The Lawyers Have Taken Over Audio

"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.

OK, I'm going to interupt the piling on for a moment to say that I have made a couple of purchases from Gideon Schwartz and Audio Arts In New York.

Even though I live on the opposite coast, he has provided to me tremendous advice and has been very fair in both his dealings and his pricing. Whomever wrote the article did everything they could to make the hobby and the equipment sound overpriced and unachievable which is absolutely not the way that the Gideon with whom I have done business would have likeley preferred.

He champions some very small brands with very limited distribution so the prices reflect the small production realities when it comes to price and yet, he will proudly set you up an entry level system for alot less money than the article stated....he carries 47 labs among other reasonably priced equipment. He takes trades, takes a full system approach and truly has a passion for the hobby.

Why wouldnt we want a guy to open a shop and prosper? He travels the world to discover brands and has the courage and financial strength to import them. There are a number of dealers who fill this need and yet they get bashed in this forum, I don't understand. At a minimum, isn't it great that someone purchases some expensive gear, lightly uses it for a brief time, trades it in and then Gideon lists it on Audiogon where someone like me can finally afford it? I have purchased twice from him and will hopefully do so in the future.

Other great dealers like him deserve our patronage when possible....Peter at Venice Audio, Matt at Pitch Perfect, Fred at Katli, Sunil at Sunny! Walter at Fidelis and there are many more. Shouldn't we be pulling for these guys to prosper and advance the hobby rather than to slam them? What about the Wall Street guy who shells out the 6 figures for his gear....these dealers need them so they can afford to help the rest of us. Peace.