“It seems that Russ Andrews got himself into trouble.
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudicati…_ADJ_44177.htm
The “New Scientist” reported, (Feedback, 10 May 2008), that:
“He must not make the claim, [about mains cables] again, unless he backs it up with robust scientific evidence”
I wonder if this judgement paves the way for a less subjective means of choosing Hi Fi? “
“Radio 3 has now been broacasting the Saturday matinees live from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York since 1993. The new season of weekly broadcasts can be seen by clicking on the link below and includes some wonderful casts and new productions.
The operas are all presented by Margaret Juntwait from New York and the new version of the popular Met Quiz will appear during most of the second intervals.”
“Expect to be enthralled with original Steve Howe compositions, jazz, blues, solo guitar and Yes numbers, all specially arranged for trio format.
For nearly 40 years, Steve Howe has been at the forefront of rock music as a model and inspiration for other guitarists and musicians, perhaps best known as a member of the progressive rock group Yes and latterly in the reformed Asia.
Steve’s new trio project with his son Dylan Howe, rightly acclaimed as one of the best drummers of his generation and keyboard maestro Ross Stanley on Hammond organ, is in marked contrast to his previous work and this truly masterful combination is soon to be immortalised on CD as they go into the studio later this month.
The show creates a “friendly tension between Steve Howe’s compositions and Yes lineage and the hard bop jazz of Dylan and Ross” A stellar encore achieved a balance between the prog rock dynamics of the original and the jazz styling of the trio“.”
“I’ve always heard that single-ended, directional interconnects (e.g., AudioQuests) should be installed with the arrows pointing away from the source. Is that really true, though? It seems like it actually doesn’t have much to do with signal travel, but with grounding: normally, the shield is connected to ground at the end the arrow points toward. Therefore, it seems that the cables should actually be installed with the arrows pointing toward the system ground (normally the preamp). This makes a difference (or does it?) for the cables between the preamp and power amp. What about directional speaker cables? Should the arrows point back toward the preamp, too?“
14 Responses HERE
“World-renowned jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis performs with Joey Calderazzo (piano), Eric Revis (bass) and Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts (drums).
After years of fascinating projects and detours, the saxophone-laying Marsalis brother has found his platform: ‘I just want to play. I don’t want to be in magazines’ he recently told the New York Times.
The quartet, with long-time Marsalis associate, drummer Jeff Watts, joined by Joey Calderazzo on piano and Eric Revis on bass is capable of frightening intensity and also extreme, swooning relaxation; it is certainly one of the most exciting units on the jazz scene today.“
“Hi guys - I am looking to upgrade my 1 year old Dynavector xx1 MC cartridge - I have heard (and read) for many years that Koetsu cartridges are a great option for those looking for musicality, right timbre and lush-sounding analog.
Digging further I find that some cathegorize them as slow sounding, not great tracking and poor price/performance ratio as well… I am looking for advise from those who have experience with Koetsu - particulary those who moved from a fast sounding cartrdige like Dyna, Clearaudio or Lyra - missing anything once you moved?“
33 comments HERE
The seller says:
“Mint condition David Berning ZH270 power amp. Very unusual valve design - can be used as integrated for two inputs or as power amp and sounds amazing - regarded by some as one of the best amps in the world, ever. Only selling as ended up with two amps (long story - was an accident!) Google for reviews.
£2950 or very close offer“
laurence.staig@onetel.net
Looks a rather nice company, based on their site. No idea about the equipment at all – but looks like deep knowledge and no snake-oil here. Always a winning combination for me.
Here’s what the proprietor says: “I am first and foremost a music lover; I guess I became an audio engineer out of necessity rather than by choice.
Tube Distinctions have been building audio equipment for over 10 years now, but I personally have been repairing other manufacturers’ equipment, from guitar amplifiers (all types) to audio replay equipment (hi fi) for as long as I care to remember (about 25 years!).
It was in fact out of frustration from my many disappointing experiences of other so called high-end manufacturers’ equipment that led me to start up Tube Distinctions.”
