I have to admit that some of my opponents might consider my organizational views on high-end audio too socialistic and will recognize in my view some residues of me growing up in socialistic society. Leaving aside the prejudicial and completely foolish visions of Americans about socialistic ways (actually Americans mostly have no views of own but they rather like monkeys repeat the BS that was pre-chewed and pre-sold for them by nation’s military-industrial complex) I have to admit that the opponents might have a point. I do proposed that the True High-End Audio should not be subject of a freaks doing alchemy in basements but it should be a chain of live broadcasting networks: http://www.romythecat.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=6917 I proposed years ago the “Opened Doors” concept according to which any explicit professional assessment of audio products should be banned from Truly High-End Audio… I can go on and on…. For those very few lucky bustards who live in the cities with good FM “live broadcasting” stations and with good cultural life the True High-End Audio have already exist in the air. However, what kind of surprise and disappoint me is absolutely neglecting attention from High-End Audio industry AND from the individual High-End Audio practitioners to the subject FM radio and using of FM as a primary High-End audio medium. Here is the subject for example: where are out good tuners. The industry offers perhaps a hundred different turntables and tonearms. The LP culture is flourishing but there is no visible movement in tuners world. The industry offers hundreds and perhaps thousands of SET amplifiers and there is an army of DIYer who make countless own single-ended amps but compare it with amount of industry and DIYer efforts to make better sounding tuners available. No one make good analog FM tuners seriously and there is practically no DIY movement that would chance an idea of “Perfect Tuner” The very few surviving companies that still do tuners today: Magnum Dynalab and Day Sequerra pretty much do not face any competition and do whatever they want, that in many instances very little relates to better Sound. So, the FM users who wish to get better quality are forced to go for 30 years old mass-market commercial tuners. This is kind of radicals. No one would use for today high-end audio application a preamp, a phonostage of an amp that was made in 70s. However we buy those mass-market tuners from 70 and feel that it is what FM is capable of… What I would like to see, purely for egotistic reasons, is serious High-End Audio companies, along with an army of DIY hoodlums to attack the idea of better FM reception. Last year Accuphase hit market with high end tuner T-1000, it was digital. I know about another High-End Audio company that will come with high-objectives analog tuner to the end of the year. Who else? I would like to see many contemporary well-made tuners and I would like to people be aware about the huge absolutely unexplored by the idiots-audiophiles domain of super high fidelity sound reproduction. I would like even tuners to have A/D options on board and have ability to write live stream to hard drive… I clearly recognize the Utopia-sness of my wish but the sad irony is that my wishful idealization is not necessarily the result of my inflated imagination but rather the result of restrictive and preventive thinking on the part of the industry and on the part of the audio practitioners who prefer to do audio by listening the sounds of the dead audio cans… Rgs, Romy the caT |