The Lawyers Have Taken Over Audio


Great article in the wall street journal today.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323320404578213691784333734.html?KEYWORDS=gideon+schwartz

Strange, Gideon mentions that he has a $500,000 ceiling on a system. I will appreciate that when I visit him. I now know how much cash to bring.
buconero117
As Mr. Schwartz recently told a skeptical customer: "The more you spend, the closer you get to musical truth."


He may be a lawyer, but he certainly talks like a regular audio salesperson.
"The Musical Truth" may just well be the name of the trust Mr. Schwartz puts his clients earnings in.

All the best,
Nonoise
Jmcgrogan2, I'm sure that Mr. Schwartz's assertion that "The more you spend the closer you get to musical truth." takes into consideration that professionals will be in charge of installing and fine tuning the system. Because let's face it, if you simply sell the same gear to the average consumer and leave it to them to set it up you'll have a vastly different outcome.

What I'm saying is that proper set-up, component matching, and very good room acoustics must be considered a huge part of the overall results... which could vary greatly.

I also agree with Mapman that if you know what you're buying you don't need to spend a ton of money in order to get very respectable results.

I wouldn't be too surprised to find that my system at roughly $25k would surpass some of Schwartz's $100k+ systems. I mean, if he's selling to a relatively inexperienced clientele how could they know what level of performance is possible and if they are getting nearly their money's worth?
"Not to sound too lofty," he said, "but every art should have someone who raises the level of the art. With stereos, that's me."

All respect, Mr. Schwartz, but you're sounding too lofty.
a top notch audio system:

stacked quad esls
2 warm sounding tube amps and preamps and a decent turntable, arm and cartridge or good digit system.

the cost will not be prohibitive.