Obsessions
January 13, 2024 9:24 AM Subscribe
He spent his life building a $1 million stereo. The real cost was unfathomable. Ken Fritz turned his home into an audiophile’s dream — the world’s greatest hi-fi. What would it mean in the end?
Two more men who built their lives around their obsessions - and let their families pay the price:
The Discovery of the Edgar Church Collection - long, old-school web page story from Mile High Comics detailing the single greatest comic book find of the twentieth century.(previously) “His heirs, for reasons I was never able to clearly understand, had an extreme antipathy toward anything paper that Mr. Church had accumulated during his lifetime. One theory I have about their dislike of his files is that the cost of all the comics and magazines that Mr. Church purchased during the 1920-1955 period put a severe drain on the family finances. Mr. Church collected every super-hero and adventure/horror comic printed, quite a few non-super-hero comics, vast numbers of pulp magazines, and even a large quantity of magazines with line-art covers. The cost of all those purchases, plus the fact that his files ended up filling darn near the entire basement, must have been quite an annoyance to the rest of his family.”
A climate scientist spent years trying to get people to pay attention to the disaster ahead. His wife is exhausted. His older son thinks there’s no future. And nobody but him will use the outdoor toilet he built to shrink his carbon footprint.(previously)
Two more men who built their lives around their obsessions - and let their families pay the price:
The Discovery of the Edgar Church Collection - long, old-school web page story from Mile High Comics detailing the single greatest comic book find of the twentieth century.(previously) “His heirs, for reasons I was never able to clearly understand, had an extreme antipathy toward anything paper that Mr. Church had accumulated during his lifetime. One theory I have about their dislike of his files is that the cost of all the comics and magazines that Mr. Church purchased during the 1920-1955 period put a severe drain on the family finances. Mr. Church collected every super-hero and adventure/horror comic printed, quite a few non-super-hero comics, vast numbers of pulp magazines, and even a large quantity of magazines with line-art covers. The cost of all those purchases, plus the fact that his files ended up filling darn near the entire basement, must have been quite an annoyance to the rest of his family.”
A climate scientist spent years trying to get people to pay attention to the disaster ahead. His wife is exhausted. His older son thinks there’s no future. And nobody but him will use the outdoor toilet he built to shrink his carbon footprint.(previously)
I approve of people who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of one singular obsession, but it's not fair to drag other people into it. It seems that most people build families and forge connections with other humans with only minimal thought and introspection—or none at all—about the consequences of doing so, to themselves as well as to others. That leads, inevitably, to cruelty and suffering. Solitude and isolation is often the kindest way to live.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:38 AM on January 13 [16 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:38 AM on January 13 [16 favorites]
I am always ready for more Ken Fritz content.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 9:56 AM on January 13
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 9:56 AM on January 13
These articles are too real, and a good warning. If your obsession reaches the point where your children wish you a slow death from recently diagnosed ALS, you went too far. The trick is to pay attention to your loved ones, and to be sure that you are not ruining their lives, now or in the future.
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:59 AM on January 13 [18 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:59 AM on January 13 [18 favorites]
There is a cost to any vocation or avocation which demands your time and resources, and often that cost is the quality or existence of your interpersonal relationships. I've seen it happen with music and running and I'm sure it happens in every area of interest that exists. I don't quite share Faint Of Butt's antipathy towards human connection in general - I think there is no greater joy to be had in this life than forging relationships and keeping them healthy - but if you want to spend all of your time and money building a stereo / train set / scale model of Noah's Ark / whatever, you'd best be with someone that shares your passion or just go it alone.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:16 AM on January 13 [7 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:16 AM on January 13 [7 favorites]
Wow. Great story/cautionary tale about Fritz.
[echoing grumpybear] It seems that at the pinnacles of human achievement, whether it's a personal quest or an academic or career goal, there is often some level of sacrifice in their lives. 30 years ago I knew one guy who's now a first call re-recording engineer who mixes A-list feature films in Hollywood, and has several Oscars. But the extreme effort he put into getting there cost him his first marriage.
One of my current friends aspires to build his own workshop with computer-controlled CNC machine tools etc. To this end he keeps buying surplus tools and parts from auctions etc, to the point where his house overflows and he is clearly off the deep end of hoarding behaviour. He tinkers at getting the stuff working, but is almost never using the stuff to actually do a real, useful thing or project. His wife left him several years ago, but his son is still in touch. The saddest thing is that he's a senior now and there's no way he has enough years left to actually repair and use everything he's collected. I cannot get this fact across to him.
I have hobbies and interests, including sound equipment, but thankfully I put higher value on my marriage and relationships, so my hobbies are little more than eccentricities that don't dominate our lives.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:18 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
[echoing grumpybear] It seems that at the pinnacles of human achievement, whether it's a personal quest or an academic or career goal, there is often some level of sacrifice in their lives. 30 years ago I knew one guy who's now a first call re-recording engineer who mixes A-list feature films in Hollywood, and has several Oscars. But the extreme effort he put into getting there cost him his first marriage.
One of my current friends aspires to build his own workshop with computer-controlled CNC machine tools etc. To this end he keeps buying surplus tools and parts from auctions etc, to the point where his house overflows and he is clearly off the deep end of hoarding behaviour. He tinkers at getting the stuff working, but is almost never using the stuff to actually do a real, useful thing or project. His wife left him several years ago, but his son is still in touch. The saddest thing is that he's a senior now and there's no way he has enough years left to actually repair and use everything he's collected. I cannot get this fact across to him.
I have hobbies and interests, including sound equipment, but thankfully I put higher value on my marriage and relationships, so my hobbies are little more than eccentricities that don't dominate our lives.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:18 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
No mention of mental heath? This seems like compulsive behavior, not unlike hoarding.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:38 AM on January 13 [5 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:38 AM on January 13 [5 favorites]
Cords connect stereo equipment in Fritz's home.
This might be my new high-water mark for sweaty image/caption combos.
posted by Shepherd at 10:47 AM on January 13 [7 favorites]
This might be my new high-water mark for sweaty image/caption combos.
posted by Shepherd at 10:47 AM on January 13 [7 favorites]
Once I got to "die slow, motherfucker," OMG. Also that he couldn't really enjoy it, the sound wasn't as great, and of course nobody else wants this. Kind of all for nothing.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:00 AM on January 13 [5 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:00 AM on January 13 [5 favorites]
> Solitude and isolation is often the kindest way to live.
Humans aren't made that way though. We're social apes and trying to practice kindness to others by self-isolation is a kind of cruelty to ourselves that most of us can't take.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:02 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]
Humans aren't made that way though. We're social apes and trying to practice kindness to others by self-isolation is a kind of cruelty to ourselves that most of us can't take.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:02 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]
I am obessed adjacent. But I am a collector, not a hoarder!!!
My thing is boardgames. I have several thousand. It IS a problem. I also have a very hard time not saving things, or throwing out things, that have a nostalgia component.
But, I have gotten to the point where I have realized that my awesome collection has become a burden. On the other hand, I'm still going to the Goodwill multiple times a day to look for new games. That's more of a reselling for profit kind of deal, but haven't been selling much, so I have been able to not buy things I see, because there is no money in it, and there will be storage requirements.
Luckily, since when my kids are around, we like to play games, so we haven't gotten to the "die slow, motherfucker" stage yet. Ouch.
posted by Windopaene at 11:26 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]
My thing is boardgames. I have several thousand. It IS a problem. I also have a very hard time not saving things, or throwing out things, that have a nostalgia component.
But, I have gotten to the point where I have realized that my awesome collection has become a burden. On the other hand, I'm still going to the Goodwill multiple times a day to look for new games. That's more of a reselling for profit kind of deal, but haven't been selling much, so I have been able to not buy things I see, because there is no money in it, and there will be storage requirements.
Luckily, since when my kids are around, we like to play games, so we haven't gotten to the "die slow, motherfucker" stage yet. Ouch.
posted by Windopaene at 11:26 AM on January 13 [3 favorites]
Wisest thing I ever heard about amassing possessions: you don't own stuff; stuff owns you.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:30 AM on January 13 [21 favorites]
posted by Artful Codger at 11:30 AM on January 13 [21 favorites]
What an asshole, honestly.
Like this:
"He added a workshop and eventually built a swimming pool, something of a sop to his wife, Judy, and their kids, since he was too busy for travel or vacations."
Why can't they go on vacation without him? He didn't just neglect family members in favour of his obsession, his forced them to help him with it at the cost of being kids and having their own interests and time.
Then this:
"It wasn’t the size of the ask. The record player wasn’t worth more than a few hundred dollars. But the tone of the demand set off Fritz. He heard in it a sense of entitlement.
“It could have been a monkey wrench, the way he told me,” Fritz recalled later. “I told him: ‘Not going to happen.’”
Who's the entitled one here?
posted by lookoutbelow at 11:31 AM on January 13 [15 favorites]
Like this:
"He added a workshop and eventually built a swimming pool, something of a sop to his wife, Judy, and their kids, since he was too busy for travel or vacations."
Why can't they go on vacation without him? He didn't just neglect family members in favour of his obsession, his forced them to help him with it at the cost of being kids and having their own interests and time.
Then this:
"It wasn’t the size of the ask. The record player wasn’t worth more than a few hundred dollars. But the tone of the demand set off Fritz. He heard in it a sense of entitlement.
“It could have been a monkey wrench, the way he told me,” Fritz recalled later. “I told him: ‘Not going to happen.’”
Who's the entitled one here?
posted by lookoutbelow at 11:31 AM on January 13 [15 favorites]
No mention of mental heath? This seems like compulsive behavior, not unlike hoarding.
I've only read the third article so far, about the climate scientist, and I had a similar thought. His obsession is making both him and his family stressed and unhappy. It seems unkind to keep delving in it, versus getting therapy or meds to help alleviate some of that tension.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:35 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
I've only read the third article so far, about the climate scientist, and I had a similar thought. His obsession is making both him and his family stressed and unhappy. It seems unkind to keep delving in it, versus getting therapy or meds to help alleviate some of that tension.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:35 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
What an asshole, honestly.
Well, yes, that's the takeaway here: that someone's obsessions often have negative impact on the rest of their personal life. There's tons of stories about our greatest achievers, and while we celebrate their genius, we often have to also note the great personal cost of their success. A lot of our best and brightest have also been jerks or worse.
Also it was mentioned that Fritz's other son Scott "followed their shared passion into a career as a sound engineer in Chicago".
posted by Artful Codger at 11:42 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
Well, yes, that's the takeaway here: that someone's obsessions often have negative impact on the rest of their personal life. There's tons of stories about our greatest achievers, and while we celebrate their genius, we often have to also note the great personal cost of their success. A lot of our best and brightest have also been jerks or worse.
Also it was mentioned that Fritz's other son Scott "followed their shared passion into a career as a sound engineer in Chicago".
posted by Artful Codger at 11:42 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
> Luckily, since when my kids are around, we like to play games, so we haven't gotten to the "die slow, motherfucker" stage yet. Ouch.
If you leave them several thousand games as inheritance, you will be doing them a disservice.
My dad has a 2000sq ft warehouse of stuff. He finally realized that he has to get rid of it before he dies, and has been selling things on eBay. I'm very thankful I will not inherit that.
posted by constraint at 11:46 AM on January 13 [16 favorites]
If you leave them several thousand games as inheritance, you will be doing them a disservice.
My dad has a 2000sq ft warehouse of stuff. He finally realized that he has to get rid of it before he dies, and has been selling things on eBay. I'm very thankful I will not inherit that.
posted by constraint at 11:46 AM on January 13 [16 favorites]
Mr. Church collected every super-hero and adventure/horror comic printed, quite a few non-super-hero comics, vast numbers of pulp magazines, and even a large quantity of magazines with line-art covers.
