The Grass Always Seems Greener
… over in somebody ELSE’S system.
Repeat after me:
There is no perfect speaker.
There is no perfect amplifier.
There is no perfect…
It is the components that one Hasn’t heard that are the most incidious at making us doubters, making us wonder if THEY perhaps are the *** U-L-T-I-M-A-T-E *** COMPONENT.
Some of the Jones’ components are good, most are just OK, just like all components once you actually get to hear them for yourself.
It is the one’s we haven’t heard, where we wonder “maybeTHAT box has EVERYTHING… sophistication AND magic AND impressiveness!”, that are the most insidious, making us doubt everything we have learned up until now.
Truth: There are very, very few components that really ARE significantly greener than the rest. Most are just… different. Hey, at least half are actually worse than average :-).
However, it is the actual hearing one of these 8th wonders of the world that REALLY gets us hooked, dooms us to keep looking, always looking, across the street to see if the grass really IS greener over there.
It is our job here, our responsibility, tough life that we have, to scout around the 1000s of speakers, 1000s of amps, and cables and cd players, and preamps and powercords and determine which are truly special and which are just …nice.
Unlike most dealers we actually do not care if they ‘sell well’ – if they are really great sounding we will make the effort ourselves to help build their brand and get the word out there.
Unlike most reviewers we do not have to find a great component each and every month.
Unlike most reviewers (and most dealers who seem to rely more on the big bamboozle – yes, I just had to put bamboozle in somewhere; bamboozle is just too fun of a word to leave out of any good Blog for too awfully long 🙂 ) we actually care about how the components really sound because we play them here for very picky people who will spend some of their hard-earned to take what they are hearing home with them if they really like what they hear (and can afford what they hear).
We take this responsibility to heart – some components are really pretty good so there is no real need to replace them with the hot new brand X, the grass often really isn’t greener (it just the low angle you are looking at it from that makes it look greener 🙂 ) – save a few bucks.
OK, three smiley faces is all I allocate myself for each post (not really, but I bet you wish it were true) so I had better be…
…outa here.