Co-Hosted by Robert Brook
Robert and I have started a YouTube channel for the purpose of helping audiophiles to gain a better understanding of analog records and the difficulties encountered when playing them back.
We felt that we should make a point of talking about our backstories so that viewers could appreciate why we consider ourselves “Skeptical Audiophiles” in the first place.
Speaking for myself, I hope to encourage our audiophile viewers to be more skeptical of the claims made by the many experts who have popped up on youtube out of nowhere, as if there had been a big bang in the record universe. The number of these channels seems to have exploded, and they’re all positively overflowing with record and audio advice. Where on earth have these record and audio experts been hiding all these years?
When I see the claims made by these individuals, rarely do their claims comport with my fifty years of experience in the world of audio. With these videos I hope to be able to explain what I mean by that in some detail. Robert no doubt has plenty to say on the subject as well.
I began selling audiophile records in 1987 under the name of Better Records. In 2004 my staff and I started doing Hot Stamper Shootouts, which involved testing the sound quality of piles of cleaned records under blinded, rigorously-controlled experimental conditions.
If you’re looking for a different take on the subjects we plan to address with our new channel, we happily offer them for your viewing edification and pleasure.
If you would like to know more about audio and records, please feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments section, or send them directly to me at tom@better-records.com. (The blog has hundreds of letters you may enjoy reading as well.)
Further Reading