No mention that he had any interest in actually reading them, I notice. Also, every super-hero and adventure/horror comic? No.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:47 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
No mention that he had any interest in actually reading them, I notice. Also, every super-hero and adventure/horror comic? No.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:47 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
These articles are too real, and a good warning. If your obsession reaches the point where your children wish you a slow death from recently diagnosed ALS, you went too far.
An interview with Joe Bussard's daughter done shortly after his death has stuck with me - he was apparently a pretty disinterested father, and left her with a (stunning, very valuable, but large, heavy and extremely fragile) collection of records that she clearly saw as having been much more important to him that she was. The icy anger in her voice hit hard for me, a parent and person prone to obsessing over collectibles and the past.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:04 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]
An interview with Joe Bussard's daughter done shortly after his death has stuck with me - he was apparently a pretty disinterested father, and left her with a (stunning, very valuable, but large, heavy and extremely fragile) collection of records that she clearly saw as having been much more important to him that she was. The icy anger in her voice hit hard for me, a parent and person prone to obsessing over collectibles and the past.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:04 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]
In my experience, many people don't want to hear about mental health in these discussions. Particularly when they actually valorize the activities in question at a non-obsessive level, or when the subjects are interesting. At the other end of the spectrum, there are those of us who have had to deal with people of this stripe who may or may not have been mentally ill, but who refused even to consider treatment, making the point moot at best.
ryanshepard, it's very... comforting isn't the right word, so let's say "validating" to see that link and hear what you say about it. Thank you.
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:08 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
ryanshepard, it's very... comforting isn't the right word, so let's say "validating" to see that link and hear what you say about it. Thank you.
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:08 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
I was a little surprised not to read that at least one of his children had rejected capitalism and hard work completely and was now homeless or living on a commune.
posted by clawsoon at 12:20 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 12:20 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
it's very... comforting isn't the right word, so let's say "validating" to see that link and hear what you say about it.
Bussard was also generous with his time and knowledge - if cranky - and, if you asked, would send you CD-Rs of material from his collection for little more than the cost of the disc and shipping. One of the conundrums of middle age for me is finally accepting that both good, prosocial or otherwise valuable and genuinely bad (sometimes extremely bad) traits can co-exist in the same people for a lifetime, and that there are no easy answers about that.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:25 PM on January 13 [17 favorites]
Bussard was also generous with his time and knowledge - if cranky - and, if you asked, would send you CD-Rs of material from his collection for little more than the cost of the disc and shipping. One of the conundrums of middle age for me is finally accepting that both good, prosocial or otherwise valuable and genuinely bad (sometimes extremely bad) traits can co-exist in the same people for a lifetime, and that there are no easy answers about that.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:25 PM on January 13 [17 favorites]
For orchestral music I'm willing to accept that listening to it on a really good system might bring additional enjoyment. But I'm still highly sceptical that £16,000 speakers would be sixteen times better than £1,000 speakers.
And for non-orchestral music I think it matters less. If I really like a song, I've never noticed myself enjoying it less when hearing it on a phone speaker rather than a proper stereo. The emotions the music creates aren't really dependent on perfect reproduction, for me.
posted by mokey at 12:35 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
And for non-orchestral music I think it matters less. If I really like a song, I've never noticed myself enjoying it less when hearing it on a phone speaker rather than a proper stereo. The emotions the music creates aren't really dependent on perfect reproduction, for me.
posted by mokey at 12:35 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
For guys obsessive about a project like this, my experience is that the control it lets them exert is more important than whatever the supposed goal of the project is. It is about dictating how their time and resources are used, and often how those of the rest of their family's resources are too.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 12:42 PM on January 13 [20 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 12:42 PM on January 13 [20 favorites]
"The same lamp cord that they used making Pet Sounds."
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:44 PM on January 13 [16 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:44 PM on January 13 [16 favorites]
Kills me that by the time people are wealthy enough to afford a high-quality sound system they're old and their hearing is shit.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:49 PM on January 13 [18 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:49 PM on January 13 [18 favorites]
In my experience, many people don't want to hear about mental health in these discussions. Particularly when they actually valorize the activities in question at a non-obsessive level, or when the subjects are interesting.
Yes, I went looking for similar articles about the private life of Rubio, creator of the Watts Towers, for this post. I was correct in assuming that he had alienated his family, but incorrect in thinking that any of the many, many articles about his life and work that I read would contain details. It doesn’t seem to be of interest.
posted by bq at 12:55 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Yes, I went looking for similar articles about the private life of Rubio, creator of the Watts Towers, for this post. I was correct in assuming that he had alienated his family, but incorrect in thinking that any of the many, many articles about his life and work that I read would contain details. It doesn’t seem to be of interest.
posted by bq at 12:55 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
I just knew why Edward Church's heirs despised his comic-book collection, and buyer Chuck Rozanski eventually gets around to it:
It was clear to me from the fact that the heirs had to break the padlock off of the closet that his children were never allowed to touch his comics. That, too, may have led to some antagonism on their part toward his comics collection. I think it's safe to surmise that Mr. Church viewed his comics as his own private passion, and wanted to share them with no one. Is it any wonder that his heirs didn't show any fondness for them?
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:00 PM on January 13 [10 favorites]
It was clear to me from the fact that the heirs had to break the padlock off of the closet that his children were never allowed to touch his comics. That, too, may have led to some antagonism on their part toward his comics collection. I think it's safe to surmise that Mr. Church viewed his comics as his own private passion, and wanted to share them with no one. Is it any wonder that his heirs didn't show any fondness for them?
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:00 PM on January 13 [10 favorites]
Jenny Offill's notion of the art monster seems relevant, here:
“My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn’t even fold his umbrella. Véra licked his stamps for him.” […]posted by german_bight at 1:02 PM on January 13 [23 favorites]
The female writers I know yearn to be more monstrous. They say it in off-hand, ha-ha-ha ways: “I wish I had a wife.” What does that mean, really? It means you wish to abandon the tasks of nurturing in order to perform the selfish sacraments of being an artist.
...though, yeah, upon a second more of thought, much of what we're reading about in the linked pieces is less about anything we might call art and more about compulsion and control.
posted by german_bight at 1:04 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
posted by german_bight at 1:04 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
the Walker Rock Garden, now sadly destroyed, seems to be an example of a couple working together on this type of consuming project. Unclear how their kids felt about it, but it was maintained for many years after the death of the creators. Charmingly, they opened it to public on Mother’s Days.
posted by bq at 1:08 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
posted by bq at 1:08 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
The female writers I know yearn to be more monstrous. They say it in off-hand, ha-ha-ha ways: “I wish I had a wife.”
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard/read that from a woman - not artist, just woman - I would have a lot of dollars.
One of the only reasons I’m looking forward to AI assistants.
posted by bq at 1:10 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard/read that from a woman - not artist, just woman - I would have a lot of dollars.
One of the only reasons I’m looking forward to AI assistants.
posted by bq at 1:10 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
"The same lamp cord that they used making Pet Sounds."
It can be hard to reproduce that late-'60s, early-'70s Stiffel sound, which was always at its best auditioning Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Blinded by the Light or You Light Up My Life.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 1:13 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
It can be hard to reproduce that late-'60s, early-'70s Stiffel sound, which was always at its best auditioning Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Blinded by the Light or You Light Up My Life.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 1:13 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Fritz's only saving grace in my view is that he appears to have constructed or custom built a lot of his own components in pursuit of perfection not typically offered by retail/bespoke options. I wish
the article went into more detail on this.
This is a positive to me, because he wasn't giving money to the snake-oil salesmen that fill the audiophile space:
Like the "Black Body" Ambient Field Conditioner
Or these "Audio Magic" CE (Clean Energy) Generators (Fully passive pucks of whatever that you set on top of equipment)
posted by shenkerism at 1:16 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
the article went into more detail on this.
This is a positive to me, because he wasn't giving money to the snake-oil salesmen that fill the audiophile space:
Like the "Black Body" Ambient Field Conditioner
Or these "Audio Magic" CE (Clean Energy) Generators (Fully passive pucks of whatever that you set on top of equipment)
posted by shenkerism at 1:16 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
He wasn't a bad person because he was obsessed over a thing that nobody else cared about.
He was a bad person because he was authoritarian, exploitative, negligent, and vicious.
posted by splitpeasoup at 1:16 PM on January 13 [31 favorites]
He was a bad person because he was authoritarian, exploitative, negligent, and vicious.
posted by splitpeasoup at 1:16 PM on January 13 [31 favorites]
For orchestral music I'm willing to accept that listening to it on a really good system might bring additional enjoyment. But I'm still highly sceptical that £16,000 speakers would be sixteen times better than £1,000 speakers.
Audio derail: short answer- yeah there's a difference. 16x better? Hard to quantify like that, because you get into the law of diminishing returns, where the money buys you things like slightly greater linearity and headroom, and better depth and imaging. But for 99.9% of us, the £1,000 speakers would be deemed excellent.
Where Fritz really spent was on the room. Great speakers need a great room.
And for non-orchestral music I think it matters less. If I really like a song, I've never noticed myself enjoying it less when hearing it on a phone speaker rather than a proper stereo. The emotions the music creates aren't really dependent on perfect reproduction, for me
For most people, their tunes are wallpaper or just accompaniment to what they're doing. Fewer people make music listening a foreground activity. So nobody seems to mind the very good but not perfect fidelity of highly compressed mixes streamed to inexpensive buds or headphones. But when you hit a top club, you're hearing a six-figure sound system.
/nerd
posted by Artful Codger at 1:21 PM on January 13 [9 favorites]
Audio derail: short answer- yeah there's a difference. 16x better? Hard to quantify like that, because you get into the law of diminishing returns, where the money buys you things like slightly greater linearity and headroom, and better depth and imaging. But for 99.9% of us, the £1,000 speakers would be deemed excellent.
Where Fritz really spent was on the room. Great speakers need a great room.
And for non-orchestral music I think it matters less. If I really like a song, I've never noticed myself enjoying it less when hearing it on a phone speaker rather than a proper stereo. The emotions the music creates aren't really dependent on perfect reproduction, for me
For most people, their tunes are wallpaper or just accompaniment to what they're doing. Fewer people make music listening a foreground activity. So nobody seems to mind the very good but not perfect fidelity of highly compressed mixes streamed to inexpensive buds or headphones. But when you hit a top club, you're hearing a six-figure sound system.
/nerd
posted by Artful Codger at 1:21 PM on January 13 [9 favorites]
I may be missing the point, but some of that money could have been spent going to live concerts.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:24 PM on January 13 [9 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:24 PM on January 13 [9 favorites]
It's hard to pin down the particular kind of sadness these stories give me. Maybe they illustrate the sadness of believing that you can create unchanging perfection? Perfect doesn't really exist. And if you do create it, it will not last after you're gone.
In my personal experience, audiophiles are some of the worst because they never stop fiddling with their goddamn knobs long enough to just let me listen to great music. The best system in the world will never give me more joy than the crappy tape player I used to listen to songs I loved as a teenager. Because the sound quality wasn't where the joy came from.
Anyway when you choose your obsession over more "ephemeral" things like personal relationships, you have forgotten that your obsessions are no less ephemeral, and they don't love you back, either.
posted by emjaybee at 1:31 PM on January 13 [20 favorites]
In my personal experience, audiophiles are some of the worst because they never stop fiddling with their goddamn knobs long enough to just let me listen to great music. The best system in the world will never give me more joy than the crappy tape player I used to listen to songs I loved as a teenager. Because the sound quality wasn't where the joy came from.
