.. on the oil-spill.

Or, more precisely on the coverage of all the birds and crabs etc. covered in oil.

See, all these people are upset… upset that some of these animals might die…

…upset that they might die and nobody gets to EAT THEM that is.

Meat-eating announcers moaning over ‘innocent’ animals being potentially harmed by what is to large extent an act of God, who then go home and eat cow tummies and chicken breasts that night which we slaughter by the millions.

Oh, the irony. The Irony!

:-)

[Sorry, I know sanctimonious TV news is all the rage . We’re green and love the environment more than most - putting our money where our sentiments are - but seriously… if you ain’t vegetarian (or vegan) you should probably focus your whining on the plight of the fisherman and tourist industry - and leave the whining about animals to us veggies.]

;-)

[now that Neli is logging in and editing my posts - let’s just see how long this post stays here ]

[yes, back to audio. We have a few CD reviews coming up, and the M9Phono / S9 have just returned to the big system …]

… no matter what Neli might say,…

Look, I see it like this.

At one time you HAD to have a home stereo if you wanted to hear music at home.

Then there was the transistor radio, boom boxes, home theater, digital homes, and now ipods.

Lots of competition.

Unless we become ‘popular’ again - like the World Wrestling Federation, choppers, lime green indoor painting, etc. - it will be only the audiophiles and music lovers with lots of money who have home stereos.

Oh, wait, we are there now.

In fact, this is one of the reasons we got into audio on the business side - everybody in this hobby [for the most part] really loves it. They are not just ‘getting some music for the home’ they are pursuing their love of music, of technology, of their inner selves… whatever.

The software industry used to be like this, and then it grew and now there are all sorts of people who do not really care for it but who of course have to pontificate about it to everyone they meet [yep, still some people like this in audio too, huh?].

With the high-end audio consumer becoming fewer but more passionate and demanding, and the general public going elsewhere, audio manufacturers are able to make higher quality products. To a fewer number of people overall, yes, but I think it is the Polk and Monitor mid and low-fi home audio folks who have to worry - not the high-end.

But of course, this high-quality, and complete lack of economy of scale, drives the prices higher…

As a related note, I think the desktop computer’s days are numbered in a similar manner. The general public will have no need for them in 5 to 10 years - having moved to tablets. So… what does that mean for computer audiophiles? It means that expandable computer boxes, which will still exist [for gamers, CAD workers, programmers, etc], will be much more expensive - given as how the economy of scale which makes them cheap now will no longer exist.

So all these changes are just what is - not gloom, not doom - and they are no where near as bad as getting old and going bald and gray.

:-)

Each forum is different - but rarely are they about the pursuit of the associated topic and always they are about the socializing.

Some examples.

Some months ago I was trying to find some more blogs about Audi for the Audi news channel. Neli and I have owned a lot of Audis, and this seemed like it would be fun. So I posted as much on one of the Audi forums.

First, one of the moderators deleted the link in my signature that I had added a year ago, to the Cool Car Photo Magazine. When I brought up how the Car magazine was just photos of the Denver Auto Show a different moderator said it must have been because we had adds in that magazine [we didn’t], and, then asked ‘What is a Blog?’.

Feeling he wasn’t being existential, I proceeded to check out my previous post about the bumpers on the Audi S8 always getting into trouble. And similarly there an very angry forum member insisted I get rid of my [no deleted] link to the commercial-less magazine 450 photos of the auto show - which happened to focus quite a bit on the Audi TT and R8.

*** Forum Pattern #1: The moderators are assholes and the members are likewise. The topic of the forum is only a lure to get innocent people to venture inside where they can practice their skills at being jerks.

Familiar? You can see a lightweight version of this at Audio Asylum. After about 2003 or 2004, every show report I posted about over there, with great personal trepidation and often to the tune of nasty comments and innuendo, got less than 20 visits from Audio Asylum. Given that the show reports get a lot of traffic, this just reinforced the fact that the Asylum was not about high end audio but about people using audio as an excuse to chat amongst themselves.

Audio Circle is quite a bit different. There I have found the moderators to be quite nice - but the members to be less so. A few examples.

