[BC] High end audio

[Rob Atkinson]

it's not great gear but I still have and use my separate component stereo 
I've had for 26 years--kenwood integrated amp, technics tuner i got at a 
hamfest fleamarket a few years ago, old sony cassette deck, pioneer 
turntable and (new addition) Akai (? senior moment) CD player.   Sansui 
speakers.   I went shopping for a new stereo two years ago and quickly 
discovered that they no longer exist, as component systems, unless you go to 
a high end salon and spend thousands of dollars, so I found my tuner at a 
flea market.

rob atkinson

From: richwood at pobox.com
Reply-To: Broadcasters' Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Subject: [BC] High end audio
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 07:56:51 -0700

------ At 11:10 PM 7/2/2006, Dana  Puopolo wrote: -------

>Let me tell you about one of those highbrows (true story).
>A friend of mine used to work for a high end audio store in Harvard Square,

I worked at a less highbrow audio store in Harvard Square, Minute Man Radio. 
I spent most of my free time at the original Tweeter store just down the 
street. It was a place where the audio greats would gather to talk about 
audio. Mere mortals could listen in. Henry Kloss, Roy Allison, Edgar 
Villchur and many of the Cambridge-based audio greats would sit and BS about 
the nature of audio.

I recall selling a pair of Magnaplanars, a Marantz 10B Tuner (when FM would 
do it justice) and equally superb preamps, power amps (separate, of course) 
to the then head of the Harvard physics department. He wanted the best there 
was, I believe, just to say he had the best there was. After all, Cambridge 
was one of the nation's hotbeds of high end audio. Those were the days 
before hocus pocus took over and people got suckered into high voltage 
distribution cables to make their speakers sound better. $400 per foot.

The stuff really sounded great - especially once the second speaker was 
connected. Even Advent could make their own custom recorded cassettes sound 
incredible on their cassette machine.

Go to the New York High End Audio show (formerly the Stereophile show) and 
see the really great stuff and the high end scams. I recall not a single 
display including an FM tuner. Strangely, there was an XM kiosk (they're 
everywhere, you know, like the IBUZ kiosks). People were curious because it 
was so new. I wonder if the HD Dominion will have an IBUZ kisok at the next 
one as part of their massive promotional campaign. They put the headsets on, 
quickly took them off and frowned. Clearly out of place at a high end audio 
show. Sources were CDs, DAT and uncompressed hard drives.

Rich

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® 
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963