Anyway when you choose your obsession over more "ephemeral" things like personal relationships, you have forgotten that your obsessions are no less ephemeral, and they don't love you back, either.
posted by emjaybee at 1:31 PM on January 13 [20 favorites]
It's hard to pin down the particular kind of sadness these stories give me. Maybe they illustrate the sadness of believing that you can create unchanging perfection?
For me, as someone with a tendency to want to customize various classes of things and to be able to make my own, there's a sadness in the equation that says that yes, you can spend time creating these things in the way they should be, but you'll lose time and energy and often money that could ultimately have brought greater satisfaction or utility. And there's also sadness in knowing that, on the flip side, not making things the way I think they should be means going through life surrounded by things that aren't they way I think they should be -- and that could be, if only...
posted by trig at 1:40 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]
For me, as someone with a tendency to want to customize various classes of things and to be able to make my own, there's a sadness in the equation that says that yes, you can spend time creating these things in the way they should be, but you'll lose time and energy and often money that could ultimately have brought greater satisfaction or utility. And there's also sadness in knowing that, on the flip side, not making things the way I think they should be means going through life surrounded by things that aren't they way I think they should be -- and that could be, if only...
posted by trig at 1:40 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]
as an alternative to optimizing the music listening experience, he might've just invested $15 in a 6/12 pack of beer for each listening session... +/or edibles ....either/both can go quite a long way toward hearing things at their very best. I used to wish iTunes had a dual rating system (sober: **, under the influence: ****).
fortunately I've outgrown the need but the effects over the years were undeniable
posted by clandestiny's child at 1:43 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
fortunately I've outgrown the need but the effects over the years were undeniable
posted by clandestiny's child at 1:43 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
I'm a record nerd with a stereo set-up I'm happy with, but even if I had the money to really get into that game (which I don't) a friend of mine who is a bit of an audiophile said that you have to be careful you don't go down the path of "listening to your stereo" rather than listening to the music the stereo is playing. If you do, you'll never be satisfied because there will always be something a little better...
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:45 PM on January 13 [13 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:45 PM on January 13 [13 favorites]
Audio derail: short answer- yeah there's a difference. 16x better? Hard to quantify like that, because you get into the law of diminishing returns, where the money buys you things like slightly greater linearity and headroom, and better depth and imaging. But for 99.9% of us, the £1,000 speakers would be deemed excellent.
Flanders and Swann, "Song of Reproduction" (1957)
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:47 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
Flanders and Swann, "Song of Reproduction" (1957)
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:47 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
When he played “Swan Lake,” she’d call it “Pig Pond” in front of the kids and crank up the TV to annoy him.
i am so using this
posted by pyramid termite at 1:51 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]
i am so using this
posted by pyramid termite at 1:51 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]
I mean, isn't there always someone whose music obsession goes up to 11?
posted by thecincinnatikid at 2:09 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
posted by thecincinnatikid at 2:09 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
I may be missing the point, but some of that money could have been spent going to live concerts.
I am SO thankful that I missed the whole audiophile thing -- in part because after High School AV Club, I started seeing Grateful Dead shows, and at the time they were developing their "Straight Wire With Gain" model of PA systems. When you can't duplicate the show without a half million dollars of pa and lights + 20k of your very best friends, there's no reason to worry about what the home stereo sounds like.
With that said, I saved a whole lot of money buying used PA gear instead of audiophile gear. My Crown DC-300 amp never failed to meet or exceed my expectations.
posted by mikelieman at 2:20 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]
I am SO thankful that I missed the whole audiophile thing -- in part because after High School AV Club, I started seeing Grateful Dead shows, and at the time they were developing their "Straight Wire With Gain" model of PA systems. When you can't duplicate the show without a half million dollars of pa and lights + 20k of your very best friends, there's no reason to worry about what the home stereo sounds like.
With that said, I saved a whole lot of money buying used PA gear instead of audiophile gear. My Crown DC-300 amp never failed to meet or exceed my expectations.
posted by mikelieman at 2:20 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]
I was recently at a gig with a friend of a friend self described audiophile, man it was painful. He spent the whole thing analysing the sound. Mate, you aren't auditing their PA, shut up and try and enjoy the gig rather than looking for some way you can critique and sound like you know something. Also, speaking as someone who used to work this scene, you sound like you're mostly full of shit.
In terms of possible enjoyment extracted from $40 it was an amazing display of self sabotage.
posted by deadwax at 3:23 PM on January 13 [6 favorites]
In terms of possible enjoyment extracted from $40 it was an amazing display of self sabotage.
posted by deadwax at 3:23 PM on January 13 [6 favorites]
Now I'm going to dreaming about Magnepan speakers all day.
posted by neuron at 3:25 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
posted by neuron at 3:25 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
"The same lamp cord that they used making Pet Sounds."
Over here in the UK we only use the same (telephone) bell-wire they use at Abbey Road.
I've been fortunate to eat great value-for-money meals and drink sublime value-for-money wines, sometimes while listening to decent (value-for-money) speakers render digital recordings to my ageing ears. I'm happy with what I spent and hope more people enjoy what they spend money on -- I've got no time for people who are being an arse about it.
posted by k3ninho at 3:25 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
Over here in the UK we only use the same (telephone) bell-wire they use at Abbey Road.
I've been fortunate to eat great value-for-money meals and drink sublime value-for-money wines, sometimes while listening to decent (value-for-money) speakers render digital recordings to my ageing ears. I'm happy with what I spent and hope more people enjoy what they spend money on -- I've got no time for people who are being an arse about it.
posted by k3ninho at 3:25 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
What will they play at his funeral, and on what?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:46 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:46 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]
I'm still highly sceptical that £16,000 speakers would be sixteen times better than £1,000 speakers.
This is a tiresomely common species of argument people make about things they don’t care about or think people shouldn’t care about. Is a $400 chef’s knife ten times better than a $40 chef’s knife? Is a $5,000 bespoke suit ten times better than a $300 suit with $200 in alterations? Is a $500 fountain pen 200 times better than a $2.50 rollerball? Is a $75 dry aged prime steak five times better than a $15 choice steak? It all depends on your perspective. Or, more to the point, it depends on whether you’re interested in getting the best and willing to spend money to get it. The reality is the higher you go in quality the more you have to spend to get increasingly smaller improvements.
Clearly Fritz’s interest grew into an unhealthy obsession. But it could just as well have been mountaineering, or running ultramarathons, or collecting abstract expressionist art or mid-century modern furniture or rare books, or following the Grateful Dead, or shitposting on social media, or hundreds of other things that can fuck up your relationships and/or wreck your life when taken to such an extreme.
posted by slkinsey at 3:48 PM on January 13 [13 favorites]
This is a tiresomely common species of argument people make about things they don’t care about or think people shouldn’t care about. Is a $400 chef’s knife ten times better than a $40 chef’s knife? Is a $5,000 bespoke suit ten times better than a $300 suit with $200 in alterations? Is a $500 fountain pen 200 times better than a $2.50 rollerball? Is a $75 dry aged prime steak five times better than a $15 choice steak? It all depends on your perspective. Or, more to the point, it depends on whether you’re interested in getting the best and willing to spend money to get it. The reality is the higher you go in quality the more you have to spend to get increasingly smaller improvements.
Clearly Fritz’s interest grew into an unhealthy obsession. But it could just as well have been mountaineering, or running ultramarathons, or collecting abstract expressionist art or mid-century modern furniture or rare books, or following the Grateful Dead, or shitposting on social media, or hundreds of other things that can fuck up your relationships and/or wreck your life when taken to such an extreme.
posted by slkinsey at 3:48 PM on January 13 [13 favorites]
There's a bit of correlation between failing to realize that decreasing marginal utility exists (or recognizing it and choosing to disregard it) and falling off the cliff of unhealthy obsession with A Thing.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 4:29 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 4:29 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
It's weird that Fritz demonstrated his sound system to the writer by playing a '60s pop song that was optimized for tinny car speakers. Also, this link came up on Facebook and the number of pro-Fritz commenters is disturbing.
posted by LindsayIrene at 4:59 PM on January 13 [10 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 4:59 PM on January 13 [10 favorites]
>The reality is the higher you go in quality the more you have to spend to get increasingly smaller improvements.
Yeah, but it seems to me that in virtually every case that isn't directly related to health and safety, you are wasting a lot of money when you pay a dozen or more times the price for a trivial improvement.
I would definitely think less of someone's good sense and priorities for wearing a $5K suit, or carrying around a several hundred dollar pen, just as much as spending thousands of dollars for a largely imaginary improvement in sound quality.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 5:52 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
Yeah, but it seems to me that in virtually every case that isn't directly related to health and safety, you are wasting a lot of money when you pay a dozen or more times the price for a trivial improvement.
I would definitely think less of someone's good sense and priorities for wearing a $5K suit, or carrying around a several hundred dollar pen, just as much as spending thousands of dollars for a largely imaginary improvement in sound quality.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 5:52 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
I'm still highly sceptical that £16,000 speakers would be sixteen times better than £1,000 speakers.
i know that in the pro audio world, that higher level of equipment is no longer about "better" but about a certain unique character it has that some people prize - a lot of the audiophile stuff, like cables and stuff is way overdone, but speakers, amps and most especially, the room are all things one can spend a lot of money on to get a certain sound one likes
i still don't understand why people think vinyl is so great, though - it's too noisy and i say that as someone who had a semiobsessive 4 or 5 k record collection
posted by pyramid termite at 5:58 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
i know that in the pro audio world, that higher level of equipment is no longer about "better" but about a certain unique character it has that some people prize - a lot of the audiophile stuff, like cables and stuff is way overdone, but speakers, amps and most especially, the room are all things one can spend a lot of money on to get a certain sound one likes
i still don't understand why people think vinyl is so great, though - it's too noisy and i say that as someone who had a semiobsessive 4 or 5 k record collection
posted by pyramid termite at 5:58 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
I would definitely think less of someone's good sense and priorities for wearing a $5K suit, or carrying around a several hundred dollar pen..
So, you think less of someone whose priorities differ from your own?
posted by slkinsey at 6:08 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
So, you think less of someone whose priorities differ from your own?
posted by slkinsey at 6:08 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
>So, you think less of someone whose priorities differ from your own?
When it involves wasting vast sums of money? Yes. Most of the people I know have had to struggle to afford basic home maintenance and access to healthcare in the last few years. I will indeed think less of someone who decides to spend the price of a used car on a single suit of clothes.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:15 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
When it involves wasting vast sums of money? Yes. Most of the people I know have had to struggle to afford basic home maintenance and access to healthcare in the last few years. I will indeed think less of someone who decides to spend the price of a used car on a single suit of clothes.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:15 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
My (not remotely in the neighborhood of this problematic) audiophile partner's fancy speakers are starting to sound like they're going. I've not been looking forward to the process of their replacement, because it's energy and money getting poured into something that I really don't understand the point of, but wow did this story just deepen my store of patience.
posted by EvaDestruction at 6:19 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]
posted by EvaDestruction at 6:19 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]
To me, it's not just that this took over his life, or that he neglected his family along the way. It's that he expected labor from his kids, and any friends of theirs that might be unlucky enough to be around, but when his son wanted what amounted to a relative pittance in return for what sounds like a substantial chunk of his childhood, the guy thinks that the son is somehow "entitled." No pity from me for this guy because the focus of his obsession is getting broken up.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:25 PM on January 13 [12 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:25 PM on January 13 [12 favorites]
I will indeed think less of someone who decides to spend the price of a used car on a single suit of clothes.