I posed news of the high end audio and audio pages at Mattters late last December:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=75761.msg712686#msg712686

The only response was Jeff at Tone Magazine saying we were a clone of the Daily Audiophile. So instead of welcoming a new magazine to the small, friendly hobby we all love, it is instead attacked [and Spintriicty was even worse].

In reality, the Daily Audiophile:
http://www.dailyaudiophile.com/

is a clone of alltop:
http://audio.alltop.com/
which itself is a clone of original signal:
http://gadgets.originalsignal.com/
and who knows about the Daily Reviewer:
http://thedailyreviewer.com/top/audio

Given that the high end audio news on Mattters is WAY different than these, obviously, ‘clonage’ is not what the criticism was about. He did write later in a more agreeable tone but still the public position is still so very indicative of the MO, the standard approach, to new publications and dealers etc. in our hobby.

And another example of just how the people at Audio Circle, even with nice moderators, treat people trying to grow and understand the industry, in this case we can cringe at how people treat the very nice Rachel from Grant Fidelity:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=79139.0

*** Forum Pattern #2: Nice moderators, hostile forum members not so interested in the industry the forum is purported to be about.

Recently I posted a question over at AVS Forum look for more blogs for a Home Theater channel. So far so good, the moderators are invisible and people actually try to come up with some blogs.

*** Forum Pattern #3: A real forum with helpful people [at least most of the time ].

Here is a thought experiment [we can’t do the experiment in reality because we are in the industry and getting banned from a forum or two would be a real pain].

What if I posted the same question I posted on AVS Forum on all the other forums and compared the responses….

Audiogon?
Asylum? [Deleted for sure]
Audio Circle?
etc.

Anyway, think about it. And as the Audi example showed, perhaps it is not that audiophiles are in general more likely to be assholes, but that certain types of people congregate in various forums who may or may not be civilized. Forums, which are kind of the gateway for both people new to the hobby and people who are trying to get a helpful message out to a wider audience.

Now you wonder why the hobby is not growing?

There is a little bit of a wee hissy fit by bloggers and ‘pro’ writers who write about wine.

Here is one article that kind of provides an overview:

Wannabe Wino

First, note that winos have 1000s of blogs while we audiophiles have maybe 10. You can take that to mean there are not many audiophiles, or that we are very passive and apathetic, or we are on average Luddites. [Think the 1st two explanations are close to the truth].

Second, what has bloggers all upset is that someone, a pro-writer [but this is really beside the point - something that the wine bloggers do not grok. It is really passionate and knowledgeable versus casual and novice… NOT old school writer versus bloggers… that ‘about’ was NOT talking about the blogger I linked to who seems to have quite a bit of experience and passion], pointed out that a lot of people are posting their opinions even though their breadth of experience is quite lacking. I.E. they really do not have any real perspective with which to determine and describe what a wine is like … or a piece of equipment sounds like!

And this last is certainly a pet peeve of mine - that many reviewers and most forums post reviews by people who have no clue what they are talking about. For example, how many times have you read ‘Best XZY that I have ever heard!!!’ and then checked out there previous reviews and associated equipment and find out that their system really sucks compared to the piece under review. That YOUR system is way better than theirs… and that YOU would have been able to hear a lot more into what the component can do than they did.

So why do people even read these reviews? Perhaps, as the linked to wine blogger indicated, it is mostly industry types who read them, and, unfortunately, people trying to make a quick buying decision using Google and reviews by anyone who can bang on the keys on a keyboard.

What those people trying to make a buying decision need is a way to rate the Reviewer. Lijit started with this idea, but has changed their business model more often than Fremer changed LPs. Vut the idea is to make a list of quality wine reviewers, quality high end audio reviewers,etc. somewhere so that the internet babel-verse makes some sense.

[Hmmm… that last post had a crazy title for awhile - sorry about that]

Next month’s issue will feature a ‘Best of’ section.

Now, this is not the roll the dice, smoke-filled back room, KMA, what-were-they-thinking kind of best of the year kind of section. You can see those elsewhere. In fact there’s an epidemic of those.

