The Lawyers Have Taken Over Audio

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.

As Mr. Schwartz recently told a skeptical customer: "The more you spend, the closer you get to musical truth."

Seems to me that the intellect and experience of the designers of the components in the system have a lot to do with the quality of the results, and good thinking costs no more than bad thinking.

Regards,
-- Al

"and good thinking costs no more than bad thinking."

Good point. In theory, it should cost less to achieve any particular product goal.