Amateur? Why does that sound so, so degrading in of all places a high-end audio forum?
“Industry professionals who have their gear tested in a lasting commercial application…?” Yeah, I know. Especially if John Atkinson gave the product an A+ rating, right?
I appreciate what you’re saying but if you’re going to use the word amateur, perhaps you should define exactly what you mean by its use.
- Surely you must realize that an overwhelming majority of industry participants couldn’t punch their way out of a musical bag if their lives depended on it. That includes some-to-many enthusiasts (aka amateurs) but also some-to-many reviewers, distributors, editors, dealers, and manufacturers (aka professionals). So if listening skills have anything to do with your definition of amateur, I’d venture we could include 75-90% of ALL high-end audio participants in the amateur category.
- Or if your definition of amateur includes those having the ability to assemble at least once a playback system that truly approaches the absolute sound in most every way regardless recording after recording regardless of genre and format, I venture we could include perhaps 99.999% of ALL high-end audio participants in the amateur category.
- Or if your definition of amateur is intended to exclude those who receive no revenue from product or publication sales, I’d like to refer you back to #1 and #2.
That said, just who’s endorsement might I seek to obtain credibility? If so, what might that credibility be worth? Based on the above truths, if I had 1000 audiophiles ranting to others they’ve auditioned my designs and substantiate everything I claim, has my credibility really changed? Hint. See #1 and #2 above.
Upon visiting an exhibiting room at CES 2014 John Atkinson of Stereophile claimed a pair of Vandersteen Model 7A speakers were “musically perfect…, across the board.” And many gobbled it up. Just one year later Atkinson claiming listening to MQA format recordings is the equivalent to experiencing a new birth. And many gobbled it up. Robert Harley was even worse regarding his outlandish claims about MQA performance than Atkinson, if that’s even possible.
We’ve got Bob Stuart of MQA claiming since 2014 that for the first time ever listeners can hear exactly what the engineers heard in the recording studio so long as the little MQA light illuminates. And many gobbled it up.
I could go on but won’t. These are just a few of the industry’s so-called leaders. These leaders have exposure with many lapping up everything they say but do they have true credibility? And you’d only be fooling yourself if you think things get much better as you work your way down the list.
That’s not to say there are not good well-intentioned people with reasonably well-trained ears and/or viable product, because there are. But I’ve heard it said, it’s so bad we can’t discern the legitimate from the illegitimate without a program. This is especially true in high-end audio forums where it’s so easy for anybody to play paper tiger with words only.
And frankly, even among the far fewer more knowledgeable well-intentioned types, I’m unaware of any of them able to come even remotely close to assembling a playback system generating the level of musicality I’m able to.
So when you talk about amateur status and credibility in any high-end audio forum, I have great difficulty understanding what you really mean. Especially because on its face, your comments make sense. But if we just pull back the industry covers just a tad, regrettably your comments are little more than pie-in-the-sky verbiage.
As for moving my design out of its early design phase, well actually I’d say it’s in or near its advanced stage phase at this juncture. Back in 2010-2011, I tried taking my product to market and failed so I pulled down the tent in 2012 for various reasons including financial.
Here’s just one blurb taken from Hong Kong Audio Exotics’ website on the very first day before things could even start to settle in.
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Audio Exotics eventually had one of my products for each of their $500k showroom systems and elsewhere on their website they called it their greatest find in recent years. I also exclusively licensed a small product to a component mfg’er they sold for $159 and of all the feedback they sent back to me (maybe 10 or 15), the most common response was this had to be the best kept secret in the industry. That was when my technology / design was in its infancy. Today, as I passively continue my experimentations, I’d venture my current designs are 3 to 4 times the performance levels they were then and as far as I can tell there’s no end in sight.
In fact, my VMPS speakers are not mounted sufficiently to the sub-flooring system as their designer Brian Cheney didn’t believe in it. But I’m confident that if I ever got around to designing an appropriate base system that anchors the 240 lbs. speakers to the subflooring that my system’s overall performance would improve by 10-15%.
IOW, I don't think I'm really seeking credibility as some might suspect or at the very least I gave up on that a long time ago. I’m really only trying to say there’s a better more efficient way to remove the universal performance-limiting governor that plagues and absolutely cripples the accuracy and precision of every last sensitive component until now so that they can only perform at their base performance levels.
And when it comes to various forms of vibration mgmt., and the wide-spread confusion routinely expressed between vibration’s sources and behaviors, methodologies, designs, materials, and even the verbiage, whatever weak links there are remaining in high-end audio, it seems vibration mgmt. will forever reign supreme. At least from a performance robbing perspective.
Nevertheless, I do appreciate your comments but regrettably I don't see them as helpful in my case anyway.