RichardAusten
pfm Member
Yer see the thing is that the things you consider me to be wrong about I am, of course, right about, that's what really rattles my ****ing cage
I have decades of experience at designing, building, measuring, listening to and repairing analogue electronic equipment in the form of hi fi and I'm VERY good at it, as I should be after it being my vocation all this time. I consider myself in the same league as the likes of Nelson Pass and the late TdP at what I do (no not better than....) as a designer, whether or not I have the money the facilities or the inclination to actually manufacture, which I don't, I do have that kind of knowledge and experience.
Does it come as such a surprise then that I get ****ing angry when people who work as say a bricklayer and don't know a resistor from a radish think they are not only in a position to argue with me but to make claims that are not even possible within the laws of physics!? I'm not a bricklayer and would not even consider going up to a time served foremen bricky and start giving it "you don't want to mix the cement like that and you obviously don't know what type of bricks to use there cos I read something different in a DIY supplement I got with a newspaper".... So why the very **** do people think that in a vastly more technical subject of electronics it's OK to do just that with me!?? or even (god give me strength!) to insist that the laws of physics must be wrong cos their ears tell them different!! Thicker than a boxing day turd!!!
And yes myself and your pal are probably quite similar here... as were the late Richard Dunn, the late TdP and the famous amp designer Doug Self. Our "type" are not "people people" and don't suffer fools gladly I guess
The problem with the internet is that it is an alternate reality of sorts. There is your real world and your working knowledge but you can't expect someone on a forum half a world away or even 3 blocks over to take you at your world. I didn't take the word of a guy on TV who said he was the least racist person on the earth and that he knew all the best people who he hired and fired the next week. I mean if they were the best people why would they need to be fired 10 days later? Guess they were not the best people.
There was a fellow on another board who used to say that he owned the best speakers on the planet - they were his own modifications to a Bose 901 speakers. Most people heard and disliked the 901s but according to him he was a great speaker designer and he alone made the greatest speaker wherever was in the whole of history. How can anyone check on that? There is no way for me or anyone to put his "words" to the test. There is nowhere to go to A/B his speaker versus what is sold on the market.
As a teacher, it reminds me of the student who says "Sorry My dog ate my essay but believe me it was the best essay ever written in the whole of humankind." Sorry we can't take the kid at his word.
The only thing I have to go on is some sort of product to audition. Almost every manufacturer in audio says their product is the best of the best and their approach is the best. The consumer has to put those claims to the test the only way they can - listening. They don't need to know a resistor from a radish. They need to know when they put on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata or Barber's Adagio for Strings is which system moves me or feels more "right."
The only way that can happen is to have some product to actually listen to. If you make no product for us to try then the second option is to provide people with a list of things you consider to be say the best preamps/integrated/power amps/Source players/speakers etc that can be purchased today.
You mentioned Nelson Pass - so do you consider his amplifiers to be among the elite - or do you consider his First Watt amplifiers to be the best. You see his Pass Labs amps are entirely different sounding than his flea watt First Watt designs that try to emulate a SET. So was he right in the 80s/90s with his ADCOM/Threshold/Pass or is he correct now with his SET-inspired First Watt products? Since you think SET is trash - then I guess you feel Nelson has gone senile?
Have you ever considered that you are wrong? It's easy to always be right when you never put your products to the test. The guy who says he is a better writer than Shakespeare but never lets anyone read his work. He may be but who is to know? Did he graduate from a famous writing school - the Oxford of writing schools? The guy with his Bose 901 modification - did he graduate from a premium university or was he just doodling in his basement as some sort of crank?
The market decides what is good - at least over time it usually does. Regardless of whether individual forum posters like or dislike something - the market decides what holds and has value. For example, I am not a fan of Magnepan or B&W loudspeakers. I can have my say but in the end, both of been around longer than I have been alive. The market spoke, and the market has decided they make good-sounding products. In other words, I am WRONG about these brands. I mean personal taste and all I am right for myself as I subjectively don't like their sound. Just as I don't like Brussels-Sprouts - someone obviously loves those demon pods of sick.