Building systems around a component that is so very precious but not to one's taste

Noticed a lack of response to our lists of Bests and Most Respected…

Is it because:

1. Everyone is overwhelmed with 100 pages of 10 referenda per page voting materials?

2. Everyone agrees 100% with the lists of Best and Most Respected we have proposed?

3. Everyone does not know why the heck we are even talking about this?

To try and clear up those who classify themselves firmly with #3 above…

We have talked over and over about how different people are seeking different kinds of sound: Druglike [me :-)], Boy Toy [boom and sizzle], Gee whiz [cool tech, often related to Boy Toy], Enjoyable, etc.

We all have components sometimes that we love so much we expect to be buried with them… but as often as not, these components do not actually match our sonic preferences. Strange… but oh so true.

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OK. Now let’s pick on everyone’s favorite [at least it was 6 months ago] speaker d’jour, the Magico Q5.

What if…

This prototypical Gee Whiz speaker was paired with front-end equipment and made to sound… sweet (say)? Or Enjoyable? Or Druglike?

In my experience and to a large degree, this is indeed possible.

What if when an audiophile went into a dealership, and was looking for the Q5, they were presented with several systems with this speaker: with one sounding Enjoyable, one Druglike, one Boy Toy-like?

Then they could hear what the speaker sounds like in systems 1) designed to show off various strengths of the speaker and 2) with a sound that appeals directly to their particular preferences [assuming their preferences lie pretty squarely in the Enjoyable, Druglike, or Boy Toy-like sound categories].

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OK. Back to the lists of Best and Most Respected.

The idea here is that when people come in looking for a product, say ‘X’, to be able to be able to show them, not a system thrown together to kind of sound ‘OK’ [usually a boom and sizzle Boy Toy] that happens to have ‘X’ as a component, but to show off ‘X’ in its best light, in fact in several different ‘best lights’.

This is opposite to the unethical well-worn cross-sell strategy where you show off ‘X’ in its WORST light in order to sell them ‘Y’ instead.

This is also different from the optimal strategy of trying to illuminate the audiophile about what components out there match their sonic preferences. Teaching is thankless job #1 in all the universe.

Here, we go ahead and sell them ‘X’ [or encourage them to keep ‘X’], which they actually seem to want [people often being reviewer- and forum-driven in their decision making process and get pretty damn convinced], and at the same time show them how to get the most out of it in a way that suits their individual taste.

For a more concrete example, say an audiophile is like me, they want a druglike sound, but they also want the Magico Q5, being impressed, like me, with the build-quality and design approach. Instead of just sending them home with the Q5, having them be unhappy because their current system does not generate a druglike sound using the Q5, and all that wonderful information on the web is geared toward, guess what?, making Boy Toy sounds with the Q5 – we show them an actual druglike system with the Q5 – they go home happy knowing they can have the Q5 *AND* the sound they actually like.

Are all speakers [or amps, or…] created equally able to be Boy Toyish, or Druglike, or Sweet? Not exactly, but perhaps more so than is commonly portrayed.

Can all be made to be druglike, or Enjoyable, or Boy Toys? If you spend enough money I am certain the answer is yes. [Otherwise, it takes a lot of work and experimentation, which might cost the same in the end]

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OK, back to the lists.

The idea is that, for cost no object systems, a person can actually purchase a component somewhat unsuited to their actual tastes [because they just freaking want to – i.e. they are a common, garden-variety human being], and still achieve a system sound that they really like [if they tailor the rest of the system, accordingly].

The lists, then, are the superset of all components that people either 1) want, or 2) need in order to get the sound they desire from the components they want.

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Hope this helps explain what the Best/Most Respected lists are about anyway…

This chain of logic is actually just common sense, if somewhat audacious and kind of upside down to the way people usually think about all this … 🙂