The people most harmed by those types of lists are the people who buy gear every 5 to 10 years and look at these lists to decide what to buy [been there, done that].

And it is not even going to be a REAL Best Sounding Gear of The Year feature - which we could do but, seriously, the people who really care about good sound already know what sounds good. The may not be able to afford it [right now] but they pretty much know what to listen for and to.

No, our list will answer questions like:

Who has the coolest remote control?
Who has the fattest cables?

… and many more

You are invited to vote on these important questions, and many more - and add questions of your own - just post your votes or questions in a comment to this post.

Enjoy!

Well, at least some of is - and this is a good thing.

And now that the press is talking about how bad unemployment is… that is about to get better as well. We all KNOW that the press is always late to the party.

So what does that mean in high-end audio?

That means the bargain basement deals on Audiogon are drying up.

That means that dealers and manufacturers are selling things again.

That means that CES attendance might be up by 150 to 200% over last year. [don’t ask me how I know. OK, I was looking at the AVN conference (Adult Entertainment Expo) next door to CES to see how hard it is to get in as press to THAT show and they said registration is WAY up by about this amount. No, I think I would be too embarrassed to take 100 close-up shots of the porn star celebrities at that show. Or… am… I? ]

Sure, we are all still a little scared and some losers are preaching doom and gloom [ever notice, these kinds of people NEVER preach BEFORE the disaster, it is always in hindsight and to kind of add their own special sauce to an already bad situation.]

So, with more or less full recovery around the corner [well… yes, even for audio] what should we be doing?

Many say we should be repositioning ourselves now - why things are slow and their is time, and while the prices are not quite as stiff as they might be soon. I do not know if this is wise advice or not.

I think prices were too low for the ‘out with the old’ which had to happen before ‘in with the new’. So as some life comes back into the marketplace - expect to see one hell of a madhouse as people sell all their equipment and buy what they think will be better - after all, there has been almost 2 years of pent-up-demand building and building…

So the dealers and manufacturers who will make out are the ones who can handle lots of traffic, lots of orders, because if the hesitate - someone else will get the sale.

And for audiophiles, you have to be quick on the uptake because some things are kind of rare and will not appear on the market very often - and this will be an opportunity to get just about anything you ever thought about buying.

And, by the way, this is true for the Art market and Housing market as well.

No, it won’t ‘over stimulate’ the economy - the doomsayers always like to poop on the party. I do not think a lot of people will be making money as there will be much more swapping for things of about equal value as opposed to everybody emptying their bank accounts to upgrade their lifestyles. But still, with 2 years pent up demand, there will be plenty of people buying new things as well.

I could be wrong - but think about it.

As I casually read what various reviewers wrote about the sound they heard at the show a few things become obvious. This is not about the sound in our rooms, about which I have read one positive and one not so positive (about the small room - but I did not hear the system after a major cable change was made - so do not know if the reporter was right or not)

1. A lot of reviewers just can’t hear. They string together a lot of good sounding ‘audiophile words’ and hope in this way to gain some advertising. This would be shocking if it wasn’t so sad.

2. Some just mention the positive things about the sound, never the negative [same ole same ole - but only a few people/mags are this honest anymore].

3. Some lie, sometimes describing sound more or less accurately, and sometimes just negative and/or positive things in order to achieve some political or economic goal they must have in mind.

As for comments on forums, take a room at random and make it the Best of Show. As far as I can see it is completely random - aka noise. Aka no information provided.

There is not any room so horrible sounding that someone, somewhere won’t post that it is the best of show.

I used to think this was akin to ‘there is no man so ugly that some woman somewhere won’t think he is handsome’.

But this has more to do with the beholder being really confused, than it does with seeing the inner beauty of someone/something. And it has to do with people being manipulated into thinking something different happened [good or bad sound] from what REALLY happened.

Of course, this cacophony of misinformation, lies, political maneuvering, sloth, etc. just mirrors that of the current state of affairs everywhere circa 2009. The difference lately has been that so called ‘trusted sources’ do not have loyalty to the traditional reporter’s ‘creed’ to tell the truth.

