out there.

Were you not a dealer, you’d have a future here!

Bob

PS Next time you’re in the Bay Area, maybe you can swing down and hear my CA rig….

My thesis, essentially, is that the parallels between Computer Audio and the introduction of the CD player are quite striking - yes, as a ’significant development’ as well as the ‘not at all high-fidelity’ [for the most part. The systems that were laptop-driven at CES sounded, by-and-large, like 1983 digital. It is spooky as in Amityville Horror spooky. ‘Their Back…’ ]

High-end audio confusing? You have a good point.

Although… Computer Audio puts a layer of complexity ON TOP of the already somewhat complex high-end audio landscape - since CA is more or less just another source [so perhaps a better comparison would be to compare the complexity of CA with that of turntables, cartridge compliances, RIAA curves, the different approaches of phono stages with respect to how they handle different cartridges, MM, MI, and MC cartridges - like you mentioned, etc.].

The real complexity of CA comes from the fact that things are rapidly evolving and tomorrow will not likely look much like today - that CA as we know it today is just a transitional technology between where we are today and whatever CA will look like tomorrow - whereas turntable technology, continuing with our analogy, has pretty much not changed in decades [we just get better and better refining and implementing the associated technologies]…

There is little doubt that the CD is joining the LP on the heap as another example of “yesterday’s technology that sounds better than today’s technology but most people do not care”. CA is fun and exciting - and definitely more convenient - but it does not ’sound better’ [yet]. It does not need to ’sound better’ to be wildly successful, and people who say it sounds better are either salespeople or addressing their own insecurities about the their choice of convenience over quality.

Personally, seems to me that, when one can afford it [and has the space! and time!] CDs, LPs, reel-to-reel, streaming audio, and CA - are all welcome in the listening room, it’s all good.

Oops. Hope I wasn’t ranting again

Take care, Bob.
-Mike

That said, your core point that “computer audio is confusing and too hard” is well taken.

But can’t the same be said for all of “high performance audio”? It too is confusing and too hard.

Don’t think so? Well, how do we (the industry) answer the following questions?

As a new audiophile, how do I…

* Choose between MM, MI, and MC cartridges? What’s the real difference?
* Tube vs SS amplification?
* Cables????? Ag, Cu, teflon…..
* 2-way or 3-way speaker?
* CD vs LP?
* How many watts?

…we (the industry) may think that we’ve made these choices simple. If so, we are deluded.

The only difference between computer audio and the rest is that we’ve had decades to try to explain the former and the latter is new.

Bob

Well redbook and higher resolution quality music (missing most album art/literature) may never materialize. The elephant in the room is how will artists and producers be compensated if a downloaded master file equivalent is shared or sold outside of the legitmate retail environment.

Easily configured computer/audio hardware is uncertain from matching the sound from redbook and higher resolution physical media. There are simply too many opinions currently as to how to attain great music reproduction using computer based media.