Michael Fremer said :-

[mikmas]

This may be true for some audiophiles, but I suspect the reason CD was so gratefully accepted by the general public was far simpler - convenience and ease of use!

A lot of people were drunk right through the '90s ...

A lot easier to put on a CD when you're pissed

[walpurgis]

Thats just the jive talkin'

[Macca]

or the Saturday night fever.

[walpurgis]

A Tragedy though.

[struth]

This is Where I Came In

[Marco]

That didn't exist back in 1995. There were only 3 stores round here selling vinyl in '95 - HMV, Mike LLoyd Music and another smaller place I forget the name of. The small place closed and about the same time HMV and Mike LLoyd stopped selling vinyl. The nearest place for vinyl then was Manchester, 40 minutes on the train.

Also can't remember the specific album but I wanted it and there was no vinyl release at all. So I reluctantly bought a CD player.

So back then you weren't living in Liverpool? Fair enough, but you see this is where you and I are different, perhaps because I've always been used to seeking out things that I like, but which can be difficult to find, or not readily available in my local area.

Growing up in the UK, during the 60s and 70s [even 80s] in an Italian family, and seeking to source authentic ingredients to cook Italian food properly, forced you into that mentality. Therefore, I (and or my parents) regularly travelled into Glasgow city centre, which was a similar distance from our village on the south side, that Manchester was from you, in order to get the foodstuffs we needed from Italian delicatessens, as there was ZERO chance of finding it locally.

And for me, it was a case of adopting the same mentality, back in the day, when buying hi-fi or vinyl. 30 or 40 mins in a bus or train, therefore, to get what I wanted, would've been nothing and all part of the fun!

The fact is, if I wanted a new turntable or some records, I'd have to get off my backside and go to where they were sold, so my mates and I [this was during the 80s] would regularly get the bus or train and travel into town, to the visit record stores and hi-fi shops we liked, and that mentality followed through into the mid-90s and beyond, when I had my own car and lived with Del in our first house in Crookston, which was around 30 mins from the centre of Glasgow.

The point I'm making is that you can't always expect the stuff you want to be right on your doorstep... Sometimes you have to make an effort to get it.

I understand that the specific album you wanted back then wasn't available on vinyl, so you needed a CD player, but that didn't mean that just because there weren't as many vinyl albums around in the mid-90s, or that there were no shops in your town selling vinyl, you couldn't still enjoy it, *if* you'd been willing to make the necessary effort

Marco.

[Marco]

I actually didn't find Mr Fremer being particularly boastful, he was IMO opinion just showing what he had as kit, and pointed out on several occasions this had been acquired over a number of years, and even that he had borrowed money to buy some of it from the bank to get it. I don't understand what people see wrong in that? He obviously is a music fan, and has spent many years collecting records, and presumably 2nd hand as well as new, which I can relate to, but certainly not on the same scale.

The kit he did not own he said was on loan and under test, which is to be expected based on what he does. He also said that it was not the best of listening rooms but had got it to what he wanted, and his system had that wow factor, once again I don't see much wrong with that. I think we all hope our system is special in some way and if a respected reviewers system was not great in the first place then he would not have much to judge other products against, low or hi-end that is.

I am not sure why some find him arrogant, maybe its just because he has some very expensive gear that he is talking about, well so what, my system is relatively expensive in comparison to what others own but that does not necessarily make me an arrogant person. Personally I feel lucky to own what I have and be able to enjoy it, I expect Mr Kremer is much the same but in his case it is part of what he does to make a living.

Me neither, and it's not like he was living in a mansion, adorned with the finest of everything. It seemed like a decent-sized, but fairly normal house, albeit it (certainly in the rooms that were shown) rather cluttered with hi-fi equipment/associated paraphernalia and music software! But that's his job, and also his passion.

Perhaps, therefore, the thing that many are jealous of is not his supposed wealth or success, but rather that he's been able to earn a living doing something that he LOVES - and his home has been able to facilitate that, rather than his wife or partner, if he has one, as is so often the case with others with similar interests, telling him/moaning that he's not allowed to have big speakers, and who are forced instead to work in some dead-end job that they hate, with a boss that they hate even more?

Mr Fremer is clearly a HAPPY man, who's contented with his 'lot' in life, and experience tells me that that can irk some people [who daily experience the opposite], and cause them to hate you, far more than them resenting how much money you appear to have...

Marco.

[Macca]

.

I understand that the specific album you wanted back then wasn't available on vinyl, so you needed a CD player, but that didn't mean that just because there weren't as many vinyl albums around in the mid-90s, or that there were no shops in your town selling vinyl, you couldn't still enjoy it, *if* you'd been willing to make the necessary effort

Marco.

Sorry I don't understand, enjoy what? Vinyl, or having to get a train to Manchester and back to buy it? I hate Manchester but I did used to go up there occasionally to buy vinyl in the late 1990s.

[AJSki2fly]

Me neither, and it's not like he was living in a mansion, adorned with the finest of everything. It seemed like a decent-sized, but fairly normal house, albeit it (certainly in the rooms that were shown) rather cluttered with hi-fi equipment and music software! But that's his job, and also his passion.

Perhaps, therefore, the thing that many are jealous of is not his supposed wealth or success, but rather that he's been able to earn a living doing something that he LOVES - and has been able to use his home to facilitate that, rather than his wife or partner, if he has one, as is so often the case with others with similar interests, telling him he's not allowed to have big speakers, and who are forced instead to work in some dead-end job that they hate, with a boss that they hate even more?

Mr Fremer is clearly a HAPPY man, who's contented with his 'lot' in life, and experience tells me that that can irk some people [who daily experience the opposite], and cause them to hate you, far more than them resenting how much money you appear to have...

Marco.

Yep, completely agree, I wish I had been savvy enough to do something I loved for my work, instead of the IT crap, still it paid well at the time.

I wonder how many in hifi sales or industry actually love it themselves.


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[Marco]

And the cd player in their Amstrad midi system was a lot better than the crappy plastic turntable sat on top of it.

Having sold them by the bucketload, back in the day in a well-known department store, I can tell you that there wasn't much in it. Both were dreadful, as was everything else about them, especially the speakers!

The only reason that the CD player would've been considered as "better", would've been because you didn't hear any pops or crackles from records! Other than that, both items were bereft of any sonic merit, if you possessed a decent pair of ears.

Even today after 20 years of internet there's a lot of serious enthusiasts who have no idea about the technical aspects of anything and no desire to learn. So there's no way that back in 1983 that technical knowledge was a driver of CD sales.

That largely sums me up, but it hasn't exactly stopped me from assembling some pretty good systems over the years, as you well know. So that proves you don't need to have great technical knowledge, in order to build a great sounding system!

In fact, unless you're an electronics engineer, having great technical knowledge can be a hindrance, as sometimes that knowledge can cloud your views and cause you to reject things, or consider stuff as inferior (simply because on some parameters it measures worse), when actually it isn't.

It can also confuse matters and cause non-technical people, but who are 'impressed' by measurements that they don't really understand, to make the wrong decisions. That's why the likes of some graphs can be unhelpful, as they only depict the black and white, but fail to illustrate the just as important shades of grey...

I've seen it happen many times throughout the years, with the technical superiority of CD, over vinyl, stated by leading 'experts' in hi-fi magazines, etc, having undoubtedly influenced some into believing that CD (or digital) *must* be better [after all the 'experts' say so], rather than simply using their own ears - and that would've happened just as much in 1983, as at any other time, simply because it's human nature.

That's why, as an ordinary individual/music lover, sometimes having great technical knowledge only clouds matters, and it's often better simply to go with your gut instincts!

Marco.