That, while representing yourself as being ‘independent’, but instead telling a self-serving point of view that makes you money is AOK.

The 1984 part of this is that people have been programmed to accept this as being acceptable behavior for a ‘news organization’.

The upshot of all this incompetence and deception is that it is really hard to get any real information about the sound at a show, or, to expand our focus, any component. Even if you listen to it, if the person setting it up did not have the correct associated components, you still didn’t hear it [most systems seem to be either the random Audiogon click to buy approach or some dealer putting components together because it is good ‘politics’]. It is hard to get an idea of how something really sounds [think how poorly Wilson has been represented all these years - how many people hate their speakers. This is why].

Because of all this, Spintricity is just presenting things like specs, people, how-tos and why-tos, and ads. Because of the rampant unethical behavior of the press, we can’t even think about doing reviews ourselves, of equipment or rooms at shows, without tarnishing our magazine with the stink of the current zines. [Even though we are darned good at it with having probably the most significant and wide-ranging experience with uber high-end audio of any reviewers/reporters/audiohpiles. And our personal preferences are also 1) known to us [so we can at least try to listen around them] and 2) fairly mainstream]

Each year I get a talkin’ to by *somebody* about my show reports and this year it was Channel Islands Audio (CIAudio) in the Von Schweikert room.

It started off by them accusing me of trashing their room sound. I tried to think of whether I had ever said ANYTHING about CIAudio in any show report. I am sure the confusion showed on my face [Neli says I look especially stupid when I am confused ].

So then the clarification arrived [to save me from looking stupid… or as stupid anyway] which was that I said their system couldn’t be taken seriously because it was driven by an iPod.

And then more clarification about how I only like tubed gear and Analog sources.

Well, that last is not exactly true, but I can understand how one might arrive at that conclusion.

And the statement about the iPod sounds exactly like something I would say.

At the time I said I was sorry, but we really had to decide how much ‘fidelity’ we were going to sacrifice in order to attract the iPod generation [the idea being, that if we sacrifice too much to get them, we will have won the battle and lost the war].

With some prompting, another person in the room indicated that they thought that the iPod with the Wadia dock sounded better sometimes than the Oracle CD player. We shall skip the discussion about whether the Oracle CD player is a good benchmark of high-fidelity or not and discuss something I think is a more general problem.

1. Almost every electronics manufacturer at the show has some kind of support for the iPod.
2. The iPod does not sound great when playing in a hi-fi system [hopefully we can agree on this]
3. The iPod generation is completely, absolutely, without a doubt absent from hi-fi shows, and we don’t hear much about them shopping up a storm at any high-end dealerships either

Now I am going to state some assumptions, otherwise this post will be as long as your typical online equipment review:

1. To attract a listener to the audiophile way of life they have to hear a system that sounds good.
2. Support for the iPod is a pre-requisite for the iPod generation who we want to transition to something better [there are technological methodologies that would help to transition them in other ways - like to a music server, with potentially much higher fidelity, but let’s continue…]
3. Making the iPod sound good in a good sounding system would be a home-run in this game of ’save our industry from a lingering death’.

Just doing step 2 leads to failure to attract the iPod generation, and loses us some of the current generation of audiophiles as well, and this is where we are right now.

My proof comes with the experience I had in several rooms at the show, where, when I was in the room they played an iPod (or digital source) which was extremely bright and, in fact horrible in many ways - whereas other people whose ears I trust and who know my criteria - they heard a real source component and the sound was reportedly good to excellent.

This is plain stupid. In fact it is idiotic.

We would do better to attract the iPod generation by people bringing decent system source components and not looking strange, or even hostile, at young people when they want to play young music [you know, like the music WE LIKED when we were young? Duh].

Neli’s idea is that there could be an iPod docking station and lazy exhibitors are NOT to use it because they are too lazy to bring a real source component and CDs [or a turntable and box of LPs… unlike us lazy bones this year].Instead they should offer to plugin other people’s iPods and play THEIR music.

