This is very timely...

Thanks, @edgewound for the link. Trying to keep a spirit of decorum, Butterworth’s first paragraph seems to betray his entire article? He seems to be saying that only he and perhaps we’d conclude brick-and-mortar high end audio stores know anything. Yes, a lot of YouTube / podcast opinions & reviews may not be the best. Yet I have learned a lot from John Darko, Hans Beekhuyzen, Joshua Valour, Currawong, and the infamous Zeos, et. al. I enjoyed a YouTube Hans recently put together, " Audio myths & dogmas #2: comparing audio sources"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqBYB6kEKec

OP -- thanks for sharing. The piece raised a lot of issues.

@jjss49 

"media churn, media bias, all driven by structural fragmentation and its own self serving financial incentives, is a real problem, and is a major contributor of many of the big problems in our world today, reaching far beyond hi fi"

You super duper nailed it. Churn is the word. Where's Thoreau when you need him? He stuck in the 18th tab of a browser, maybe...

Never had a problem at Lyric; and this is going back to the 80s and 90s.  Wouldn’t say that they were warm and fuzzy, but I was always allowed to listen to what I wanted including the mighty IRS, Quad/Jadis and what would be my next speaker purchase, MGIIIA’s.  One of the few places where I came across a salesman who was a truly knowledgeable music lover.  Maybe I got lucky....maybe I approached them the right way (for them).

I have only ever had one interaction with Lyric Audio and that was just a few months ago. Being confined away from home due to recovery from open heart surgery, I needed a CD player to while away the time. I found an NAD - CD568 on Audiogon at an excellent price, new and in the box ! Much to my surprise, the seller was Lyric Audio !  Long story short --- the player was sent to my home address, not to my distant location. When I called to try to have them re-direct the delivery I was told to call a certain number and ask for "Lenny".  I thought I was being referred to the shipping clerk, but "Lenny" turned out to be Lenny Bellezza,  the owner of Lyric.  Despite the fact that my purchase was an absolute "steal", Lenny sent numerous EMails back and forth to try to correct the error of the mis-directed package.  All turned out well and I was impressed at how diligently Lenny tried to gain my satisfaction.  He commented at one point that he had quite a number of older clients that he accommodated with extra attention, of which my experience was proof.  Definitely the end of an era -------

It sounds like Lyric finally got “religion” only recently.
When I saw the name “Lyric” in the article I cringed at the thought of the place due to my experience with them many years ago.
‘Not dissimilar to others here, I was met with total disdain by the salesman, who, when I mentioned I was a musician, foolishly trying to impress him, he just raised his eyebrows, but still couldn’t wait til I left the store.