One Man's Dream - Ken Fritz Documentary
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This is an amazing tribute to the force of will ... a man who built his DREAM. We salute you !
{ Dream On Until your Dream comes true. }
{ Dream On Until your Dream comes true. }
Ken your journey is an magnificent story of detail and determination. I have had a more modest but similar quest for sonic nirvana since high school as well. In the last 55 years I have had the usual reference brands and a number of hand built one off products, room treatments, electrical etc. I shared with my wife your video. She was equally amazed. More importantly, it made my machinations, efforts and expenditures seem down right reasonable in comparison. Thank you from all of us in the audiophile community faced with a skeptical partner and providing us with a rational argument of well - look at what Ken did - this new component (insert favorite item here) isn't so unreasonable.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I have followed Ken's journey for several years. A close friend of mine visited his music room and said he was the perfect host. I love and admire the supreme "hands on journey" he went on vs buying the work "off the shelf". It's a shame the system is/has been auctioned off. I would have loved to see it stay in tact as a community music hall. What a legacy that would have been.
It is too bad his system could not have been kept intact.
After watching original video on 2021, I had temptation to visit his listening room.
But I got the news that his health was deteriorating and no more visitor allowed.
It would be nice if could take over whole system, but I was hesitant to move to Richmond VA since it got too hot and humid during summer time.
Sad ending, but he devoted his life to audio fulfilling his lifelong dream.
I would love to read this but it's behind a paywall.
I was very sorry to find out he passed away.
What Happened To "The World's Best Stereo System?" - Aftermath
https://www.washingtonpost.com/styl...-stereo-auction-cost/?tid=wa_hardregwall_auth
if you register your emaill, you can read both without payment.
I can view it using this:
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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.]
The article focuses in part on the underbelly (sadness and regrets) of 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.
A link to the WP article:
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