I'm a DIY guy out of financial necessity. I make my cables, out of the best Beldon or Cardas I can afford, with the best hardware I can put my hands on. I freely admit I have copied commercial maker's designs. I have recapped both of my Kenwood KD TT's, a 500 and a 550. I have built Heathkit and other (like from plans...) amplifiers...I repair my CD players, and gear, it's not just smoke inside the wires for me.
My complaint is this society's headlong rush into Orwell's 1984.... History started when you were born, NOTHING of importance happened before then, if it did we can change it (Stalin, Mao, and Che have been re-imagined as heroes? And heroes re-invented as criminals?). If you can't buy it. it just doesn't exist, or have an intrinsic value. (who had the price tag on her hat on Hee-Haw? Who's even seen Hee-Haw or heard Buck and Roy?) Dogma is knowledge, do not question the dogma (you want to be on the right side, don't you?) I do not want to be lectured to by a someone who wouldn't recognize a JBL Paragon if it was eating his B&W's. But at the same time I don't mind being taught. I'm sad that an old ear who can remember, let alone still use, something from the dawn of Hi-Fi (when it had to be figured out and knowledge was shared freely and joyfully...) be belittled by somebody who already knows it all, and has no tolerance for those that don't know it all, or know different, and smugly knows, JUST KNOWS that he knows it all, and you don't
phewww, I need a nap, or a time out or something... wonder what my blood sugar is :-)