It is likely there is someone who has the same disdain for you because of luxuries you might enjoy.
posted by neroli at 6:41 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]
It is likely there is someone who has the same disdain for you because of luxuries you might enjoy.
posted by neroli at 6:41 PM on January 13 [4 favorites]
>It is likely there is someone who has the same disdain for you because of luxuries you might enjoy.
I think it is unlikely, but if there is such a person, they are welcome to their opinion. Certainly if they see me wasting amounts of money that could change their life on luxury versions of consumer goods, their disdain would be justified.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:52 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
I think it is unlikely, but if there is such a person, they are welcome to their opinion. Certainly if they see me wasting amounts of money that could change their life on luxury versions of consumer goods, their disdain would be justified.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:52 PM on January 13 [7 favorites]
Basic home maintenance and access to healthcare should not be luxuries for anyone.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:53 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:53 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
> But I'm still highly sceptical that £16,000 speakers would be sixteen times better than £1,000 speakers.
Hey now, that system sounded absolutely amazing coming through my $20 gaming headphones. As recorded by his son for the documentary and then played back via Youtube.
How much of that is due to the $8000 custom-made vibration-free table for the 750 pound turnable assembly, etc etc, I will leave you to argue amongst yourselves about.
But it really did sound great!
posted by flug at 6:57 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
Hey now, that system sounded absolutely amazing coming through my $20 gaming headphones. As recorded by his son for the documentary and then played back via Youtube.
How much of that is due to the $8000 custom-made vibration-free table for the 750 pound turnable assembly, etc etc, I will leave you to argue amongst yourselves about.
But it really did sound great!
posted by flug at 6:57 PM on January 13 [3 favorites]
The Manwich Horror: it seems to me that in virtually every case that isn't directly related to health and safety, you are wasting a lot of money when you pay a dozen or more times the price for a trivial improvement.
I would definitely think less of someone's good sense and priorities for wearing a $5K suit, or carrying around a several hundred dollar pen, just as much as spending thousands of dollars for a largely imaginary improvement in sound quality.
You're veering away from the Fritz story, which is that he chose to devote HIS resources into the best possible music reproduction system. He was also a successful businessman, which provided the resources. One can object to what he put his family through... but also recall that he did find another partner, and one of his kids (Scott) shared the interest and took it up as a career.
It's hard to see his spending on his sound system as different from any other indulgence of the well-off (yachts, vacation property, club memberships, etc), or even of ordinary people who choose to devote their efforts to obtain something special. Like, a postal worker who saves up for a vintage Martin guitar? Or a construction labourer who works just long enough to afford to bugger off to Thailand for 6 months?
posted by Artful Codger at 6:59 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
I would definitely think less of someone's good sense and priorities for wearing a $5K suit, or carrying around a several hundred dollar pen, just as much as spending thousands of dollars for a largely imaginary improvement in sound quality.
You're veering away from the Fritz story, which is that he chose to devote HIS resources into the best possible music reproduction system. He was also a successful businessman, which provided the resources. One can object to what he put his family through... but also recall that he did find another partner, and one of his kids (Scott) shared the interest and took it up as a career.
It's hard to see his spending on his sound system as different from any other indulgence of the well-off (yachts, vacation property, club memberships, etc), or even of ordinary people who choose to devote their efforts to obtain something special. Like, a postal worker who saves up for a vintage Martin guitar? Or a construction labourer who works just long enough to afford to bugger off to Thailand for 6 months?
posted by Artful Codger at 6:59 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
You are right I have been moving away from the subject of the post. Sorry for that.
(To respond to your examples, I am a socialist, so I have very few qualms about condemning the extravagances of the rich. I think the guitar would be a foolish thing to purchase. The trip seems more reasonable. After all, you are putting away funds to pay for transportations, food, and lodging, which are the main reasons to work anyway.)
My initial point was just that the criticism about paying tens of thousands of dollars for speakers isn't some specific slam at audiophiles. It is a normal reaction to seeing lots of money wasted on luxury goods. Someone buying thousand dollar purses or hundred thousand dollar cars isn't less deserving of ridicule than the guy buying $20,000 speakers.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:12 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]
(To respond to your examples, I am a socialist, so I have very few qualms about condemning the extravagances of the rich. I think the guitar would be a foolish thing to purchase. The trip seems more reasonable. After all, you are putting away funds to pay for transportations, food, and lodging, which are the main reasons to work anyway.)
My initial point was just that the criticism about paying tens of thousands of dollars for speakers isn't some specific slam at audiophiles. It is a normal reaction to seeing lots of money wasted on luxury goods. Someone buying thousand dollar purses or hundred thousand dollar cars isn't less deserving of ridicule than the guy buying $20,000 speakers.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:12 PM on January 13 [5 favorites]
greater linearity and headroom, and better depth and imaging
all terms which are entirely invisible to tediously science-based methods like A/B testing
posted by Sebmojo at 7:13 PM on January 13 [6 favorites]
all terms which are entirely invisible to tediously science-based methods like A/B testing
posted by Sebmojo at 7:13 PM on January 13 [6 favorites]
greater linearity and headroom, and better depth and imaging
these are real perceptible things, it's just how much $ you are willing to assign as an experiential value
posted by djseafood at 8:21 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
these are real perceptible things, it's just how much $ you are willing to assign as an experiential value
posted by djseafood at 8:21 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
I can do better. I'll need a spliff, a 6-pack of Rolling Rock, some hot wings, and a CD of Radiohead's "OK Computer" running on an old Aiwa boom box. (I will provide for A/B testing of the wing sauces.)
posted by credulous at 8:30 PM on January 13 [9 favorites]
posted by credulous at 8:30 PM on January 13 [9 favorites]
I only read the first of TFAs but the tale of Fritz resonates some with me. My Dad did not carry things as far as Fritz, and he was too much of a dabbler to stick with anything for the decades that Fritz put into his Hi Fi system. Be he did get great enthusiasms for things and I got pressed into unpaid labor service doing things a teen probably should not have been messing with, absent safety training and protective gear we didn't have. Think epoxy, and fiberglass, and digging contaminated flotation foam out of sailboat hulls. And also, fuck sailboats. Fuck all boats really. I mean, I kind of like riding on sailboats still, and will crew if you need a hand on a winch, but fuck me with the winch handle if I'll help with more than swabbing the decks down at the dock afterward.
Anyway, yeah, it's a kind of hard-to-name sadness I get reading that. The guy built a million-dollar listening room in a place where nobody who could buy such a thing would want to live, and imagined it might not be broken up and sold off as parts. He was a selfish guy. A society where mental wellness was more of a thing might have tried some kind of intervention after his wife left, if not before.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:37 PM on January 13 [10 favorites]
Anyway, yeah, it's a kind of hard-to-name sadness I get reading that. The guy built a million-dollar listening room in a place where nobody who could buy such a thing would want to live, and imagined it might not be broken up and sold off as parts. He was a selfish guy. A society where mental wellness was more of a thing might have tried some kind of intervention after his wife left, if not before.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:37 PM on January 13 [10 favorites]
speakers, amps and most especially, the room are all things one can spend a lot of money on to get a certain sound one likes
marijuana has saved me a pile of money on audio gear over the years
posted by philip-random at 8:39 PM on January 13 [22 favorites]
marijuana has saved me a pile of money on audio gear over the years
posted by philip-random at 8:39 PM on January 13 [22 favorites]
I was curious about the Burrell Rowe mentioned in the Mile High blog. Some interesting nuggets here, including that he offered Rozanski $250K for the whole collection, which was declined. In the 1970s, that was serious money.
posted by meehawl at 9:55 PM on January 13
posted by meehawl at 9:55 PM on January 13
One time I bought a set of decent studio monitors. The two big differences I remember noticing were:
- Hearing ringing phones and other junk in the recording studio.
- Spending a couple days debugging my mp3 compressor pipeline before discovering that defect occurred when the CD was mastered (clipping).
Music sounded great in general through those speakers, but there were also these very specific things I noticed that I had never noticed before.
posted by ryanrs at 10:00 PM on January 13 [9 favorites]
- Hearing ringing phones and other junk in the recording studio.
- Spending a couple days debugging my mp3 compressor pipeline before discovering that defect occurred when the CD was mastered (clipping).
Music sounded great in general through those speakers, but there were also these very specific things I noticed that I had never noticed before.
posted by ryanrs at 10:00 PM on January 13 [9 favorites]
Like the "Black Body" Ambient Field Conditioner
It comes with an organic glass stand. Which is not free-range glass, nor pesticide-free glass, but it is a term of art for a lump of literal plastic.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:56 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
It comes with an organic glass stand. Which is not free-range glass, nor pesticide-free glass, but it is a term of art for a lump of literal plastic.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:56 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
he was apparently a pretty disinterested father, and left her with a (stunning, very valuable, but large, heavy and extremely fragile) collection of records that she clearly saw as having been much more important to him that she was
I think this is really the key that it turns on.
My dad has an enormous collection of records and tapes - they're built into the wall of his house. But when I was a kid, he took the time to listen to music with me, and I could always touch the tapes and records, even if I ruined them (and sometimes, I did). My experiences with them are of them as something my father did *with* me, even if in reality we only listened to probably twenty or thirty records together, all thousand or so are going to be kept there when my dad eventually passes, so that I can pull down a record and feel like I'm listening to a record with my dad.
I have probably too many books. I have, I don't know, at least a couple thousand books. I have definitely not even come close to reading all of them. Some of them were really old and antique and I collected them obsessively. But in my turn, *my* kid could always touch all the books, even the rare ones. There wasn't a single book she couldn't touch, and we read them together. I'm probably going to be moving in with my partner when I'm done with law school, and I asked her if she wanted me to take the books with me, and she was shocked and offended that I would suggest such a thing - because those are books she has good experiences and memories with. I'm sure when I die it's going to be much the same.
My mom, however, was the lock-it-away type and I don't really have a lot of good memories with her. She's also a collector of things. And I kind of do mentally groan when thinking about inheriting her house - because my *mom's* house (they divorced) is just stuff, whereas my *dad's* house has beloved memories.
If Fritz were better to his kids, they would have fought to keep that house. He wasn't, and that's why it got parted out and sold.
posted by corb at 10:56 PM on January 13 [28 favorites]
I think this is really the key that it turns on.
My dad has an enormous collection of records and tapes - they're built into the wall of his house. But when I was a kid, he took the time to listen to music with me, and I could always touch the tapes and records, even if I ruined them (and sometimes, I did). My experiences with them are of them as something my father did *with* me, even if in reality we only listened to probably twenty or thirty records together, all thousand or so are going to be kept there when my dad eventually passes, so that I can pull down a record and feel like I'm listening to a record with my dad.
I have probably too many books. I have, I don't know, at least a couple thousand books. I have definitely not even come close to reading all of them. Some of them were really old and antique and I collected them obsessively. But in my turn, *my* kid could always touch all the books, even the rare ones. There wasn't a single book she couldn't touch, and we read them together. I'm probably going to be moving in with my partner when I'm done with law school, and I asked her if she wanted me to take the books with me, and she was shocked and offended that I would suggest such a thing - because those are books she has good experiences and memories with. I'm sure when I die it's going to be much the same.
My mom, however, was the lock-it-away type and I don't really have a lot of good memories with her. She's also a collector of things. And I kind of do mentally groan when thinking about inheriting her house - because my *mom's* house (they divorced) is just stuff, whereas my *dad's* house has beloved memories.
If Fritz were better to his kids, they would have fought to keep that house. He wasn't, and that's why it got parted out and sold.
posted by corb at 10:56 PM on January 13 [28 favorites]
>> greater linearity and headroom, and better depth and imaging
> all terms which are entirely invisible to tediously science-based methods like A/B testing
Linearity and headroom are measurable with instruments, as well as being audible. Depth and imaging are more subjective, but discernable by most people.
