He spent his life building a $1 million stereo. The real cost was unfathomable.

And why the two grandfather clocks?

Note the mirror placements of other objects in the room (speakers, tables, lamps, dog figurines, floor rugs, etc).  

Anal retentiveness to the Nth degree.

@srs148  that Is the most disturbing  story of all. When a man is not capable  of keeping his word over a few dollars you know what the problem s stem from with his family.  On the other  side nothing worse than making a deal and after the buyer shows up they decide  they are going to pay less. Only one way there yes or no negotiating  is over. If you see something  you don't like you say I didn't  realize,e this say no thank you and leave.  I very much dislike when people cannot stand by what the say.that is not gentleman  like behavior. 

I suggest one can take the article at multiple layers.  The audio achievement...impressive; the family's life...somewhat tragic. 

Things have got to be pretty serious to disown a son.  Perhaps it wasn't solely audio that caused that, but still, that's tremendously sad and I would view as the largest failure in my life it it happened. 

It's also an allegory - plenty of the greatest-of-all-time type famous people have paid similar prices for their success, and there seems to be a two-way interaction between the price and the achievement. 

It is an interesting point - if your hobby was golf, travel, wine, etc., you'd have nothing to sell at the end and so you don't get your money back.  That seems like it would be reasonably true in audio as well, albeit there is some salvageable value there.  

I'd hope my kids would want some of my stuff.  But probably not - they really only need these tiny screens that fit in their pockets. 

If it wasnt audio it would have been something else. Nature of the beast. I say good on him if the journey made him happy. 

Did any of you ever think that the story contained exaggerated elements for effect?

@retiredfarmer I agree with you about buyers who ask for concessions when they arrive to pickup the item.  If the buyer simply decides they want to pay less as an in-the-moment change of mind, I'll politely decline the request, though it fortunately very rarely happens. 

In the case with Fritz, I agreed to pay his asking price, but he clearly discovered (albeit at the last moment) that he could do better pricewise.  He could have done the less underhanded thing and told me that he discovered he could get more and ask if I wanted to pay it.  Maybe I would have, especially since we had long planned the deal.  But he didn't care that I had made the arrangements, got the car, and took off from work - he made his decision and that was that.  Again, a true creep.