Israel Blume, "Not only is it totally classless for any manufacturer to comment negatively about any competing product in a public forum, to do so covertly and under the guise of being an objective audiophile with no vested interest, falls under the category of fraud or at a minimum devoid of ethics."
Thank you for this! That was the best laugh I've had in quite a while. Akin to Jeffrey Dahmer complaining about how it's no longer safe to go outside because of all the serial killers.
Before I move on, please allow me to address the accusation of being covert. I've been one of the more visible members of this site for a decade. Apart from being away on vacation here or there, there hasn't been a week that's gone by that I have not posted something here on Audiogon. People here know EVERYTHING about me. I was the first person to request Audiogon develop the means to have a person's moniker in the threads designate them as "audiophile", "reviewer", "dealer", or "manufacturer/distibutor". You can call me a lot of things, but covert is one that won't stick. And your competing product statement - what competing product do I offer??? You keep forgetting that I talk your speakers up, it's you I talk down.
Seriously, folks, as some of you have pointed out - I honestly like the Coincident product. I also strongly dislike the owner. The two things are not mutually exclusive. I'm not sure why that's so hard to reconcile. Just as good people can turn out good products, good people can turn out bad products. Conversely, bad people can make bad products, and bad people can make good products - as in the case of Coincident.
Why do I feel this animosity? Because Israel Blume has seriously screwed over several very close friends of mine, professionally. Which is why he no longer has a dealer network. As an awful lot of people inside the industry will tell you, Israel is truly one of the biggest sleazebags in the high-end audio business. One of his former dealers wrote me over the weekend in regards to this thread put it, "Did you know Israel was a lawyer before he started making loudspeakers - enough said." It kind of came as a surprise to me, as I had no idea of that being the case. He's done such an awful job defending himself here, God help anyone who had him representing them.
Of course he's now forced to try to provide some semblance of customer service. If he messes up the direct sales, he'd actually need to go out and find himself a real job.
