Richard's hi-fi ranting 'Room 101'

[WikiBoy]

You can try-ee and if no like-ee it costs yer nowt.

Your thinking is basically right, but an L pad is just two resistors, in this case one is variable. Otherwise the input stage would have to be buggered around with. Lower resistance / increase capacitance reset the gain around the first stage - too much agg, and you can't mess some things without altering the balance elsewhere. The amp is designed to look at a passive pot or switched attenuator, so just think of your active pre or processor as a source. I have a couple of customers with both cinema processors as source and another one with a valve pre (Croft I think) he insists on using and they all seem happy. In the case of a home cinema system there is even an advantage as it give another way the balance the channels if the room is squif. In an active system it is another way to balance the drivers instead of messing with the crossovers.

Adenda and time for a rant

We are all trapped into marketing think. It is the plague of this industry. Manufacturers do it to magazines and retailers, retailers and magazines pass it to the poor Joe public, and ego based Joe public passes it to the sheep on forums (the latest version of the disease). AND what is marketing think, well it boils down to three things 1 telling lies 2 embellishing the truth 3 diminishing competitors truths. It is a disease of the western world so I cannot cure it, but at least I can point a finger at the moon and try not to be part of it.

Buzz words - active - passive - digital - analogue - valve - solid state - horn - etc etc etc. People make money from you by misusing and misrepresenting *things*. They are of no bloody importance ultimately!! There is only one thing that is important and that is *your* music and how you want to hear it, as long as it is realised that you will grow up (change) as time goes on. So pedantic absolutes spouted one year come back to bite yer bum and make you look stupid the next, unless you have the control over your ego enough to back out of the cul-de sac you stuck yourself up.

This place and *more* so on other forums, they are being dominated by marketing men, ego based amatuers and the proffessionals, either paying for the privelege at other forums or encouraged here. Is this wrong, no not at all, as long as you have the intellegence to see through it. What I think is important is that we get some balance by getting some *real* tech-ies to talk to you. But they are very few and far between on forums and are mostly one man bands who haven't yet fallen into the marketing trap. As far as the bigger companies are concerned in most cases the guys that know what is what are banned to talk to you as they will just show up the marketing bullshit for what it is.

Rant over.

[WikiBoy]

Ahhh, thanks for that mate, I understand now. In my mind it was only a question of gain and overload, but I guess that's why I'm a consumer and not an engineer.

AND you can ask someone who can give a you reply and not have it filtered through a marketing dept.

Our industry is on the edge of big changes. Up to now the customer has been at the mercy of a bullshit micro climate. Information was filtered through marketing depts retailers and magazines and they all have their own pockets to fill.

How many of you realise why UK prices for H.E.Hi-Fi are so high compared with the rest of the world. The need to place advertising in order to get magazine representation, the need to give a 50% (of retail price) profit margin to retailers in order to make them stock your products.

We are one of the highest profit industries around, for every £10 spent on components and labour you get another £80 as contribution to manufacturing overheads, then about another £20 for marketing overheads, then if using a distributor another £40 for his pocket, then the retailer another (minimum) £150 for his pocket. £10 to £300 - ridiculous. All approx figures.

What is changing it, well the flat earth hi-fi mafia is losing power, the cartels can no longer dictate the way they used to. Reason - customers are finding their voices and finding *real* information, why - because of on line forums and the creation of community. Look at all the people meeting up for lunch drinks and to gang up on certain manufacturers that is being organised on the forums for the Heathrow Show and a week or two ago at Bristol. Real people actually reviewing and recomending product for other real people, and not pretending to be some sort of demi-god who tells you what to buy.

For manufacturers freedom is being given by on line sales, no longer can retailers dictate the terms or decide if a products sells. I remember years and years a go a loudspeaker company who got thoroughly pissed off with being shafted by retailers and magazines and started to sell direct, BUT no web so only advertising based. Well the cartels and the mafia murdered him (his business). Who was it, who remembers Richard Allen? Now to start off you have ebay and if you want if you get a reputation then your own Website. Problem some greedy buggers still want to make the same money but keep it all for themselves so prices stay sky high and still ripping the punter off. But some of the new set ups, one man guys like Beresford and others are supplying the public at Trade Price, so at last Hi-Fi in the UK is beginning to get competitive with the prices similar to those always available in the USA.

Now it is your turn, stand your ground, it is recession time, stand up, don't put up with being ripped off any more. BUT judge who is already giving you a good deal. If retailers go bust too bad. If distributors go bust too bad. The Dinosaur had to give way and so will they.

[scoobs]

Enjoyed reading that Richard, I agree totally having been disollusioned by my local hifi dealer a long time ago...arrogant, elitist and talked at me in hifi magazine soundbites and advertising slogans...pathetic. It also strikes me as laughable when you read a magazine review of a product and the following page carries a full size advert of said product. Big up the little man.