I've set up and conducted double-blind A/B testing. Let me hasten to point out it was for recording professionals, not "audiophiles", because I appreciate that the latter are considered fair game here. (Wiith some justification)
posted by Artful Codger at 2:23 AM on January 14 [3 favorites]
> all terms which are entirely invisible to tediously science-based methods like A/B testing
Linearity and headroom are measurable with instruments, as well as being audible. Depth and imaging are more subjective, but discernable by most people.
I've set up and conducted double-blind A/B testing. Let me hasten to point out it was for recording professionals, not "audiophiles", because I appreciate that the latter are considered fair game here. (Wiith some justification)
posted by Artful Codger at 2:23 AM on January 14 [3 favorites]
Essentially no mention in the article about the mixing and mastering of the original recording, nor the limitations of various media, as if the recording itself was a bottomless well of infinite data, and the only thing that matters is the playback equipment. As if there was just this generic "Swan Lake" recording you can fiddle the playback of to make it sound perfect in your system, rather than there being an endless number of vastly different recordings done in very different circumstances with wholly different recording equipment and mixed in myriad ways. Which is all very silly of course.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:25 AM on January 14 [9 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:25 AM on January 14 [9 favorites]
Flanders and Swann, "Song of Reproduction" (1957)
Musicians often have a particularly wry take on audiophiles. They know exactly how unpleasant it would be if an orchestra really did turn up to play in their living rooms - and they could be the ones performing themselves. “…never did care for music much” tallies, for me, with the recurring mentions of Swan Lake in the article. The idea of taking even a great piece of music and then spoiling it by over- playing and over obsessing over it. The more perfectionist somebody becomes about the standard of playing back music, the fewer recordings make the grade: they reveal themselves as imperfectly engineered or performed or mastered… or composed. The recording is too old to have benefited from key pieces of technology- or it is too new to have featured the recording practices from the good old days. Worse than this is hearing that starts to go as we age, a general tendency against exposing ourselves to something new - and a resulting narrowing and ossification of our musical repertoire.
I am reading this on the same day as obituaries for the legendary British DJ Annie Nightingale. She was the first female DJ on Radio 1 and had a career where she was championing artists making new music from The Beatles in the 60s up to break-beat music in latter years. That is a kind of obsession too - always throwing out the old to make way for the new - but it seems a much healthier one.
posted by rongorongo at 3:07 AM on January 14 [7 favorites]
Musicians often have a particularly wry take on audiophiles. They know exactly how unpleasant it would be if an orchestra really did turn up to play in their living rooms - and they could be the ones performing themselves. “…never did care for music much” tallies, for me, with the recurring mentions of Swan Lake in the article. The idea of taking even a great piece of music and then spoiling it by over- playing and over obsessing over it. The more perfectionist somebody becomes about the standard of playing back music, the fewer recordings make the grade: they reveal themselves as imperfectly engineered or performed or mastered… or composed. The recording is too old to have benefited from key pieces of technology- or it is too new to have featured the recording practices from the good old days. Worse than this is hearing that starts to go as we age, a general tendency against exposing ourselves to something new - and a resulting narrowing and ossification of our musical repertoire.
I am reading this on the same day as obituaries for the legendary British DJ Annie Nightingale. She was the first female DJ on Radio 1 and had a career where she was championing artists making new music from The Beatles in the 60s up to break-beat music in latter years. That is a kind of obsession too - always throwing out the old to make way for the new - but it seems a much healthier one.
posted by rongorongo at 3:07 AM on January 14 [7 favorites]
To some degree, I appreciate anyone taking something like this as far as they can. It’s his life, his $, go wild, dude. But it is also very selfish. He poured all these resources into his own personal listening room, not some great thing for mankind. To me, it is not better than any other selfish extravagance. Appropriately, the actual value was pennies on the dollar in the end. Again, it was his to do and it is not worse than anyone else doing something big or small for themself and not others, but it is not a great achievement, because it didn’t achieve anything.
posted by snofoam at 3:50 AM on January 14 [4 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 3:50 AM on January 14 [4 favorites]
bq - thanks a lot for linking to the story about the discovery of the Edgar Church comics collection. It was the best I've read all weekend, and I know it will stay with me.
posted by Termite at 8:14 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
posted by Termite at 8:14 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Linearity and headroom are measurable with instruments, as well as being audible. Depth and imaging are more subjective, but discernable by most people.
Linearity certainly is measurable. Headroom… is pretty closely related to (a wider zone of) linearity, no? Speakers obviously do differ in the stereo image they produce, but I find almost all talk about soundstage, separation and depth to be frustrating. At best those are subjective impressions downstream from the factors one can actually measure.
posted by atoxyl at 11:20 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Linearity certainly is measurable. Headroom… is pretty closely related to (a wider zone of) linearity, no? Speakers obviously do differ in the stereo image they produce, but I find almost all talk about soundstage, separation and depth to be frustrating. At best those are subjective impressions downstream from the factors one can actually measure.
posted by atoxyl at 11:20 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Termite, thank you. It certainly stayed with me, I believe I first read it after it first appeared on Metafilter on 2007
posted by bq at 11:36 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
posted by bq at 11:36 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Linearity certainly is measurable. Headroom… is pretty closely related to (a wider zone of) linearity, no?
Yes. Having enough cone or diaphragm travel to accurately reproduce the highest peaks without physical deformation. ie having a linear response to a higher sound level.
Determining this headroom would entail driving the speakers with a big enough amp, monitoring the distortion with a mic and distortion meter, and cranking the signal level up til the distortion starts creeping up.
Some notes on speaker measurement.
Speakers obviously do differ in the stereo image they produce, but I find almost all talk about soundstage, separation and depth to be frustrating. At best those are subjective impressions downstream from the factors one can actually measure.
These are characteristics that are easier to demonstrate than describe. Most people can notice differences when it's easy to compare two or more speaker sets. A good stereo/hifi store usually has a demo room where its easy to flip between different speakers. It's possible to do it at home too, if your amp has switching for multiple sets of speakers, and you're able to borrow speakers to try.
/nerd! and a derail from the central theme of obsessions
posted by Artful Codger at 12:20 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]
Yes. Having enough cone or diaphragm travel to accurately reproduce the highest peaks without physical deformation. ie having a linear response to a higher sound level.
Determining this headroom would entail driving the speakers with a big enough amp, monitoring the distortion with a mic and distortion meter, and cranking the signal level up til the distortion starts creeping up.
Some notes on speaker measurement.
Speakers obviously do differ in the stereo image they produce, but I find almost all talk about soundstage, separation and depth to be frustrating. At best those are subjective impressions downstream from the factors one can actually measure.
These are characteristics that are easier to demonstrate than describe. Most people can notice differences when it's easy to compare two or more speaker sets. A good stereo/hifi store usually has a demo room where its easy to flip between different speakers. It's possible to do it at home too, if your amp has switching for multiple sets of speakers, and you're able to borrow speakers to try.
/nerd! and a derail from the central theme of obsessions
posted by Artful Codger at 12:20 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]
I find almost all talk about soundstage, separation and depth to be frustrating
I used to have all that stuff filed under Wooden Volume Knob, Garden Hose Diameter Speaker Cable and Green CD Edge Marker wank as well, until the first time I heard a live orchestral recording played back in a well-set-up listening room with a pair of Magneplanars in it.
Best analogue I can think of is that it was very much like the first day I ever tried on a pair of reading glasses and got reminded what text used to look like when viewed from half a metre away.
It's just eerie how much distance and directional information the human brain can retrieve from a two-channel audio recording when given the opportunity. And today's compact sound bars and Bluetooth earbuds and battery powered "smart" speakers just don't give it anything like that opportunity.
7.1 surround can make stuff come from in front of you or to your left or right or behind you or above you so the tie fighters go by with a satisfying whoosh, but just those two high-end flat panels and closed eyes had every individual player in that orchestra sitting in their own seat.
posted by flabdablet at 12:51 PM on January 14 [7 favorites]
I used to have all that stuff filed under Wooden Volume Knob, Garden Hose Diameter Speaker Cable and Green CD Edge Marker wank as well, until the first time I heard a live orchestral recording played back in a well-set-up listening room with a pair of Magneplanars in it.
Best analogue I can think of is that it was very much like the first day I ever tried on a pair of reading glasses and got reminded what text used to look like when viewed from half a metre away.
It's just eerie how much distance and directional information the human brain can retrieve from a two-channel audio recording when given the opportunity. And today's compact sound bars and Bluetooth earbuds and battery powered "smart" speakers just don't give it anything like that opportunity.
7.1 surround can make stuff come from in front of you or to your left or right or behind you or above you so the tie fighters go by with a satisfying whoosh, but just those two high-end flat panels and closed eyes had every individual player in that orchestra sitting in their own seat.
posted by flabdablet at 12:51 PM on January 14 [7 favorites]
I've spent a pretty significant amount of time, money, and effort into putting together a high-end stereo rig. After many changes over 20+ years, I finally nailed it, and I haven't made any changes to this setup for 7-8 years now:
B&W 802 Diamond speakers
Nord One Hypex NC500 Class D monoamplifiers
DEQX HDP-4 for preamp, crossovers, EQ and room correction
2 X SVS SB 1000 subwoofers
Total cost was around $25-30k, not including the money I spent on prior iterations. Is it worth the money? It is to me. Yes, it sounds vastly better than any system you can put together for a few thousands bucks. I get an immense amount of joy out of hearing really good quality music. At times, it's like being on really good drugs. Your average person can recognize the difference too, in my experience. I routinely have people tell me it's the best stereo rig they've ever heard.
posted by mikeand1 at 1:35 PM on January 14 [5 favorites]
B&W 802 Diamond speakers
Nord One Hypex NC500 Class D monoamplifiers
DEQX HDP-4 for preamp, crossovers, EQ and room correction
2 X SVS SB 1000 subwoofers
Total cost was around $25-30k, not including the money I spent on prior iterations. Is it worth the money? It is to me. Yes, it sounds vastly better than any system you can put together for a few thousands bucks. I get an immense amount of joy out of hearing really good quality music. At times, it's like being on really good drugs. Your average person can recognize the difference too, in my experience. I routinely have people tell me it's the best stereo rig they've ever heard.
posted by mikeand1 at 1:35 PM on January 14 [5 favorites]
I think the guitar would be a foolish thing to purchase.
Why? As a guitarist, I know many working class and even downright poor people who have scrimped and saved to own a Martin guitar or something equivalent. Because they're musicians. And they want the very best tool to create with even if it means they feed themselves poorly for a year.
I assume you're typing your responses on a $100 Chromebook or a $120 android phone? Or perchance do you own any Apple products?
posted by spitbull at 1:50 PM on January 14 [6 favorites]
Why? As a guitarist, I know many working class and even downright poor people who have scrimped and saved to own a Martin guitar or something equivalent. Because they're musicians. And they want the very best tool to create with even if it means they feed themselves poorly for a year.
I assume you're typing your responses on a $100 Chromebook or a $120 android phone? Or perchance do you own any Apple products?
posted by spitbull at 1:50 PM on January 14 [6 favorites]
I think the guitar would be a foolish thing to purchase
BECAUSE? I'm a mediocre guitarist and I love the things. And hey, sometimes an expensive axe IS BETTER. Right now I have a Stratocaster that I own and love next to a Les Paul Custom on loan from a neighbor. The Strat sound is unique but in terms of playability and variety of sounds, the Gibson buries it in the dirt. I below to a huge FB group going through the Fender Play program and though the majority are beginners, the running gag is the amount of guitars one needs is N + 1, with N being the number you currently have. Once you get started in the hobby/passion, it's quite often a natural progression. Every guitar sounds different, there are different features, different pickups, different wood configurations, many buy guitars specifically for different tunings...