Are some high-profile retailers as independent as they make out, or are they covertly owned by their suppliers?
And why should it matter?
It’s doubtful if the public will ever know for sure, but my guess is that yes, some certainly are. I will need to qualify the term ‘owned’ later, but initially, just consider the situation in the retail franchised automotive world where I worked for some years between Subjective Audio and simply-STAX.
A ‘civilian’ car buyer already knows that a franchised car retailer is – in the main – going to be ‘solus’ by which I mean say Audi or Ford, or Toyota and so on. You just don’t see one make along side another, not in a franchised official car showroom at least. You may well see competitive makes on the same site, also under the same dealership name – but always in a separate showroom. In Cambridge for example, there is a Porsche specialist who in an adjacent showroom represents Aston Martin. You get the idea I’m sure.
However what is not generally known, and as far as I can see there is nothing sinister about this, many apparently independent franchised automotive retailers are owned by the car maker or the car distributor. In terms of the quality of service received, it probably doesn’t really make much difference. However from the standpoint of the car maker or distributor, it certainly does.
That car maker gets double profit because in essence the ‘independent’ retailer is the direct sales arm of the retailer. Additionally, total control over that retailer’s marketing stance, trading policy and so on is assured.
To some extent this has been the case in audio, overtly at least, with B&O.
Their well appointed and in the main coolly self assured, professional and welcoming high street stores do not represent alternative brands. My guess is that the company ethos/ethic is so strong that the showroom staff don’t even acknowledge they have competitors. And if you stop to think about it, they probably haven’t. To what extent the B&O network is owned by B&O with their own management in place, and the remainder is a franchise where the franchisee has paid money for the opportunity is unclear. It’s probably irrelevant anyway.
So what’s my point?
If the ownership of a so-called independent audiophile retailer is overt, then this is to be welcomed. Where it is covert, it is in my view morally questionable, although probably commercially sound. It’s questionable because that retailer might stock a range of brands – but has absolutely no intention of selling some of them.
In fact, their allegiance is to one distributor and that’s the source of the products they intend to sell – and nothing else.
The problem is that the ‘civilian’ attracted by what seems to be a range of products is in fact confronted by a sub-set of products. This is disastrous for the supplier of products which although on display, are going to be tarnished. By so doing, that brand not only looses a sale (and an advocate) but he/she goes away with an unfavourable perception of the brand – and bad news travels fast.
All in the mind?
No, not really. Back in the 1980s where Linn was exerting considerable marketing muscle in the industry I was a retailer for Pink Triangle products and Linn too. There were a few other retailers who stocked both Linn and Pink. The odd thing was that some of those retailers sold very few, or perhaps no Pink’s at all. Meanwhile I was selling equal numbers of Pinks, LP12s and Michell Gyros – and slightly fewer Oracles.
What could account for this?
My suspicion was that in some way the ‘civilian’ interested in a Pink was persuaded away from it during the pre demo discussion. There is of course the possibility that some people just didn’t like the sound of the Pink. But that possibility can’t account for zero or near zero sales in some retailers.
You’d hope of course that an A-B demonstration would be the proper arbiter and would enable the attentive listener to make a rational decision. Sadly, despite the hype, this is not a forgone conclusion. A-B demonstrations, certainly back in those days could be effortlessly manipulated – if the retailer and/or a maverick, compliant or brand-fanatical salesperson wanted to.
Which brings me back to today.
The brands I stock are rare and this means my suppliers are very wary of putting their brands into some retailers because they know from experience that they just wont be fairly represented. Consequently I’m not up against the type of situation described above. So why should I care?
Well here’s the thing. I do get a number of calls and emails from people who tell me right away that they aren’t in a position to buy from me but want my opinion of an experience (usually at the same retailers) which concerned them. In a nutshell they’d read about ‘Product A’ and had gone to a stockist of it and quite frankly it didn’t sound anywhere near as engaging (for example) as the review led them to believe.
