Introduction
Oviously those knowing me will expect a brief introductory rant. So here it is. Just one paragraph. Feel free to skip that bit. i won't mind. Not even a little bit!
You’ll rarely see editorial coverage of retailers in the audiophile magazines. My guess is that the publishers / editors have a sort of benign contempt for us retailers, or possibly they see editorial as not profit-making, or both. Or perhaps neither. How so? Well, when was the last time you saw a retailer press-release published in a magazine. Or a dealer-feature? Anyway, like the rest of the industry, the paper-based mags are dying. They just don't know it yet. For many of my customers they're an irrelevance. Rant over. Thank you. So anyway I started thinking about this. And then figured out that I was in a position to do something about it.
You’ll rarely see editorial coverage of retailers in the audiophile magazines. My guess is that the publishers / editors have a sort of benign contempt for us retailers, or possibly they see editorial as not profit-making, or both. Or perhaps neither. How so? Well, when was the last time you saw a retailer press-release published in a magazine. Or a dealer-feature? Anyway, like the rest of the industry, the paper-based mags are dying. They just don't know it yet. For many of my customers they're an irrelevance. Rant over. Thank you. So anyway I started thinking about this. And then figured out that I was in a position to do something about it.
And so here is the first of what I hope will be a series of interviews with what I consider are some of the world’s great retailers – for new and/or used audiophile gear. So why would I, as a retailer myself, want to give publicity to my competitors?
Well, first – because I can. Secondly, because I want to. Thirdly, the audiophile retail industry is dying, in part. It will die, because that’s commercial evolution. But – maybe, just maybe I can help slow down the progress towards that inevitable death by allowing them via my site to speak openly, clearly and without publisher interference. Worth a try I thought. And anyway, I don’t see these people as competitors.
They’re in the same line of business as me, certainly – but each has their own individual approaches as indeed I do. They attract some types of buyers and repulse others, just like Stereonow does. Competitors then? Not really. That type of thinking is in my view too narrow minded.
So anyway I selected 17 audiophile retail specialist in the UK, the bit of Europe cut off from the UK and of course the USA. I'll be contacting colleague retailers in the Far East early next year.
I emailed all of them. Some responded. Some ignored the invitation. Some I guess didn’t understand my motives and 3 of them said something along the lines that they felt unsuitable as interviewees. Fair enough.
Now then this first interview – with Rick of The Audio Alternative in Fr. Collins, Colorado USA is a real cracker I feel. Rick, and I've known him for years, shoots from the hip, tells it like it is and is perhaps the most passionate audio retailer I've ever met. Candidly, and I say this without embarrassment, in every sense of the word his retail operation makes mine seem very low grade. In his presence I’m humbled. Truly.
In January 2011 Rick demonstrated to me the most musically credible audio system I have ever heard, anywhere and at any price. We played records for 9 hours, pausing only for an occasional coffee, toilet break and fresh air. Good? You’ve no idea. Can anything in the UK using UK makers come close? Doubtful. Very doubtful.
The public’s appetite for quality vintage gear seems both endless and escalating. Is this the reality or a merely perception? And if a reality, what are the driving forces re this do you think?
It’s the same as for any worthwhile antiques. The best of high performance audio gear – from the mid 50s forward – like the best of older high performance automobiles, will only escalate in value with age.
Could it be sensibly argued that in terms of sonic performance (and avoiding distractions such as price, cost and value) a disturbingly large amount of vintage gear meets or exceeds the performance of modern products?
It could be argued, but not sensibly. I’d give my eyeteeth for a Ferrari 250 GTO. But in no way does it exceed the performance of the current Italia, which is currently dead cheap by comparison!
Like automotive progress, current high-performance audio gear, on average, blows the doors off any high performance gear made prior to 1990 in terms of sheer performance, reliability and cost. Period.
I sense a ‘but’ …
Okay, yes. The only argument that holds any water is if you’d like to compare something like the current crop of $200.00 to $500.00 Sony stereo 100 wpc receivers to say, something like the last of the valve Scotts, Leaks or what have you, from the mid ‘60s. But this isn’t comparing apples to apples, is it?