I have a modest audiophile system but it does sound great. Most guests to our home don't pay much attention but those few who do ask to hear it are quite impressed. There's a live Alison Krauss recording where, if you close your eyes, she's standing right in front of you. MP3s through earbuds won't give you that. I've heard some rather expensive systems and if configured right, they are astonishing. I would love to sit down with a Scotch, a pile of music, and hear mikeand1's rig.
I think Ken Fritz was an asshole but for the general hobbyist, some of you need to remember to LET PEOPLE ENJOY THINGS.
posted by Ber at 3:22 PM on January 14 [3 favorites]
BECAUSE? I'm a mediocre guitarist and I love the things. And hey, sometimes an expensive axe IS BETTER. Right now I have a Stratocaster that I own and love next to a Les Paul Custom on loan from a neighbor. The Strat sound is unique but in terms of playability and variety of sounds, the Gibson buries it in the dirt. I below to a huge FB group going through the Fender Play program and though the majority are beginners, the running gag is the amount of guitars one needs is N + 1, with N being the number you currently have. Once you get started in the hobby/passion, it's quite often a natural progression. Every guitar sounds different, there are different features, different pickups, different wood configurations, many buy guitars specifically for different tunings...
I have a modest audiophile system but it does sound great. Most guests to our home don't pay much attention but those few who do ask to hear it are quite impressed. There's a live Alison Krauss recording where, if you close your eyes, she's standing right in front of you. MP3s through earbuds won't give you that. I've heard some rather expensive systems and if configured right, they are astonishing. I would love to sit down with a Scotch, a pile of music, and hear mikeand1's rig.
I think Ken Fritz was an asshole but for the general hobbyist, some of you need to remember to LET PEOPLE ENJOY THINGS.
posted by Ber at 3:22 PM on January 14 [3 favorites]
>So, you think less of someone whose priorities differ from your own?
When it involves wasting vast sums of money? Yes. Most of the people I know have had to struggle to afford basic home maintenance and access to healthcare in the last few years. I will indeed think less of someone who decides to spend the price of a used car on a single suit of clothes.
But where does the money spent on a nice suit, or a nice pen, or a nice guitar go? Some of it, at least, goes to the craftspeople who make those things. And when you're buying a higher-end item, it's a good bet that the craftspeople who made it are going to be relatively well paid.
So I question whether buying a premium item is automatically "wasting vast sums of money" and should be judged as an inherently bad thing. The money is not being lit on fire -- a good chunk of it is going into workers' pockets to reward them for their skill, time, and effort.
Of course, one can always concoct a hypothetical alternate and better use of resources, as a way to condemn the way said resources are actually being used. But it's not always a truly helpful exercise.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:17 PM on January 14 [4 favorites]
When it involves wasting vast sums of money? Yes. Most of the people I know have had to struggle to afford basic home maintenance and access to healthcare in the last few years. I will indeed think less of someone who decides to spend the price of a used car on a single suit of clothes.
But where does the money spent on a nice suit, or a nice pen, or a nice guitar go? Some of it, at least, goes to the craftspeople who make those things. And when you're buying a higher-end item, it's a good bet that the craftspeople who made it are going to be relatively well paid.
So I question whether buying a premium item is automatically "wasting vast sums of money" and should be judged as an inherently bad thing. The money is not being lit on fire -- a good chunk of it is going into workers' pockets to reward them for their skill, time, and effort.
Of course, one can always concoct a hypothetical alternate and better use of resources, as a way to condemn the way said resources are actually being used. But it's not always a truly helpful exercise.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:17 PM on January 14 [4 favorites]
I custom-built a home system that included Bohlender-Graebener RD75s, with 9x7.5" mid-bass drivers per tower, and 4x18" subwoofers all in an open baffle configuration. The system had active crossovers, active EQ, and a pretty crazy wiring setup for the mid-bass arrays (power was distributed using a combination of serial/parallel wiring on each tower so the most power was in the center driver and dissipated at the top and bottom). I recognize a lot of the equipment this guy has assembled.
All of the gear is in storage now because we had kids. It will come back out when they leave for college.
Priorities people.
posted by ryoshu at 4:31 PM on January 14
All of the gear is in storage now because we had kids. It will come back out when they leave for college.
Priorities people.
posted by ryoshu at 4:31 PM on January 14
Right now I have a Stratocaster that I own and love next to a Les Paul Custom on loan from a neighbor. The Strat sound is unique but in terms of playability and variety of sounds, the Gibson buries it in the dirt.
Eh, I agree with the idea that cheap guitars sound worse than expensive ones of the same model - ie: my Squire Strat doesn't stay in tune as well, the pickups are tinny and the tone knob barely does anything vs an actual Fender. But it's hard to compare across guitars. I'd not say Gibson Les Pauls generally bury 'Strats' unless you are talking a specific sound. But is a Gibson Les Paul better than an Epiphone Les Paul? No question there.
posted by The_Vegetables at 5:07 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Eh, I agree with the idea that cheap guitars sound worse than expensive ones of the same model - ie: my Squire Strat doesn't stay in tune as well, the pickups are tinny and the tone knob barely does anything vs an actual Fender. But it's hard to compare across guitars. I'd not say Gibson Les Pauls generally bury 'Strats' unless you are talking a specific sound. But is a Gibson Les Paul better than an Epiphone Les Paul? No question there.
posted by The_Vegetables at 5:07 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
> All of the gear is in storage now because we had kids. It will come back out when they leave for college.
By which time it will be hopelessly of of date and the other audiophiles will be laughing at your pile of obsolete junk.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:01 PM on January 14
By which time it will be hopelessly of of date and the other audiophiles will be laughing at your pile of obsolete junk.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:01 PM on January 14
I assume you're typing your responses on a $100 Chromebook or a $120 android phone? Or perchance do you own any Apple products?
No, I don't buy Apple products, they are perfect examples of things that cost more than necessary for their functions. I am using an older model smart phone I got with a $15 a month cell plan, because I have to have a smart phone for work. My desktop computer is a kludged together thing made of mostly second hand parts. It's part of an aesthetic I like to call "generational poverty" ;)
But where does the money spent on a nice suit, or a nice pen, or a nice guitar go? Some of it, at least, goes to the craftspeople who make those things. And when you're buying a higher-end item, it's a good bet that the craftspeople who made it are going to be relatively well paid.
Given the world we live in, I assume most of the difference gets pocketed by a corporation. And that assumes the high price isn't being paid to a reseller. A high price for a vintage guitar isn't going to pay the crafter anything over what they were paid for their labor in the first place.
BECAUSE? I'm a mediocre guitarist and I love the things. And hey, sometimes an expensive axe IS BETTER.
I'll be honest, I know nothing about guitars. I just assumed that it was a prestige issue to have an original rather than a reproduction.
I still can't imagine paying several times the price of a completely functional item for a specialty version, but I am not an artist.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:16 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
No, I don't buy Apple products, they are perfect examples of things that cost more than necessary for their functions. I am using an older model smart phone I got with a $15 a month cell plan, because I have to have a smart phone for work. My desktop computer is a kludged together thing made of mostly second hand parts. It's part of an aesthetic I like to call "generational poverty" ;)
But where does the money spent on a nice suit, or a nice pen, or a nice guitar go? Some of it, at least, goes to the craftspeople who make those things. And when you're buying a higher-end item, it's a good bet that the craftspeople who made it are going to be relatively well paid.
Given the world we live in, I assume most of the difference gets pocketed by a corporation. And that assumes the high price isn't being paid to a reseller. A high price for a vintage guitar isn't going to pay the crafter anything over what they were paid for their labor in the first place.
BECAUSE? I'm a mediocre guitarist and I love the things. And hey, sometimes an expensive axe IS BETTER.
I'll be honest, I know nothing about guitars. I just assumed that it was a prestige issue to have an original rather than a reproduction.
I still can't imagine paying several times the price of a completely functional item for a specialty version, but I am not an artist.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:16 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
By which time it will be hopelessly of of date and the other audiophiles will be laughing at your pile of obsolete junk
That's making an assumption that high-quality audio reproduction gear gets steadily better year on year, which I am completely unconvinced is the case.
High fidelity audio is really not like computing, which can always be made bigger and faster than it already is. Completely satisfactory amplifier electronics has been available for decades, because making good audio gear is about removing assorted kinds of distortion rather than adding "performance", and at this point we're well past the onset of diminishing returns on that.
There was a step change in power efficiency with the advent of class D, but it took class D amps quite some time to become as clean an approximation of the Straight Wire With Gain as the class AB units they were designed to displace. They have, now.
The weakest link in the audio reproduction chain has always been the transducers, because making stuff move without imparting its own resonant characteristics turns out to be hard. Digital storage of audio recordings has removed the phono cartridge as a distortion source and there's essentially no more room for reproduction quality improvement on that front, but there's no getting around the difficulty in building truly excellent speakers because a speaker's job involves shoving a lot of air around very very precisely and air is notorious for non-cooperation with that enterprise.
There has been nothing like a step change in the sound quality of the cleanest available speaker transducers, and incremental improvement on that front is very slow at best. If a speaker design was widely respected for good reason ten years ago, then assuming it's not actually faulty when dragged out of storage ten years from now, nobody with discernment worth respecting is going to be pointing and laughing at it.
I still can't imagine paying several times the price of a completely functional item for a specialty version
I too object strongly to paying outrageous premiums for products whose only distinguishing feature is a well-recognized logo and/or nobody else having owned them before me, but am rather less inclined than you seem to be to make sweeping assumptions about what counts as "completely functional" for other people's purposes.
posted from yet another laptop diverted from the e-waste stream
posted by flabdablet at 7:06 PM on January 14 [7 favorites]
That's making an assumption that high-quality audio reproduction gear gets steadily better year on year, which I am completely unconvinced is the case.
High fidelity audio is really not like computing, which can always be made bigger and faster than it already is. Completely satisfactory amplifier electronics has been available for decades, because making good audio gear is about removing assorted kinds of distortion rather than adding "performance", and at this point we're well past the onset of diminishing returns on that.
There was a step change in power efficiency with the advent of class D, but it took class D amps quite some time to become as clean an approximation of the Straight Wire With Gain as the class AB units they were designed to displace. They have, now.
The weakest link in the audio reproduction chain has always been the transducers, because making stuff move without imparting its own resonant characteristics turns out to be hard. Digital storage of audio recordings has removed the phono cartridge as a distortion source and there's essentially no more room for reproduction quality improvement on that front, but there's no getting around the difficulty in building truly excellent speakers because a speaker's job involves shoving a lot of air around very very precisely and air is notorious for non-cooperation with that enterprise.
There has been nothing like a step change in the sound quality of the cleanest available speaker transducers, and incremental improvement on that front is very slow at best. If a speaker design was widely respected for good reason ten years ago, then assuming it's not actually faulty when dragged out of storage ten years from now, nobody with discernment worth respecting is going to be pointing and laughing at it.
I still can't imagine paying several times the price of a completely functional item for a specialty version
I too object strongly to paying outrageous premiums for products whose only distinguishing feature is a well-recognized logo and/or nobody else having owned them before me, but am rather less inclined than you seem to be to make sweeping assumptions about what counts as "completely functional" for other people's purposes.
posted from yet another laptop diverted from the e-waste stream
posted by flabdablet at 7:06 PM on January 14 [7 favorites]
I too object strongly to paying outrageous premiums for products whose only distinguishing feature is a well-recognized logo and/or nobody else having owned them before me, but am rather less inclined than you seem to be to make sweeping assumptions about what counts as "completely functional" for other people's purposes.
posted from yet another laptop diverted from the e-waste stream.
