More Entries in Our Thinking About Records Series
John Stossel wrote a piece about prediction markets shortly after the 2022 midterms, explaining why prediction markets are still a good thing even though many of the predictions for the election that were made there did not come true. His take:
Bettors [may be wrong, but] at least adjust their predictions quickly.
Last night, while clods on TV still said “Democrats and Republicans battle for control of the House (CBS),” those of us who follow the betting already knew that Republicans would win the House.
Historically, bettors have a great track record. Across 730 candidate chances we’ve tracked, when something is expected to happen 70% of the time, it actually happens about 70% of the time.
That’s because people with money on the line try harder than pundits to be right.
As you can imagine, this last line was music to my ears.
We’ve built our record business on the fact that we have the experience, the expertise and the staff needed to find the best sounding pressings of many of the most important recordings of all time, from Dark Side of the Moon to Kind of Blue and everything in between.
And, as everyone knows, we charge a premium price for our Hot Stamper pressings, often ten and twenty times their “market value.” This has been known to confuse and upset some people.
But can we charge more than our customers are willing to pay and still be in business after 37 38 years?
Some people must think they are getting their money’s worth, at least, that’s what some of them tell us.
We have to back up our opinions and our descriptions with actual records that deliver the sound we say they will, or we would have gone out of business a long time ago. You can fool some of the people all of the time, etc., etc.
Guaranteed?
This is in sharp contrast to the audiophile reviewers who tout one new record after another with no guarantee whatsoever that you will find anything like the superior sound they spent an endless number of words describing when the record finally ends up on your turntable.
Where do you go to get your money back when the record doesn’t have the sound they told you it would have?