It's been a while since I've posted. When you're in the sandwich generation, life intervenes. I've not had much chance to keep up with the conversations here, but I've managed some changes in my system, including a new set of speakers from a local audio fixer and DIY genius. These new speakers are wide baffle design with JBL woofers (15") and Beyma AMT tweeters. 97db sensitivity. I've put a picture on my system page.
But I've been thinking about Fritz and Quicksilver for an odd reason. There's an interesting guy on YouTube, Andy Edwards. He's a drummer and teacher with interestingly provocative analyses of rock, jazz, and music. Recently in a video entitled "Ten things non-musicians get wrong about music," he was pointing out how the music industry tends to advance very select fractions of talented people. There is a tremendous funneling effect that excludes a huge percentage of talented people. They are better than many of the most popular musicians, but they cannot get a hearing. They have to make a living in other ways -- but they are extraordinarily talented, nonetheless. This tends to skew the public perception of what a good musician is because people hear what they hear and then celebrate it because it's what they know. Subjective bias leads to (false) objective estimations of how good musicians can be. (Take one case in point: Kazuhito Yamashita. Look him up. Staggering genius on the guitar who didn't become a worldwide phenomenon.)
This made me think about two of the pieces in my system -- Fritz speakers and Quicksilver amps. They are complete unknowns to 99% of the buying public, and if you look around on YouTube or other media, it's pretty hard to find much promotion. It's all word of mouth, and even if they did advertise, who would hear them? With Klipsch and Focal and Yamaha et al. taking up most of the available attention economy, how could their message get through?
I am so grateful to the members of this forum for helping guide me to Fritz and Quicksilver. They are the most listenable, comfortable, and high-quality gear I've owned. I've heard amazing things about other brands -- such as Audio Note -- but I'm paying for college, soon for two kids, and that just ain't happening. These are not the best things money can buy, but as value propositions, you really cannot do better, IMHO.
For those whose ears are perking up about Fritz for the first time, I have done two reviews of what I think is his better speaker, the Carbon 7 SE MKII.
Written -- https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/review-fritz-heiler-s-carbon-7-se-mk-2-bookshelf-speakers?
Video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpI6eAvc4_M
I've tried them with everything: they're tube friendly (Quicksilver, 60w); they're class D friendly (DIY Hypex-based amp, 275W); they're class A friendly (Pass XA-25, about 25-80w); they're class AB friendly (Adcom, Akitika, 60w).
I like them because if I focus in on them, they perform but if I just want them on in the background, they're lovely that way, too.
Hope everyone has a good 2025.