I think that may have come across in a way I didn't intend. I literally mean I have a hard time imagining not taking the cheapest item that will get the job done reliably. That isn't a moral judgment, just a psychological fact. I can see why an artist would care about having the best tools, but it is hard for me to imagine making that sort of purchase myself.
I think someone buying a high end tool for their own work, that actually makes a difference in their ability to produce and enjoy that work is different from somebody buying a ridiculously expensive item of clothing for the label, or paying a ton of extra money for a virtually undetectable bit of difference in sound quality.
And I am not saying people should be forbidden to waste their money on things I don't think matter, or that they are bad people for doing so. Just that in general I see spending a lot of money on luxury goods as a sign of misplaced priorities.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:17 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
posted from yet another laptop diverted from the e-waste stream.
I think that may have come across in a way I didn't intend. I literally mean I have a hard time imagining not taking the cheapest item that will get the job done reliably. That isn't a moral judgment, just a psychological fact. I can see why an artist would care about having the best tools, but it is hard for me to imagine making that sort of purchase myself.
I think someone buying a high end tool for their own work, that actually makes a difference in their ability to produce and enjoy that work is different from somebody buying a ridiculously expensive item of clothing for the label, or paying a ton of extra money for a virtually undetectable bit of difference in sound quality.
And I am not saying people should be forbidden to waste their money on things I don't think matter, or that they are bad people for doing so. Just that in general I see spending a lot of money on luxury goods as a sign of misplaced priorities.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:17 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
By which time it will be hopelessly of of date and the other audiophiles will be laughing at your pile of obsolete junk.
To flabdablet's point, that's generally not how high-ish-end audio equipment works. The good stuff (not the super high-end stuff that I will never purchase) can last decades of heavy usage. As long as you store the hardware in a decent climate-controlled environment it will stay good for a long time (cone-driven point drivers can experience material rot, but electro-static and such can be usable for 50+ years). None of the drivers in storage exist on the market anymore, but they are resellable at a premium from what I paid because they're still really good.
Half the fun was building the actual cabinets from scratch and designing the frequency slopes on the crossovers. Normalizing room conditions to get that little extra from EQ, but not getting into the hokum around cables and connectors and things that don't really matter. Neat hobby. But like anything else, do it in moderation.
The goal isn't to listen to the speakers. It's to listen to the music.
posted by ryoshu at 7:37 PM on January 14 [4 favorites]
To flabdablet's point, that's generally not how high-ish-end audio equipment works. The good stuff (not the super high-end stuff that I will never purchase) can last decades of heavy usage. As long as you store the hardware in a decent climate-controlled environment it will stay good for a long time (cone-driven point drivers can experience material rot, but electro-static and such can be usable for 50+ years). None of the drivers in storage exist on the market anymore, but they are resellable at a premium from what I paid because they're still really good.
Half the fun was building the actual cabinets from scratch and designing the frequency slopes on the crossovers. Normalizing room conditions to get that little extra from EQ, but not getting into the hokum around cables and connectors and things that don't really matter. Neat hobby. But like anything else, do it in moderation.
The goal isn't to listen to the speakers. It's to listen to the music.
posted by ryoshu at 7:37 PM on January 14 [4 favorites]
Taken to an extreme, any time anyone makes a purchasing decision that isn't purely practical they are choosing between that thing and the life of a child in a war zone or a famine. Judging someone for buying a phone that's 50% more expensive than necessary isn't likely to be a useful exercise.
Karl Fritz alienating his children to spend all his material wealth this way doesn't seem like an analogous edge case.
I never did grok the 'Pearl of Great Price' parable.
posted by bq at 7:42 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Karl Fritz alienating his children to spend all his material wealth this way doesn't seem like an analogous edge case.
I never did grok the 'Pearl of Great Price' parable.
posted by bq at 7:42 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
An 'honour roll' of high quality audio recordings, from one of the top mastering engineers, Bob Katz.
(Scroll down to the bottom, and click on the boxes labelled 'Make sure to set a title' to reveal the lists.)
posted by Pouteria at 7:52 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]
(Scroll down to the bottom, and click on the boxes labelled 'Make sure to set a title' to reveal the lists.)
posted by Pouteria at 7:52 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]
Is a $400 chef’s knife ten times better than a $40 chef’s knife?
I'm generally of the "cheapest tool that gets the job done" mindset, but I can understand a different way to ask this question: Would a chef rather have one of the $400 knives, or ten of the $40 knives?
When I'm making choices like that, it's usually based on, "How often do I feel frustration/rage using this cheap tool as a result of its cheap-tool limitations?" I can put up with a fair amount of frustration, so I have a lot of cheap tools.
posted by clawsoon at 8:01 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]
I'm generally of the "cheapest tool that gets the job done" mindset, but I can understand a different way to ask this question: Would a chef rather have one of the $400 knives, or ten of the $40 knives?
When I'm making choices like that, it's usually based on, "How often do I feel frustration/rage using this cheap tool as a result of its cheap-tool limitations?" I can put up with a fair amount of frustration, so I have a lot of cheap tools.
posted by clawsoon at 8:01 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]
> All of the gear is in storage now because we had kids. It will come back out when they leave for college.
By which time it will be hopelessly of of date and the other audiophiles will be laughing at your pile of obsolete junk.
Depending on the gear, it might help pay for college.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:47 PM on January 14 [3 favorites]
By which time it will be hopelessly of of date and the other audiophiles will be laughing at your pile of obsolete junk.
Depending on the gear, it might help pay for college.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:47 PM on January 14 [3 favorites]
Given the world we live in, I assume most of the difference gets pocketed by a corporation.
You think the most skilled craftspeople aren't paid significantly more for their work than the shoddiest or least experienced ones?
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:38 PM on January 14
You think the most skilled craftspeople aren't paid significantly more for their work than the shoddiest or least experienced ones?
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:38 PM on January 14
For most people, their tunes are wallpaper or just accompaniment to what they're doing. Fewer people make music listening a foreground activity. So nobody seems to mind the very good but not perfect fidelity of highly compressed mixes streamed to inexpensive buds or headphones.
I tend to listen to music as a foreground activity, but still, I find my enjoyment isn't dependent on the sound quality (as long as it's not totally egregious).
As an analogy, when 3D films tried to make a comeback 10-20 years ago I found that within a few minutes of putting on the glasses and being impressed by the visuals, I would forget that there was anything special about the image and would enjoy the film no more or less than a 2D one, because it was the content of the film rather than the means of transmission that I enjoyed.
With music also it's the content I enjoy, and the quality needed for me to appreciate it is not that high. The extremely cheap radio in my kitchen has brought me huge amounts of musical enjoyment. Ditto MP3s on the tiny invisible speaker in the bottom of my phone. (I do have a proper hifi too btw).
It's not that music is wallpaper for me, it isn't, it's a holy experience. But I'm wondering if the enjoyemt of musical fidelity and clarity is just a separate and independent enjoyment to that.
posted by mokey at 12:37 AM on January 15 [2 favorites]
I tend to listen to music as a foreground activity, but still, I find my enjoyment isn't dependent on the sound quality (as long as it's not totally egregious).
As an analogy, when 3D films tried to make a comeback 10-20 years ago I found that within a few minutes of putting on the glasses and being impressed by the visuals, I would forget that there was anything special about the image and would enjoy the film no more or less than a 2D one, because it was the content of the film rather than the means of transmission that I enjoyed.
With music also it's the content I enjoy, and the quality needed for me to appreciate it is not that high. The extremely cheap radio in my kitchen has brought me huge amounts of musical enjoyment. Ditto MP3s on the tiny invisible speaker in the bottom of my phone. (I do have a proper hifi too btw).
It's not that music is wallpaper for me, it isn't, it's a holy experience. But I'm wondering if the enjoyemt of musical fidelity and clarity is just a separate and independent enjoyment to that.
posted by mokey at 12:37 AM on January 15 [2 favorites]
The goal isn't to listen to the speakers. It's to listen to the music.
Nthing this. And for context here is advice on How to Listen to Music from Rick Beato, Daniel Barenboim and Stephen Taylor. To musicians, composers and producers - listening is a real skill with lots of elements: understanding how the music is put together, teasing out individual instruments and the way they are being played. And also having the right state of mind. It is interesting, that their advice relating to the reproduction of the sound seems to be confined to "listen on headphones" and "ensure you are somewhere quiet". These are all some alternative areas to obsess over, of course.
posted by rongorongo at 1:07 AM on January 15
Nthing this. And for context here is advice on How to Listen to Music from Rick Beato, Daniel Barenboim and Stephen Taylor. To musicians, composers and producers - listening is a real skill with lots of elements: understanding how the music is put together, teasing out individual instruments and the way they are being played. And also having the right state of mind. It is interesting, that their advice relating to the reproduction of the sound seems to be confined to "listen on headphones" and "ensure you are somewhere quiet". These are all some alternative areas to obsess over, of course.
posted by rongorongo at 1:07 AM on January 15
But where does the money spent on a nice suit, or a nice pen, or a nice guitar go? Some of it, at least, goes to the craftspeople who make those things. And when you're buying a higher-end item, it's a good bet that the craftspeople who made it are going to be relatively well paid.
> Given the world we live in, I assume most of the difference gets pocketed by a corporation.
>>You think the most skilled craftspeople aren't paid significantly more for their work than the shoddiest or least experienced ones?
I think it depends a lot on the product in question. There's a spectrum between buying something made by an individual maker on their own and buying something expensive but mass produced (like a gold-plated iPhone or whatever). Part of that spectrum is about what percentage of the price actually goes to the workers, and often there's also a spectrum regarding how much information we actually have about how much of the profit goes to whom.
I know, if I get a hand-tailored suit made with expensive fabrics, what the tailor is receiving (though not necessarily what the people producing those more expensive fabrics received); if the tailor employs assistants behind the scenes, I can't be sure they're well paid; if I buy some super high-end but still mass-produced designer suit, I have no visibility into the production or pay structure. Do the workers making the luxury product actually get paid more? And if so, how much more? There's no end of stories about luxury brands relying on underpaid labor, and many of those brands are owned and run by extremely wealthy people, so there's certainly a fair amount of profit not making its way down the line.
I want to believe that if I buy a more expensive product that means everybody along the production chain is better paid and better treated (and that it's more ethically produced in terms of environmental footprint and so on...) But I think that's often not the reality. And generally, I have no way of knowing.
So, you know, it depends.
posted by trig at 4:49 AM on January 15 [5 favorites]
> Given the world we live in, I assume most of the difference gets pocketed by a corporation.
>>You think the most skilled craftspeople aren't paid significantly more for their work than the shoddiest or least experienced ones?
I think it depends a lot on the product in question. There's a spectrum between buying something made by an individual maker on their own and buying something expensive but mass produced (like a gold-plated iPhone or whatever). Part of that spectrum is about what percentage of the price actually goes to the workers, and often there's also a spectrum regarding how much information we actually have about how much of the profit goes to whom.
I know, if I get a hand-tailored suit made with expensive fabrics, what the tailor is receiving (though not necessarily what the people producing those more expensive fabrics received); if the tailor employs assistants behind the scenes, I can't be sure they're well paid; if I buy some super high-end but still mass-produced designer suit, I have no visibility into the production or pay structure. Do the workers making the luxury product actually get paid more? And if so, how much more? There's no end of stories about luxury brands relying on underpaid labor, and many of those brands are owned and run by extremely wealthy people, so there's certainly a fair amount of profit not making its way down the line.
