He spent his life building a $1 million stereo. The real cost was unfathomable.
I saw the article headline above in today’s Washington Post and had to read it.
In some ways, I wish I hadn’t.
[I’m including the link here at the bottom of the post. I copied as a gift so that hopefully others can read it. Note: There’s an earlier related forum thread here on WBF “One Man's Dream - Ken Fritz Documentary” that describes in detail the construction of the system/room”.]
The article focuses in part on the underbelly (sadness and regrets) of Ken Fritz’s project. Sadness for ALS taking away Mr. Fritz’s ability to enjoy the fruits of his system longer.
But also the sadness and regret of the alleged “unfathomable cost” of the failed relationships with some of his family, especially his sons.
His obsession with his audiophile project meant little time for vacations or family time on weekends. And his sons being forced to work interminably on the project.
As Fritz himself says “‘I was a father pretty much in name,” Fritz told me. “I was not a typical father or a typical husband.’”
“The big blowup with [his estranged son] Kurt came in 2018, about two years after Fritz had declared that, at last, the world’s greatest stereo and listening room was complete. Kurt, on a visit home, decided to ask his father for a couple of family heirlooms: his grandfather’s 1955 Chevy and an old Rek-O-Kut turntable.
“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.’”
“It was past 1 a.m. when Kurt, with a few drinks in him, told his father he was going to stay up later and listen to some more music. All the work he had put into building that stereo system — pouring concrete, painting the walls — now Kurt wanted to enjoy it.
“But Fritz hit the off switch on the Krells. And Kurt delivered the words the two of them could never come back from.
“I need you to die slow, m-----f-----,” he told his father. “Die slow.”
“His meaning was coldly clear to both of them.”
Although Scott [the son, who made the video referenced in this thread,] and Fritz had a special bond, they “clashed over the years and occasionally stopped talking. Scott didn’t like how his father sometimes treated people… And Scott hated how his dad acted toward [Frtz’s other son] Kurt.
“He definitely taught me my work ethic,” Scott said. “But I don’t need to spend time with people who behave like that.”
Near the end of his life, his estranged son “called and tried to talk to his father. Betsy [his daughter] urged him to take the call. Fritz refused. In the end, they never spoke. .
Sad.
After his death, the system was sold in pieces to different buyers for a fraction of its original cost.
“Fritz’s stereo system may as well have been a load-bearing wall. His dream had been woven into the actual structure of his home. They were virtually inseparable.And who would want to buy a stereo that cost more than the house…Anybody that’s got that kind of money,…doesn’t want to live there.”
So sad, if true, in so many ways.
As someone else pointed out - “a cautionary tale”.
A link to the WP article:
https://wapo.st/47ErwZI
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