In real terms the Scott was fifteen times more expensive, accounting for changes in inflation over the years. And why, in God’s name, are price, cost and value a distraction here? That is the point you really are asking about after all, isn’t it?
Sure is Rick. Sure is!
For example, the question should be, “What can you buy in the 1970s, adjusting for inflation, that would be superior to the best of what you could buy today for the same price?” And the answer is, “Nothing!”
Really?
Really!
And we’re speaking about high performance audio, I’d presume, in asking the above question in the first place, right?
Correct
I’ve seen a couple of audio journalists make the statement in print that the old gear is superior to the new. Given my experience with both, and to this day, the idea is just daft.
So, no, a disturbingly large amount of vintage gear does not meet, much less exceed, the performance of modern products. That belief is the domain of the aging, the nostalgic and the deaf.
If your answer to the preceding question is either ‘yes’ or possibly ‘maybe’ then what’s going on? By this I mean that how for example a pair of cone-driver speakers from the 1970s be sonically ‘up there’ with modern designs?
I’ll tell you what is going on. Even the best gear of the day back in say ’67 had inferior parts by comparison to what is available today. And we don’t ask if the comparison of the vintage gear means “restored” with new capacitors, pots, sliders and the like.
Any amp more than ten years old has filter or reservoir caps that are slowly failing to the point where if not buzzing are dying in terms of dynamics, etc. All pots and sliders on receivers, preamps and any source gear are corroding badly by this point. So the sound is going severely downhill from new anyway after ten years plus of use (or even non-use, still packed in the box from new).
Which means what?
The fact that vintage gear sounds great to some is because of nostalgia and that it still works at all. Or, if completely restored, a lot of the old better gear can still be very, very good. But the current crop of great designers have learned from the great designers of old and, standing upon their shoulders, with the progress in part’s quality and evolutionary circuit improvements, the best of the current gear today far exceeds the best gear of the 50’s through the 80’s.
Put another way, anyone who thinks a vintage, rotisserie restored pair of Marantz Model Nines in any exceeds a pair of Audio Research REF 250s has his head up his backside. And would only be inclined to say so because he already owns a pair of Nines and can’t afford a set of REF 250s.
So far as speakers go, I’ll give, but only if you want to talk about a set of Quad 57s, and then ONLY if they are rebuilt to modern standards. And now we are talking 2011 manufacture, for all intents.
Bit harsh isn’t it?
No, not at all. Look – the original 57 was goofy compared to the last ones Quad built around 1980/81. And even then, anyone who knows them inside and out today can rebuild them with still better power supplies, better diaphragms, etc.
Last, let’s talk about ”cones.”
Oh go on, lets!
Piston driven technology got us drive units a real amp could handle easily. But, up until very recently, nothing had the speed and delicacy of a well made electrostatic loudspeaker. It is only very recently in the latest speakers like the Vandersteen Model Seven, the latest Wilson offerings, or Magicos, and a few others, that anything like the best of what electrostatics were capable of were finally exceeded by piston drivers. And, with none of the drawbacks.
Can you identify any current models (rather than mere brands) which might in your opinion be perceived as true classics – sonically – say 20 years from now?
Current models of what? Well, any of the better made gear with moving parts that still have any kind of kinetic fascination, and that are built to last, will all be classics. Use your imagination. Any high end turntable or tonearm, for example. Of which, these days, there are way too many to list.
The future of music as a product is going to finally become intangible. You can’t hold a file in your hands, regardless of how dense it is, whether it is MP3 or 24/192, or better.
All music becoming available now and in the future will come from little plastic boxes, with no moving parts, made by the computer industry. How boring from a perspective of “thingness,” or impossible as a collectable. Music is the most abstract of the arts, You cannot hold it in your hand. It starts and stops within a specific timeframe, and disappears outside of that.
