Ken Fritz article

This guys life is like a Rorschach test for frequent posters here.  Some who think his obsession was justifiable, and liken him to creative artists who were obsessively driven…and the rest of us.

  I could never justify this guy’s behavior as one would justify Da Vinci or Beethoven.  Creative Artists in a separate category than bibliotheca, stamp collectors, art collectors, and audiophiles.  Matching components and optimizing rooms, supposedly to optimize the reproduction of sounds created by someone else, is not comparable to creating those sounds in the first place.  Book collecting, music collecting, bottle top collecting may be worthwhile hobbies in and of their own, but ultimately they are of less value than what is being collected in the first place.  I would not have wanted to grow up or marry into that family.

  Everyone who knows me thinks that my obsession with sound and music is over the top.  My wife showed me the article on Fritz.  I told her that the value of his life was to make people like me appear sane by way of comparison 

I guess it all depends on your definition of "successful". This guy was successful in building the system of his dreams/everyone else's nightmare, but at the cost of a meaningful and fulfilling relationship with his family. My worry about my record cleaner finally kicking the bucket doesn't get in the way of even the most mundane family matter. My kids are 21 and 23 and I am 100% confident that we will never be estranged. I have a wonderful, honest and comfortable relationship with my wife of 25 years. I have a wide circle of friends, some of which are music/audio enthusiasts, and more which are not. As far as I am concerned, I am a tremendous success. 

If your definition of success is wealth, you have been duped. I think a lot of what we are calling "obsession" is just somebody being a self-absorbed jerk. 

There is so much wrong with this obsessive lifestyle of his, I wouldn't know where to start.

He is no different than many, many people who have a strong work ethic and are workaholics. He just happens to be obsessed with audio, rather than another vocation as others may be. It’s as @ p05129 said.

Actually, Bell Labs was located in Murray Hill, NJ. I used to go to their sound proof room when I was a kid. A million dollars does not buy you great sound. Have you been to a reviewers system lately? LOL

The trick, pioneered in the early 1930s by engineers working at Bell Labs in New York and Abbey Road Studios in London, was in the two channels of sound. Recorded from separate microphones and played back through separate speakers, they could simulate the swirling warmth and depth of life.