I want to believe that if I buy a more expensive product that means everybody along the production chain is better paid and better treated (and that it's more ethically produced in terms of environmental footprint and so on...) But I think that's often not the reality. And generally, I have no way of knowing.
So, you know, it depends.
posted by trig at 4:49 AM on January 15 [5 favorites]
I'd not say Gibson Les Pauls generally bury 'Strats' unless you are talking a specific sound
If you had an American-made Strat vs the same level in a Gibson, yeah, it's just the sound you're chasing. My difference is my Fender is MIM and the fret edges are rough and the pickups really need an upgrade. The LP is from the old Custom Shop and despite its weight, plays effortlessly.
I want to believe that if I buy a more expensive product that means everybody along the production chain is better paid and better treated (and that it's more ethically produced in terms of environmental footprint and so on...).
Most audiophile dealers (NOT ALL) are relatively small shops, carrying boutique brands to avoid competing with the like of Best Buy.
posted by Ber at 8:50 AM on January 15
If you had an American-made Strat vs the same level in a Gibson, yeah, it's just the sound you're chasing. My difference is my Fender is MIM and the fret edges are rough and the pickups really need an upgrade. The LP is from the old Custom Shop and despite its weight, plays effortlessly.
I want to believe that if I buy a more expensive product that means everybody along the production chain is better paid and better treated (and that it's more ethically produced in terms of environmental footprint and so on...).
Most audiophile dealers (NOT ALL) are relatively small shops, carrying boutique brands to avoid competing with the like of Best Buy.
posted by Ber at 8:50 AM on January 15
I think what hits hard for me here is how Fritz turned an opportunity to connect with his family and made it an obsession that destroyed it. As obsessions tend to do.
I'm also rethinking pulling out the audio toys to see if my kids would be interested in learning things that may be considered lost arts these days.
The Venn diagram of an audiophile and a DIY audio enthusiast is a function of money and time. The rubes are the ones buying Bybee Quantum Purifiers (it was a thing) where they have more money than time so they will purchase things that trigger the placebo effect of more money = better quality.
Audio, like other passions, can go really deep. The goal is to faithfully reproduce what the artists want you to hear. An impossible task; but a fun one to chase.
In the mid-2000s a few things converged in audio that upset the entire hi-fi industry. I think the biggest shift was Class D amplifiers, as mentioned earlier. Class A amplifiers are expensive and hot. Class A/B were industry standard. Class D came along and were rough at first. But in the early 00s you could buy kits for $100-200 that you would need to solder and attach to a heat sink and do a decent bit of physical labor to get something usable. And those hand-built Class D amps would rival $20k Class A/B offerings after a few years of maturity in the industry.
There was also a lively scene of speaker driver manufacturers. You could go from dollar bin items to multi-$1000s for a single driver. But there was a tinkering aspect of things with web forums of hobbyists enjoying the journey as much as the destination.
Add in the analog aspect of hand-built crossovers using inductors, resistors, and capacitors (you could hand-wind an inductor if you really need to tune in the mH). Along with the emergent DSPs that were programmable and not insanely unaffordable.
And the woodworking. Oh, the woodworking. If you were really into it you were building custom cabinets. At home. Hands deep in saw dust wearing a sweaty mask ripping planks and routing holes. Building folded horns for a single driver that had phase coherence. Time aligning multiple drivers by moving them physically back along the vertical axis.
Physical, analog, and digital technologies; all in the service of art. And crafted. I might talk to the school's STEAM group about getting into audio. If the kids are interested I'll pull out the good stuff. If not, I'll wait until I can get back into it with a purpose.
posted by ryoshu at 9:54 AM on January 15 [6 favorites]
I'm also rethinking pulling out the audio toys to see if my kids would be interested in learning things that may be considered lost arts these days.
The Venn diagram of an audiophile and a DIY audio enthusiast is a function of money and time. The rubes are the ones buying Bybee Quantum Purifiers (it was a thing) where they have more money than time so they will purchase things that trigger the placebo effect of more money = better quality.
Audio, like other passions, can go really deep. The goal is to faithfully reproduce what the artists want you to hear. An impossible task; but a fun one to chase.
In the mid-2000s a few things converged in audio that upset the entire hi-fi industry. I think the biggest shift was Class D amplifiers, as mentioned earlier. Class A amplifiers are expensive and hot. Class A/B were industry standard. Class D came along and were rough at first. But in the early 00s you could buy kits for $100-200 that you would need to solder and attach to a heat sink and do a decent bit of physical labor to get something usable. And those hand-built Class D amps would rival $20k Class A/B offerings after a few years of maturity in the industry.
There was also a lively scene of speaker driver manufacturers. You could go from dollar bin items to multi-$1000s for a single driver. But there was a tinkering aspect of things with web forums of hobbyists enjoying the journey as much as the destination.
Add in the analog aspect of hand-built crossovers using inductors, resistors, and capacitors (you could hand-wind an inductor if you really need to tune in the mH). Along with the emergent DSPs that were programmable and not insanely unaffordable.
And the woodworking. Oh, the woodworking. If you were really into it you were building custom cabinets. At home. Hands deep in saw dust wearing a sweaty mask ripping planks and routing holes. Building folded horns for a single driver that had phase coherence. Time aligning multiple drivers by moving them physically back along the vertical axis.
Physical, analog, and digital technologies; all in the service of art. And crafted. I might talk to the school's STEAM group about getting into audio. If the kids are interested I'll pull out the good stuff. If not, I'll wait until I can get back into it with a purpose.
posted by ryoshu at 9:54 AM on January 15 [6 favorites]
My dad collected stamps, my whole life. Tried to get me into it on and off. He ran an insurance brokerage in S. Ont. and worked hard, liked to cook and read. But mostly in his spare time he fooled with his stamps, went to the two stores in town, went to the occasional convention. Maybe once a year to Toronto, maybe once every 5 years to Chicago. It wasn't a capital O obsession...but it occupied a lot of real estate in our house. It's also honestly occuring to me for the first time at age 52 that he must have spent a nontrivial amount of money on his collecting, but I was never aware of any household pressures or disagreements over it.
That is, until my parents tried to downsize. Wherever they were going to end up the stamps were going to follow, through three apartments of decreasing size and a gradual winnowing over time...which he accomplished mostly through e-bay selling and the local stamp club. Problem was he also bought a lot of stuff he thought he could flip so it was a one step forward two steps back kind of thing. The fact that he was dealing with stroke effects and other health issues made this super exciting for all involved. The sales strategy started basically a week after he was visiting me in the city I had moved to as a recent university graduate, and we were talking about what my first house would be like and he said "make sure you have a room for the stamps" [and they did occupy a room for most of my life]. I took a deep breath and said, "dad, I don't want them, I don't know about them, I can't look after them, I can't track them or nurture the collection the way you have" and waited in trepidation for him to lose his shit. And he stared at me for a two beat and said, "okay, I'll sell them myself".
And mostly he did. When he died the collection was probably down to 10pct of what it had been but it still occupied a lot of space in my mother's senior apartment. We looked into brokers etc. but my mother and I finally went and haggled with the guy at the local stamp store in kitchener. He explained that he couldn't buy them, he didn't have the float, business was bad and nobody wanted that stuff anymore [he still had a big store space and all the kit but it was pretty much empty every time we were there] and then one day he came in his beater of a car and paid my mom I think 8k in cash and drove away with a trunkful. My dad told me several times over the years that the collection had a worth in the 100ks range (and he meant catalog face, and yes I know that's never a sales price, but that was how he talked about it).
It felt decidedly strange to watch that guy drive away with the tail end of what had been my dads lifework in a way...but mostly I was happy my mom got a bookshelf and a closet back.
posted by hearthpig at 4:30 PM on January 15 [13 favorites]
That is, until my parents tried to downsize. Wherever they were going to end up the stamps were going to follow, through three apartments of decreasing size and a gradual winnowing over time...which he accomplished mostly through e-bay selling and the local stamp club. Problem was he also bought a lot of stuff he thought he could flip so it was a one step forward two steps back kind of thing. The fact that he was dealing with stroke effects and other health issues made this super exciting for all involved. The sales strategy started basically a week after he was visiting me in the city I had moved to as a recent university graduate, and we were talking about what my first house would be like and he said "make sure you have a room for the stamps" [and they did occupy a room for most of my life]. I took a deep breath and said, "dad, I don't want them, I don't know about them, I can't look after them, I can't track them or nurture the collection the way you have" and waited in trepidation for him to lose his shit. And he stared at me for a two beat and said, "okay, I'll sell them myself".
And mostly he did. When he died the collection was probably down to 10pct of what it had been but it still occupied a lot of space in my mother's senior apartment. We looked into brokers etc. but my mother and I finally went and haggled with the guy at the local stamp store in kitchener. He explained that he couldn't buy them, he didn't have the float, business was bad and nobody wanted that stuff anymore [he still had a big store space and all the kit but it was pretty much empty every time we were there] and then one day he came in his beater of a car and paid my mom I think 8k in cash and drove away with a trunkful. My dad told me several times over the years that the collection had a worth in the 100ks range (and he meant catalog face, and yes I know that's never a sales price, but that was how he talked about it).
It felt decidedly strange to watch that guy drive away with the tail end of what had been my dads lifework in a way...but mostly I was happy my mom got a bookshelf and a closet back.
posted by hearthpig at 4:30 PM on January 15 [13 favorites]
The Manwich Horror: as someone who generally shares your disdain for conspicuous consumption, i do have to quibble with two of your objections:
In the realm of men's clothing specifically (this is much less true of women's clothing, sadly), a $5k suit is almost certainly going to end up with MORE (and i mean SIGNIFICANTLY more) of the money going to a real craftsperson than a $500 suit.
And while the distinction between a fantastic guitar and a meh guitar definitely doesn't scale linearly with money, a well-chosen higher-priced guitar has better sound than a cheap guitar and is almost certainly a lot easier to maintain and longer-lasting, and is ALSO vastly more likely to result in an actual craftsperson making money than a shitty factory-assembled guitar.
It is by no means universally true of "expensive vs cheap" stuff, but in both of those specific cases, there's a definite price point where you shift from "shitty corporate assembly-line production" to "produced by skilled laborers".
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:12 AM on January 17 [3 favorites]
In the realm of men's clothing specifically (this is much less true of women's clothing, sadly), a $5k suit is almost certainly going to end up with MORE (and i mean SIGNIFICANTLY more) of the money going to a real craftsperson than a $500 suit.
And while the distinction between a fantastic guitar and a meh guitar definitely doesn't scale linearly with money, a well-chosen higher-priced guitar has better sound than a cheap guitar and is almost certainly a lot easier to maintain and longer-lasting, and is ALSO vastly more likely to result in an actual craftsperson making money than a shitty factory-assembled guitar.
It is by no means universally true of "expensive vs cheap" stuff, but in both of those specific cases, there's a definite price point where you shift from "shitty corporate assembly-line production" to "produced by skilled laborers".
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:12 AM on January 17 [3 favorites]
Aardvark Cheeselog: other audiophiles will be laughing at your pile of obsolete junk
Those people aren't you friends.
posted by k3ninho at 11:10 AM on January 21
Those people aren't you friends.
posted by k3ninho at 11:10 AM on January 21
No, I don't buy Apple products, they are perfect examples of things that cost more than necessary for their functions
Which is nonsense.
posted by spitbull at 5:33 AM on January 22
Which is nonsense.
posted by spitbull at 5:33 AM on January 22
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