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Interesting data point

Buried within HIFi+'s review of the darTZeel amplifier is the throwaway observation that darTZeel's UK importer, which is a very important company, has decided to create a buy-it-once-and-buy-it-right system built around the... darTZeel amp. Made up, of course, of components it represents. But the idea is certainly valid. Now, if it only included mandatory Rives Audio analysis and correction of the customer's listening room, we would really be on the way to the stated goal!

That more dealers do not publicize recommended systems can probably be explained by the highly political nature of high-end retailing. If you tell people that, to pick names out of a hat (ha ha), the darTZeel electronics and Wilson Benesch speakers are a match made in heaven, you accomplish three things.

First, you to some degree annoy all the other electronics and speaker manufacturers whose lines you carry. Second, to some degree you make customers who are curious about other lines less likely to visit your store, from a faulty premise that they are going to get a hard sell on your "pet" lines. Third, there is a microscopic chance you might make a customer who comes in with an open mind, happy.

I have never (except once) had a speaker manufacturer tell me that his speakers were hard to drive and needed lots of current and damping factor to sound as designed. Everybody else pretends that I am stupid and tells me "any good amp can drive my speakers." Right. Shahinian's website might give you the idea that a Creek integrated could drive Diapasons. Yeah, you might get sounds like a table radio out of them, if that is what you mean by "drive."

I save my ultimate scorn and contempt for dealers who have two systems at home, both made up of high-performance products they never carried or no longer carry (QUAD, Sonus Faber, etc.), because people only want the stuff they see advertised in the magazines, regardless that it sounds like hi-fi and not music, and when you take the best-known brands such a store sells, they usually sound awful together. A salesman once told me that he got a call from an aadjacent state within their bubble. The guy wanted a new product, do you have it new in the box. Yes. Hold it for me, I will pick it up. Do you want to audition it? No.

Wisdom from Guru John: to achieve your dreams, you must first let go of your fantasies, and there is a lot of fantasizing going on in high-end audio.

Cheerio,

JM


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