But this only works if it sounds better than them just sticking a couple of ear plugs in their ears. And if the exhibitor’s system is playing an iPod - and it sounds like poop - and the exhibitor happily grins and says “ain’t that great?” … what does that say about our entire hobby to a newbie. It says all we have in high-end audio is poopy sound and that they should spend their money on a bigger flat-screen instead.

So, now I not only reiterate that a iPod-fronted system can’t be taken seriously as hi-fi - but that, at shows, they are a threat to the hobby. And that includes laptops and music servers - which, with iPods, significantly increases the number of rooms that have megabuck equipment in them that sound horrible most of the time because they try to be ‘cool’ playing these sources that they cannot [yet!] make sound good.

So, let’s make this stuff [yes, it is COOL. No doubt about it. In fact we are eager to jump in with both feat.] sound good BEFORE we subject all these listeners to it, OK? Otherwise we have a repeat of the CD introduction - and we know what THAT did to our wonderful hobby.

Remember, CD Players were just as COOL, back in the day.

And they darn near killed high-end home audio.

OK.

I am not sure what good it will do. And it is not like I think the entire Audiophile press is corrupt - which I don’t.

But we have been the only ones doing a show report that talks about the sound for a long time - and, like the very very few honest news programs out there that have actual real facts [you know, from Reality] and lots of bad news - people just do not know what to think about our ‘odd man out’ show report so to speak .

I think the parallel is the Miss America contest [or Miss Universe, or Mr. Universe for that matter, although Schwarzenegger in his day was the clear winner]. An audio show for 99% of the press and attendees is a Miss Universe contests with no ‘talent competition’.

She walks out in a bathing suit, people vote on looks and their preferred measurements, and that is it.

At an audio show, people vote for what they think sounds best with respect to their preferences. That’s it. A beauty contest that is all about the eye of the beholder.

It is like a car magazine where everyone takes a test drive and they all vote based on appearance and their experience about which is the best car. Who cares to talk about what the car will be used for. Or safety. Or reliability. Or price/performance. Or suitability for the average person. Or maintenance costs.

It is a very shallow ‘opinion’ by someone with no vested interest - they will not have to marry Miss America nor purchase the car with their hard earned money.

Yeah, so maybe the press is populated by shallow people and shallow people read what they write and all is as it should be in a shallow world.

So where is the place for people like us, and I sincerely hope, some of you?

People who want to know what is the best - REALLY, HONEST TO GOD. People who want them ranked and their weaknesses and strengths pointed out in a clear, straight forward manner.

I mean, audio is so much easier than cars. A car might be ruled out by many people because the driver’s seat is just too uncomfortable for some unknown reason, that the head room is just 1/2 inch too low, the suspension is just a wee bit too stiff.

Things like this is audio: the speakers too heavy to get up the stairs, the design requires too much space and your room is too small, whatever are easy and obviosu for us all to deal with AFTER we know which is the better speaker and which is not.

Given a kind of an average over types of sound, a sound that is not so over the top in some areas that it will be off-putting to most people, what room sounds the best. It will have very high if not the highest marks in what makes a good sound reproducing system - and doesn’t do anything so bad that invalidates all the other high scores.

——————————

OK. Two thought experiments.

1.

Imagine an art show occurring in the Marriott. Each room has works by a single artist.

The press does not know the names of the artists. One of the rooms has a few unknown pieces by Picasso, a few unknown by Leonardo Da Vinci and the rest of the 100 rooms or so have art by local artists, some of which advertise in the magazines the press represents - so they are familiar with and know the artists and recognize their work.

Who gets best of show? What percentage give best of show to Picasso and/or Leonardo?

2.

Same art show. The names of the artists are posted on the doors to each room.

Who gets best of show. What order are the best of shows after the first 2?

—————————–

What does this mean?

It means that show reports are by and large useless [and I would expand this blanket statement to reviews as well].

The only cases where they are useful is when a reporter (when they have the ability to understand what they are experiencing) gets really excited about something they see [hey , that local artist COULD be the next Picasso].

As someone who came from the outside, thinking that as press I should report an accurate and honest account of what things sound like, well, I was the first one at the time (and I was clumsy and inexperienced) - and still the only one now.