How fitting that as a product, this is what a music file is. It is nothing more than a title of a file if it isn’t being played, and otherwise might as well not even exist. It isn’t a tactile thing like a record, cd or a tape. And, for our discussion here, includes the machinery we play these soon-to-be-ancient software artifacts back with. People … are …collectors!
That’s exciting
How exciting will it be to collect lists of music that you can only peer at on a screen, if you’re not playing it back? Yes, the sound will be fantastic one day soon compared to the best of what we currently have at our disposal. There is that. Yes, it will be inexpensive and easy to acquire. So, what collector of fine things will ever give a damn about them if anybody can access to it so easily and cheaply? And for this reason, the same reason people collect old Victrola cylinder and gramophone players, vintage gear is guaranteed to have increasing importance and value to people by contrast.
Is there an age perspective to all this?
Ten years ago I had an eighteen year old kid in the store. I was playing records on a first class, hideously expensive system that actually sounded good. Standing behind him, as I played a few cuts from some of my more cherished lps, I noticed him peering intently between the speakers then shifting his gaze to the record player.
Finally he was just staring at the record player and it dawned on me what he was thinking. He’d never really listened to a record player before, being only familiar with cds. And as he stared at the record being played it suddenly hit him, “How the hell can a little chip of rock being dragged through some squiggly groove on a cheap piece of vinyl sound like that! How can it possibly make music at all, much less sound this amazing!”
Sure, I've experienced the same thing, and seen it with others. Or in others. No matter. So …what’s your take on this?
In his eyes the mechanical act going on in front of him was downright prehistoric and the fact that it sounded great was astonishing to him. In the future that kind of amazement will continue to amaze some people, who will find it increasingly irresistible to have a thing they can watch actually making the music in front of their very eyes.
Once we move away completely from mechanical ways of reproducing music, the fascination for these types of what will eventually be considered antiques can only increase. And it has nothing to do with it sounding better than the coming technologies, which, by the way, will smoke these mechanical systems we are slowly being weaned off of in terms of musical quality.
Specifically?
I’m not naming any products. The list is endless and anyone reading this already has the knowledge and knows what gear will reach vintage status. If I were 20 years old right now, I’d be inclined to collect the best of the record players, arms and cartridges, knowing full well, by the time I’m 75, they’ll be worth a fortune.
You sell both new and used vintage equipment. Can you explain, if indeed this is possible, what needs to be done to confront and then confound the relentless (it seems to me) expressed view that “MP3 is good enough”? I ask from the standpoint that while yes, of course, a properly conducted demonstration goes a long way, surely the core of the problem is the current inability to encourage the uninterested to become interested?
MP3 is good enough. For most people.
In 1966 portable AM radios were also good enough. I had one taped to the handlebars of my bike and really got off on riding around and listening to the likes of the Beach Boys, Motown, the Beatles, you name it. And then there were that minority of folks, like my dad, who had already built his own serious hi-fi system by 1958. And as much as I liked my AM radio taped to my bike, the bug had bitten years earlier listening to my Dad’s big system roaring out the likes of “Victory at Sea” and Reiner’s version of “Scheherazade”.
You cannot encourage the uninterested. You either hear it or you don’t.
The day I walked into my first high end store in 1972 the arrogant bastard who ran the place was playing Cat Steven’s, “Morning has Broken” on a new set of Magneplanar Tympani 1U’s. I knew that record well, but this time the voice was hanging in space and the sound of the pick on the strings of his acoustic guitar sounded like it was right in front of me and the sound of the piano, wow! I never heard anything like it before. Not even my dad’s big mono system.
No one had to sit me down and teach me anything. It was there. I heard it immediately. It is no different today.
A few of us will just “get it,” and most of us, despite the fact we all love music, won’t. And never will. And what do those of us who do “get it” care anyway? So long as there are enough of us buying the latest improvements to support those making the strides forward in music reproduction for the home.
Thank you Rick
And thank you Howard
© 2011 Howard Popeck
© 2011 Howard Popeck
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