Part one of this discussion can be found here.

Ab_ba continues:

Tom, this got me thinking.

I think of a mountain range. From one peak, you see others, and wonder, “gee maybe the view is even more magnificent from that peak!” But, for most of the peaks, it’s about the same, certainly no better, and could be a lot worse. Maybe just behind that other hill that looks so enticing from here there’s a parking lot! And also, climbing each peak takes time and energy, and for most of the journey between the peaks, you are down in a valley. And, is the view really actually better over there? Just because it is higher, doesn’t mean it will be more rewarding. Just because it is dazzling at first, maybe you grow sick of it after a while.

You have created a system that sounds demonstrably fantastic. And, it is a system that is not too finicky – other people can copy it and get amazing sound, even without any tweaking and fine-tuning. Are there other great-sounding systems? For sure. But, who, or what, on earth could be my guide to finding those other peaks? Certainly not the magazines. Certainly not other audiophiles. Certainly not the guys at my local hi-fi store. Certainly not the price tag.

As I’ve spent more time with the [redacted] cartridge my friend loaned me, its sonic character is becoming more evident. It is quite lovely on jazz. I threw on a $5 copy of Art Pepper’s Straight Life (Galaxy label, fwiw) and it sounded just fantastic. Sparkly highs, and the lack of bass that cartridge has was not noticably absent. I wondered, “has it settled in a little? Are my ears getting used to it?” I put on a few different records and said, “nope. It’s just got a sound signature that’s favorable to Art Pepper.”

So there’s a perfect example of a mountain peak I would not want to build my house on. Does the Dyna have no character? Probably not, but different records sound different, and different genres all reproduce well on it, and no part of the spectrum calls attention to itself. If there is a signature to it, it’s one I can live with.

Last question – why is it that audiophiles are so uncomfortable with the idea that they might be wrong? I mean, you can’t improve if you think you are already right. I think most of them are loners with disposable income, and most people who make some money in life get it by being supremely confident, perhaps overconfident. You look at guys like [redacted] and me, scientists where humility and knowledge of our own ignorance is in the very fiber of practicing our professions well, and even if we don’t have the disposable income of some audiophiles and some of your customers, we value quality, we value expertise, and we are happy to spend our available funds on things of enduring value.

Ab_ba

Dear Ab_ba,

I was no different back when I started. For about my first ten years in high-end audio, roughly 1975-85, I bought the most expensive equipment that I could afford, as long as it was well-liked by those whose ears I trusted and sounded good to me.

Is the audiophile of today doing anything different?

What would you be doing if you hadn’t stumbled on a guy with some credibility — he sold you some records that sounded amazing, so he must know something — who turned you on to some audio stuff that sounds great and, better yet, didn’t cost that much?

And how did this guy — me — come to find out about all this stuff in the first place? Well, I’ll tell you.

He had a good audio friend who turned him on to Dynavector cartridges twenty years ago (but oddly enough not the really good one they sell. I had to make that leap for myself).

And this audio friend had learned through extensive trial and error that there were certain receivers one could pick up for cheap at thrift stores that offered excellent, audiophile-quality sound. (Trial and error were his forte. This is the same guy that clued me into the concept of Hot Stampers, a life-changing concept if ever there was one.)

As it turned out, even my friend did not know how good the sound of the receiver he sold me could be when fed by a top quality outboard phono stage, something he did not have access to. (The receiver’s phono stage is decent but hopelessly outclassed by the EAR 324p we use.)

I ended up buying four or five different models with mediocre-at-best sound before I realized the one I owned must be a fluke. Then I bought three more of the model I liked and they all sounded different too, although they ranged in sound at most from excellent to crazy good. So I put the best sounding one in my system and kept the other three for backup. Like I said, they were cheap.

When I met my friend George Louis in San Diego back in the 80s, he had a much better system than I did. He was using non-audiophile-approved equipment that drove custom speakers. He showed me that my audiophile electronics and my Fulton so-called state-of-the-art speakers were not nearly as good as I thought they were. What did I know back then? Not as much as I thought I did, that’s for damn sure.

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1987, I met a fellow audiophile named Robert Pincus and we quickly became friends. Along with lots of other records, I was selling vintage classical records to audiophiles and he was supplying me with whatever he could dig up that sounded good.

He showed me that no two records sound the same, and even that no two sides of the same record sound the same. Once I had a chance to listen to some of the Hot Stamper pressings he brought me, I was sold.

Operating as the equivalent of a one-man band* in the 90s, I was only able to offer a small number of Hot Stamper pressings on an ad-hoc basis to customers who trusted me enough to believe in the concept. In 2004,  a mere 17 years later, we had worked out the bugs in the process and began selling them officially on our site, starting with Teaser and the Firecat. During those 17 years I was doing audio and records for 60-80 hours a week. Needless to say, I learned a lot in that time.

Anybody else want to put in 60-80 hours a week for 17 years to find out just how much they don’t know?

Isn’t it easier to go to a forum or site and have somebody tell you what you want to hear? It would save you a lot of work, but what would you learn? It’s our hope that every person buying a record from us has a Heavy Vinyl or audiophile-approved pressing to play against the one we sell them. Comparing the two, on their own time, on their own system, allows them to hear the kind of sound they’ve been missing and were told could not possibly exist.

But it does! And we have the records to prove it does.

Easy-to-carry-out comparisons of this kind have taught a select group of audiophiles and music lovers — customers like ab_ba, along with hundreds of others — not to put their trust in those who claim to know what they are talking about when they opine on what are the best sounding pressings. We have opinions, sure, but we also have the records that back up our opinions.

We’ve spent a lifetime discovering these very special vinyl pressings, and we make them available to discriminating audiophiles who prize superior sound as well as “enduring value.” All it takes is one click.

Best, TP

*More on the subject of being a one man band.

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