Congratulations Ron on your new business.
Thank you!
I do have a serious question for you . Wasn’t it you the questioned Robert Harley’s and other reviewers when he wrote about how long term loans were good for the Industry and to paraphrase there’s nothing to see here let’s move on philosophy?
I don’t see how someone can be a dealer and then expect to have neutrality towards other products that do not put money in your pocket?
This seems to be a conflict of interest. I don’t think anyone can serve two masters. Dealers like myself are always being questioned as of motive and in fact you and I had a very serious discussion about this before I renewed my WBF sponsorship.
Thank you for this
very fair question. With regard to Clarisys Audio loudspeakers, on the one hand, and my interviews, show reports and reviews on the other, I definitely have an
apparent conflict of interest regarding planar dipole loudspeakers versus other loudspeaker topologies, and Clarisys planar dipole loudspeakers versus other brands of planar dipole loudspeakers.
1) On this forum I have accumulated for years a body of work -- reports, philosophies, theories, principles, beliefs, opinions -- which are forever public and on the record. I believe this body of work evidences subjective opinions based on actual listening experience; an unusually large proportion of introspection; fairly fixed listening preferences and opinions; and intellectual honesty.
It is up to me to prove that I am a professional. It is up to me to prove that I can maintain a bright line distinction between wearing my dealer hat for Clarisys Audio and wearing my other hats which require neutrality, impartiality and intellectual honesty. I invite you and anyone else interested in this matter to be the judge. I invite you and anyone else to let me know, publicly or privately, if I fall short.
2) I don't see myself as serving two masters. My sole master remains intellectual honesty for what I write on WBF and Mono and Stereo and for what I say on the WBF YouTube channel, and trying to help audiophiles as best as I can connect emotionally to the music they love. Yes, it is up to me to prove this over time.
Becoming a Clarisys Audio dealer has been in the works since April of 2023. Since April of last year I have conducted numerous interviews with loudspeaker designers. Other than subjectively liking planar dipole speakers in general for my entire life -- a personal preference which admittedly informs some of the questions I ask loudspeaker designers -- have you detected in my many interviews since last April any evidence of impartiality specifically favoring Clarisys loudspeakers?
3) I will not be a conventional dealer with one or two brands of each type of component to sell, trying to encourage people to buy a whole system based on those particular collections. Rather, I will be a single brand (Clarisys) and single component (loudspeaker) dealer demonstrating for prospective clients only Clarisys Audio loudspeakers. I will have a chain of Hegel electronics for people who want to hear the speakers on solid-state.
While I unavoidably have an
apparent conflict of interest with regard to loudspeakers in general and with regard to planar dipole loudspeakers in particular, and with regard to Clarisys loudspeakers specifically, I have no conflict of interest of any kind with regard to any other type of component. I have no apparent conflict of interest with regard to phono stages or line stage preamplifiers or amplifiers or cables or DACs or turntables or tonearms or cartridges or acoustic treatments or accessories. So I can do my very best with indisputable neutrality and impartiality to help a client assemble for his/her own ears the best possible components around Clarisys Audio loudspeakers.
And, if planar dipoles in general are not a prospective client's cup of tea, or if Clarisys Audio loudspeakers in particular are not a prospective client's cup of tea, then we can just have a good time, and I am more than happy to point a person in the direction of any other loudspeaker -- including any other planar dipole loudspeaker -- with which I think he/she would achieve the emotional engagement he/she is looking for with the music he/she loves -- which is exactly what I do with the many WBF members who write to me or who call me for all kinds of advice on a daily basis.
4) For these reasons Florián Weingard and Mike Bovaird know that this is not a typical dealer situation. This is not even a typical home dealer situation.
If somebody visits me and happens to like Clarisys Audio loudspeakers as much as I think I like them, then I am happy to help somebody purchase them. Arguably, it's nothing different than what I do all the time with each of my components when anybody visits me. If somebody happens to like the Lampizator Baltic 4, I am happy to introduce him/her to Fred Ainsley. Yes, with regard to Clarisys it would be a formal business transaction, and I have formal responsibility as a dealer for this particular product.
Florián and Mike know well my philosophy that there is no such thing as an objectively best component; that there is no such thing as an objectively best loudspeaker; that there is no such thing as a loudspeaker which does everything better than every other loudspeaker. There are sonic pros and cons to every component. In a subjective hobby any dealer who tells a customer otherwise is not being honest.
I will not suddenly adopt the mentality of many dealers who try to persuade clients that the components they happen to sell somehow are objectively the "best." I am not going to compromise my personal principles and my reputation in this industry and pretend that there is any objective sense in which Clarisys is the best loudspeaker, or the best planar dipole loudspeaker, or anything along those lines. If a prospective client hears from planar dipoles in general (remember I still have the Pendragons I can play for guests just for fun) what I hear from them, or hears from Clarisys in particular what I hear from them, then that's great.
5) So far, I am loving the Clarisys loudspeakers. This is
not in derogation of any other loudspeaker. I appreciate that manufacturers, distributors and dealers of other planar dipole loudspeakers might not see it this way. I understand that through their prism they might see my mere mention of a competing speaker -- whether or not I am a dealer for that speaker -- as a negative for their speaker. But I don't think this view is objectively reasonable. Saying "I like X," is not the same as saying "I dislike Y."
I heard the Clarisys Minuets very briefly at AXPONA last year along with many other people. If something actually sounds good at a show that tends to be a statistically significant impression.
I have been a planar dipole person literally my entire audio life. I wouldn't be doing this for any loudspeaker other than a planar dipole.
I remember auditioning Apogee Divas with Andy Singer circa early 1990s in Andy's loft in Manhattan (before his big store at Union Square). I insisted on using tube amplifiers, so I did not want to use Krells. So I purchased, at that time, Magnepans, and then a series of Martin-Logans. Spending yesterday afternoon and evening playing a conceptual descendent of an Apogee Diva with a mere eighty (80) watts of all-tube Jadis JA100s was pretty mind-blowing! I liked it. Whether I am a dealer or not of Clarisys I liked it. If I heard the same thing at a friend's house, I liked it.
I would be writing this exact same thing even if I had not become a Clarisys dealer. How does anyone know this? Because I think for anyone who has followed me for some time it is not difficult to understand me and to get into the groove of how I think. Anybody who knows me or follows me knows I would be writing this exact same thing even if I had not become a Clarisys dealer.
I am working with Clarisys because I wanted to introduce people to what I hear from planar dipoles and to get more involved with what I think is a great-sounding re-incarnated Apogee design -- improved in literally every way from what I saw and heard at Andy Singer's original loft -- than just reporting on it and reviewing it for WBF and
Mono and Stereo.
A re-incarnated Apogee with higher sensitivity, a reasonable impedance load, great build quality, presumably greater reliability and great sound quality is what led me to buy Studio Plus. Honestly, if I were placing the order today I would've gotten Auditoriums, so, for my own personal edification, I could make make the fairest comparison with the Pendragons.
6) In summary it absolutely is up to me to prove that this apparent conflict of interest never becomes an actual conflict of interest. It is up to me to prove that I can maintain professionalism and intellectual honesty. I am happy for you and for everyone else to be the judge of this.
The design of the Clarisys is flexible, in that each driver is accessible directly. The Alsyvox has this same driver accessibility.