A lot of people read the show reports, but they do not really like hearing bad news. Those real new channels only get 1%(?) of the listeners, and that is for presumably the same reason. Sure, I could accuse all the bad sounding rooms of being terrorists - and probably get my own cable channel - but I doubt if I could do it and keep from cracking up [laughing I mean ] at the blatant absurdity of this world.

So, do I continue bring bad news to people about how things really sound? It is not really ‘bad’, it is just that there is usually some bad and some good and some ho hum. It is not all BEST EVER like people have been trained to expect by the press.

Or do I put the real poop here in the blog, and let the masses see and learn about what is at the show without any independent coverage on Spintricity? I do like helping the ’small guy’ get the word out - one of the reasons I do not talk much about the sound in their rooms unless it is actually better than expected - and this approach of segregating the show report would probably help them….as Spintricity show reports would probably get even more visitors that would then see the small guy’s wares.

A little rambling, I know.

But, as you might expect, this is a subject that I think about quite a bit.

————————

Summarizing:

*Preferences of the reporter have no place in a real show report - some sound is REALLY better and some is not for 90% of the listening public
*99% of the Press does not do their job
*Every system has some things it does not do perfectly
*Most people do not like to be reminded of reality
*Some people, however, will suffer facts in order to make informed buying decisions.
*All people are so inundated with lies and hype that they do not know what to believe
*Our show reports, now on Spintricity, is the only one [although Stereophile does darn good] to cover the small manufacturers

Our goals are two-fold: bringing audiophiles and manufacturers together (especially small ones, Musical Fidelty does not need our help). And to help our readers make informed buying decisions.

Perhaps these are best served by bifurcating the show report, putting analysis here on the blog, and leaving Spintricity to focus on helping connect audiophiles with cool equipment.

Opinions anyone?

The only reason discounts work is because every buyer thinks they are ’special’…

1) “Everyone else pays full price but *I* get it at 50% off. This salesperson must really love me, they just let me keep my extra $10K in cold cash that I can now spend on my spouse.”

or

2) “Boy oh boy, I found a great deal! 65% off - I bet nobody else gets this great a deal. The salesperson said they were able to do this because I was the 1st caller that minute.”

Problem is, we are programmed to respect MSRP as being equal to the value of something,. But it is not. What it sells for is ‘the value’.

But the perception of MSRP may be changing.

When shopping for video cards on newegg.com, who looks at MSRP, it is the street price we care about.

When shopping for CDs, the MSRP is what $15, $17? [this was written a year or two ago and not posted. I think $18.99 is now the standard price]. Kind of hard to tell. But we know they go on sale at random (it seems to me) for $11. And they are free if you can find and download them or copy them from a friend.
[Not sure why I originally put this in here. This is the opposite of a discount economy and is pure price gouging. It might have worked a decade or two ago - but we now all KNOW how much it costs to make a CD. In some ways it is this kind of over-charging that may have triggered the discount economy.]

This is worse now during this ‘Downturn’ or ‘Great Recession’. It is worse because both consumers, sales people and manufacturers think they now have carte blanc to play games with reality. “Everybody expects to get big discounts these days”.

It ain’t a discount if that is what they are selling it to you for - that is what it is worth.

See also:

Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

and more factoids:

“Manufactured goods have been getting cheaper, both in absolute terms and relative to services. Since the Consumer Prices Index was first launched in 1996, the prices of “goods” have fallen an average 2%; while the prices of services have risen 35%. The most talked about example has been in textiles: since 1996, the average price of clothes has fallen 36%. But it is not just clothes that have been falling in price: new cars are 1.5% cheaper than they were in 1996; household appliances are 24% cheaper; toys are 30% cheaper, and of course, in the audio-visual category, you’ll find things are on average now 56% cheaper than they were nine years ago”

And this is BEFORE the 50% off discount….

Where most people shop for pedestrian and cheap [what others might (do) call America’s love affair with the shoddy], others shop for uncommon value. I personally do not see how the ‘discount economy’ has caused the current economic clime, but I do, personally, find it boring and tiresome and not at all where the ‘cool’ stuff is happening.