I think they had shotguns and a mean attitude. They told everyone else to leave.
But no, this was just a general drift into boron as the cantilever of choice for extremes of ’best’. I was paying attention and watching it evolve. Information as to the why of boron over sapphire was not generally spoken of unless the writer or manufacturer was into the whole fidelity thing and trying to push for boron. Very little data was around but it was of a pretty decent consensus.
Professionalism tends to disallow for trashing of others in public so the advantages of boron were spoken of but the deficiencies of sapphire were not generally spoken of unless the given supplier of carts was pushing some boron on the public (vs a strong competitor or their own older sapphire equipped units, etc). Then they waxed poetic with the technicalities of the situation. One might have read on the subject sporadically for years during that time period, but found the relevant data in a total of, what...maybe 5-6 critical sentences -spread out across only a few articles. Hard to come by lore that is hard won, is not given away, unless one is a fool, or independent of the given scenario but somehow possesses the relevant information.
The big cart companies of the time...could afford to bring that (boron) down into lower priced ’mid-high’ cartridges. Volume provides cost advantages. etc.
Then the mass manufacturing advantages began to fade, costs went up... digital came slowly creeping in..and it all slowly went silent and senile in the wide swath of the middle range of the given gear available. So boron went away except at the extreme high end of things. And fewer suppliers, one would guess, with higher prices.
If one has to take their entire mid-high line up... and abandon boron and go backward into aluminum cantilevers, there’s no way they are going to even make a peep about that...so the market reduction from quantity and quality as a pairing, down turned into something less...happened in utter silence. Marketing and public perception made it necessary to have it play out that way.
Just like it did with Delta-sigma 1-bit dacs vs the superior R2R/Ladder dacs in all the digital gear.
But no, this was just a general drift into boron as the cantilever of choice for extremes of ’best’. I was paying attention and watching it evolve. Information as to the why of boron over sapphire was not generally spoken of unless the writer or manufacturer was into the whole fidelity thing and trying to push for boron. Very little data was around but it was of a pretty decent consensus.
Professionalism tends to disallow for trashing of others in public so the advantages of boron were spoken of but the deficiencies of sapphire were not generally spoken of unless the given supplier of carts was pushing some boron on the public (vs a strong competitor or their own older sapphire equipped units, etc). Then they waxed poetic with the technicalities of the situation. One might have read on the subject sporadically for years during that time period, but found the relevant data in a total of, what...maybe 5-6 critical sentences -spread out across only a few articles. Hard to come by lore that is hard won, is not given away, unless one is a fool, or independent of the given scenario but somehow possesses the relevant information.
The big cart companies of the time...could afford to bring that (boron) down into lower priced ’mid-high’ cartridges. Volume provides cost advantages. etc.
Then the mass manufacturing advantages began to fade, costs went up... digital came slowly creeping in..and it all slowly went silent and senile in the wide swath of the middle range of the given gear available. So boron went away except at the extreme high end of things. And fewer suppliers, one would guess, with higher prices.
If one has to take their entire mid-high line up... and abandon boron and go backward into aluminum cantilevers, there’s no way they are going to even make a peep about that...so the market reduction from quantity and quality as a pairing, down turned into something less...happened in utter silence. Marketing and public perception made it necessary to have it play out that way.
Just like it did with Delta-sigma 1-bit dacs vs the superior R2R/Ladder dacs in all the digital gear.