Moreover they’d been elsewhere and heard the identical product, but sounding superior.
Could I offer any thoughts?
Call me a cynic (and why not) but once you’ve stripped out the variations caused by different demo room acoustics, ancillary equipment and so on, it seems to me that the retailer had no intention of demonstrating ‘Product A’ in a rewarding way for the visitor and was operating on a win-win approach for the dealership and by obvious linkage, for the true owner or at least funders of that business. It may well be that some retailers are funded and therefore indirectly ‘owned’ by their suppliers.
It’s easily done. Retailer A is loaded up to roof with demo stock from Distributor A. It’s all on credit, initially. But when the down time comes, as surely it must (as indeed do the good times) the distributor expects payment. Now if that retailer can’t pay, and the distributor won’t take the equipment back, then what?
Under such circumstances, the distributor is acting as a banker, and bankers call the shots. Money is owed and might be reduced by acquiring shares. Who knows? If correct, then the so called independence is redudced to being merely a fabrication. Consequently ……..
Now you might indeed argue that surely this is merely competent salesmanship and anything to the contrary smacks of commercial naivety. It’s a valid point – superficially.
Here’s the reality as I see it.
First, if a civilian goes into an Audi showroom, he/she quite rightly expects to have a sensible discussion and a series of test-drives of Audi cars. Plain and simple. This is identical to the situation in a B&O shop. In contrast, the ‘civilian’ who walks into what he/she thinks is a truly independent audiophile retailer and by implication is looking for sensible and truthful guidance (i.e. working to the civilian’s agenda) might find themselves in a situation where they are obliged to follow the agenda of the dealership.
And that really is the crux of my argument. It’s the covert agenda that’s camouflaged under the veneer of ‘independence’ that I find so distasteful.
One could argue then that my own business is run on hypocritical lines.
I’d argue otherwise. Quite simply I do not have products from suppliers that are here only and precisely to demonstrate the superiority of my chosen lines. As evidence, I only represent one brand of amplification, one brand of stand mounted speakers (no floor mounted currently) one brand of digital replay equipment and so on.
Am I therefore against any audiophile retailer that only stocks products from one or two distributors, just like I do? Certainly not. In fact I’m convinced that as the shakeout in the retail, audiophile business accelerates, we will see here an increasing parallel with the retail automotive business in that we will have retailers specialising in brand A – in-depth. Terrific, I think.
For this to work though, to everyone’ benefit, it does require an attitude-shift. By this I mean it requires the ‘civilian’ to produce a short-list of brands first, and then seek out those audiophile retailers that can demonstrate they have product knowledge and demonstration stock in-depth for that brand.
Think of it this way.
Although I’m likely to stick with Audi for a very long time to come, I am from time to time curious about BMW. Thus I will make at least one visit to official franchised retailers of both brands. I’ll not wander into ‘Kerbside Motors’ with a fistful of readies inviting the salesman to tell me how best to spend it.
Finally, how might one spot the audio retailer with a view that THEIR agenda is more important than YOURS?
One of the tell tale signs is if you spot nearly everything from one distributor, and just a couple of items from another distributor. Let’s say, all of the XYZ speaker range and just one or two of the ABC speaker range. Even so though, this is not automatically a waste of your time.
This is because if you’ve already put the XYZ range on your shortlist, you’ve come to the right place. Conversely if the ABC range is on your shortlist, you’re wasting your time – big time!
Moral.
“Awhile back I purchased a used LP12 turntable with an Ekos tonearm, Arkiv cartridge with the Lingo power supply & Linto phono pre-amp. Running this thru a couple Klout amps to B&W Nautilus 802 speakers. Playing a CD or Tape the sound is great. Playing an album the sound is not very good. It almost sounds like the singer needs to clear their throat, it’s kind of garbled, I guess is the word to use.
All I have is a couple brushes to clean the LP’s (Discwasher & Bib). Curious to what everyone uses to clean their albums & cartridge & also where to purchase? New to this analog stuff.“
16 answers HERE