[WikiBoy]

Enjoyed reading that Richard, I agree totally having been disollusioned by my local hifi dealer a long time ago...arrogant, elitist and talked at me in hifi magazine soundbites and advertising slogans...pathetic. It also strikes me as laughable when you read a magazine review of a product and the following page carries a full size advert of said product. Big up the little man.

There are still potential problems and pitfalls though scoobs. A forum becomes popular, a community is created, so the owner wants to cash in - stick his nose in the trough with all the other pigs. Who does he feed off, well the very elements that caused all the problems in the first place - the retailers and the marketing men - "come on lads £50 a time, the fools are still there to be fleeced" - so someone refuses to pay, will not play the game, wants to see the rules of the game changed, so they are banned and the forum becomes yet another filter for information, another form of sensorship because the *rules* say a banned member or his products cannot be mentioned or discussed - very convenient! Both Pink Fish and Wigwam operate like this, Zerogain does so by proxy because it is ruled by the same people as PF. Though this in ultimate terms is still at this stage a minor irritation, apart from to the small manufacturing buggers like Beresford who are blocked from their customers. For me not such a big problem as I am lucky to have a recognised name and brand with many years of trading behind it. A forums power is its membership, without members a forum is nothing, a forum is not its owner(s), apart from as the necessary function of a school playground monitor.

Again if you put up with it you will create the same situation on line as you created with the retailers, magazines and distributors - they can only do it because you let them - then as forums and on line community becomes more powerfull then £100 - £200 etc, the skys the limit, on line adverts and reviews by *the experts* and you end up with another bullshit environment just like the magazines. Human nature is weird, like the politicians, one lot moans and calls the others pigs in the trough until they get their noses in and then they slurp like everyone else.

[scoobs]

Yup, I have first hand experience of this kind of nonsense too, myself and another comedic canine alter-ego were 'spoken to' for rattlin' on about NVA on another forum, and the thread was later locked! only to be followed up by ridiculous rumours of back handers and discounts etc...sour grapes perhaps because it was beginning to eclipse a well regarded dealer 'love-in' thread that had sat proudly at the top of the listing for some time. My eyes are wide open these days. I'd better stop here.

[WikiBoy]

Yup, I have first hand experience of this kind of nonsense too, myself and another comedic canine alter-ego were 'spoken to' for rattlin' on about NVA on another forum, and the thread was later locked! only to be followed up by ridiculous rumours of back handers and discounts etc...sour grapes perhaps because it was beginning to eclipse a well regarded dealer 'love-in' thread that had sat proudly at the top of the listing for some time. My eyes are wide open these days. I'd better stop here.

It was and is a complete bunch of lies. I issue a challenge to them. If anyone can come up with proof that I gave discount or gifts to forum members for mention of my products I will *give* them a free amplifier. I give discount for damaged or marked cases and they are called second stock and marked so at ebay. To people I trust I have given equipment on loan, and that is it. It is just bullshit excuses for behaviour trying to maintain the trough and its available slurp. Originating from the £50-ers who don't want people queerying their pitch and expedited by an admin desperate to turn community into profit.

Why stop woofy it is time for this behaviour to be outed, or are you scared they will boot you? there you go that is the power being created and why Beresford - nva etc is not mentioned and threads are pulled. They would not dare ban you - it is in the public domain now. Why! because *this* forum hasn't joined the burgioning forum cartel. Where any problems or discussion from one forum cannot be discussed at another - soooo convenient!

[Filterlab]

I never understood why some forums wouldn't (and won't) let people talk about certain manufacturers' products, whether it be from a consumers point of view or a dealers / manufacturers point of view. It's all hi-fi, it's all harmless and so what if bloke 'A' wants to sell his gear whilst bloke 'B' doesn't, the whole point of a forum is for like minded folk to get together and chat about their hobby.

Obviously there have to be certain guidelines as to behaviour towards other folk, but locking threads for mentioning hi-fi is rather unusual. Not here mates, anyone can chat about any manufacturer, anyone can promote their stuff, anyone can compliment other's stuff. How else will anyone find out about things otherwise?

[WikiBoy]

I never understood why some forums wouldn't (and won't) let people talk about certain manufacturers' products, whether it be from a consumers point of view or a dealers / manufacturers point of view. It's all hi-fi, it's all harmless and so what if bloke 'A' wants to sell his gear whilst bloke 'B' doesn't, the whole point of a forum is for like minded folk to get together and chat about their hobby.

Obviously there have to be certain guidelines as to behaviour towards other folk, but locking threads for mentioning hi-fi is rather unusual. Not here mates, anyone can chat about any manufacturer, anyone can promote their stuff, anyone can compliment other's stuff. How else will anyone find out about things otherwise?

What is the motivation for any behaviour, money - power - sex. It is extremely unlikely the latter is the motivation, but at WW I have my doubts at some of the "bake-off" motivations In this case the two former but still largely sitting as a *potential*.

[Marco]

Ok, Richard, what's the new thread to be called. Your choice

Marco.

[WikiBoy]

Ok, Richard, what's the new thread to be called. Your choice

Marco.

Up yours Mr WW!