About users with hidden agendas

Ted Denney is open about his company affiliation

Ted is open about his company affiliations only when it suits, and of late has been carrying out a lot of what submariners refer to as ’silent running’

Evidence of his behaviour (including that which relates to the OP’s allegations) has recently been removed, as mentioned in the previous post.

No flies on Ted.

True that.  As a former dealer, my "hidden agenda" when I had my shop was to sell people the best possible gear they could afford (or slightly above their budget).

NOW, my "hidden agenda" is to push the most accurate stuff around.  Funny, in both guises, I am suggesting the same stuff.

Accuracy in reproduction depends more on YOUR ROOM than any specific gear.  Once you realize that, the rest is just a hobby.  With so many brands out there, it is much more difficult today than it used to be.  STILL, the best stuff remains the best stuff, but it does not fit every room, so you buy what sounds good in your room TO YOU that you can afford. with an eye to getting "better" stuff when you can, maybe.

Asking others on the Forum what THEY like may help you find a dealer who has that specific stuff, but you still make the final choices, right?  The suggestions from me and others on here are just that--suggestions based on OUR experiences in OUR ROOMS.  Like me recommending what I believe is the "best stuff," you have to see if it works in your room for you and your budget.  Since the stuff I suggest is pretty expensive, it is not for everyone, but most manufacturers have less expensive stuff or you can buy used if new is not in your budget.

The goal is to love the music you like to listen to and forget the "stuff."

Am I wrong?

You are not wrong. For sure.

About “YOUR ROOM”…. Let’s walk this through: any person serious about good audio will take care of the “room”. Assuming good size & dimensions, and audio specific (not a general living room area where WAF comes in play, and rightly so), it’s relatively very cheap to treat the room with speaker positioning, as well as acoustic panels, like I did with GIK, absorbers and diffusers everywhere including ceiling, bass traps, etc. etc. Yes, it takes some time and effort to make it right, as well as some knowledge and understanding, using microphone and tools (I used REW and UMIK-1 which I still have), and some professional help if necessary (I did hire someone mostly for aesthetics and accuracy for the ceiling stuff). But it’s fun, and we learn a lot while doing it.

Every “gearophile” I personally know, has taken care of the “room”. It’s not that hard, relatively cheap, and people who can spend $3,000 on a power cord can easily afford to “treat the room”, and let’s face it, these are the same people who can actually afford to have a dedicated sizable audio room / house, not those who can barely afford to own an amp. Am I wrong?

So let’s say “YOUR ROOM” is taken care of. Now what? It ends there? You can put any kind of speakers on that PERFECT room? Amps? If the room is perfect, say you inherited daddy’s big house, then what? What percentage of your total audio endeavors are done?

Or from another angle, for most of us mortals, let’s say we can only have a system in a general purpose living room or family room, or bedroom, with a wife and kids in the house, no dedicated perfectly sized spare room, then what? Abort the pursuit because the room cannot possibly be perfect?

Oh… more often than not, from my experience, it’s the same people who cry wolf and shout loudly ROOM!!! and gear does not matter, who have crappie general purpose “rooms” with a small minority having some panels here and there thrown in haphazardly where wife allows with no rhyme or reason. Not always so, but the majority of these folks. Just ask them to show you their “room”.

Am I wrong?

more often than not, from my experience, it’s the same people who cry wolf and shout loudly ROOM!!! and gear does not matter, who have crappie general purpose “rooms” with a small minority having some panels here and there thrown in haphazardly where wife allows with no rhyme or reason. Not always so, but the majority of these folks.

You are not wrong, but your accurate summation is incomplete. They also tend to have poorly set up stereos comprised of mediocre gear while ignoring everything else that makes a great stereo sound great.

Yours in Music,

Ted Denney III

Lead Designer/CEO Synergistic Research Inc.

Continues from my above post as I can no longer edit…

What about a headphones setup where the “room” factor is eliminated? Does it matter at all what cans you own and prefer? Headphones amp, DAC, cabling? Do they matter?