Time Magazines "Man of the Year"


Become increasing irrelevant with accelerated colossal arrogance, Time magazine launched Ben Bernake as the “Man of the Year”. While nobody really cares, expect for their few readers, I think that they really missed the boat on this one. The one that I would like to see win did not even make their “short list”. My nominee will not rub shoulders with likes of Nancy Pelosi, the Chinese Worker or the mesianic Obama. But, my nominee is just as bold, brash and tenacious as the prices he has on deck. My nominee, just like Time, has colossal arrogance out the wa-zoo-bee. Akin to only a carnie swindler, my nominee convinces suckers in a down economy to plunk down their hard earned cash for items that cost 10 times of what they should. My nominee has also shown tremendous resilience to change as he is aided and abetted by an industry that is slowly eroding beneath him. My nominee has single handedly disinfranchised an entire generation of music lovers who, thanks to my nominee, think that IPOD is high end.

Congratulations high end audio salon owner, I nominate you for Time Magazines “Man of the Year”.

You deserve the nomination because you actually still believe that this distribution model is still “happening” and you deny the fact that most of high end audio commerce is being done over the net. Your manufacturers and their crony publications still believe in this high cost , low volume distribution model. Yet you hang on, albeit with your finger nails into the wall, but you still hang on.

Kudos to you, you “Man of the Year”, and hang in there, as long as you can.

Here they go again.....

In an attempt to woo readers to their never ending boredom of over price audio components, we see our two beloved magazines blaze the dusty desert trail of high end audio in search of the next giant killer. In an effort to keep the very subscribers they are disenfranchising, they will suddenly perseverate on mediocre components and try to make them great. Their history of doing this makes a much better read than their latest pro-bono $20000 amp that they have sitting in their listening rooms waiting for a glowing review.

The giant killer trend started back in the late ‘70s when Mr. Peter Pritchard was making the wonderful moving iron ultra high compliant ADC cartridges. Having sold the company and the patent, Mr. Pritchard started a cartridge company called “Sonus”. The cartridge they all went ga-ga over was the troubled Sonus “Blue” that was put together with peanut butter as the cartridge would literally fall apart while playing, leaving magnets and other space shuttle debris whirling around the player. While they praised these high compliant wonders, the Shure V15 Type III, beat the pants off of the Sonus, as it went much deeper and wider. That’s why my friends, the V15 type III was always in pictures with the excellent SME tonearm. The folks at SME were no dopes.

They went on to hale the $13.00 Grado FTE+1 cartridge all the way to a inexpensive CD player out of Tawain that they claim sounds so good, when in fact, an $80 Onkyo player sounds just as good. Now, in the latest issue of a magazine, they are at it again, claiming that an $89 USB DAC is the same as the $495 Bel Canto 3. ( I can’t wait for the review)

Now I know that folks who read this blog are not falling for the hype of the $89 USB DAC. If they really understood that the weak link in the whole USB computer audio chain is the computer itself, they would not be so quick to jump to this conclusion. And to be honest, I did not order or hear this $89 USB DAC. I don’t have to.

The correct way to compare and listen to computer audio via USB (except for software based USB products like the LILO, Brigatta, Ayre and the Wavelength) is to 1) reboot, 2) close applications in your start tray, 3) close all applications and 4) turn off your monitor. If they did that, then they could help remove most of the grunge that computers generate. Hence maybe they would see the differences in these two DACs are wider than they think.

But why? Saying you have an $89 USB DAC that is a giant killer sells advertising and magazines. It fools the reader into thinking you actually have some value to offer. I got it.