Dealer Frustrations

I gotta say, one of the hardest parts about this whole audiophile thing is a lack of stores. Now, the stores that I have been to around here have all been good, and the staff all knowledgeable. But there are more products than stores. If you want to listen to a brand of speaker, for example, that the stores do not carry it is very difficult. And yes, there are a few "dealers" around that are custom installers that carry different lines, but they are hard to get a hold of. I have been trying to listen to two different pairs of speakers, the Totem Acoustic Rainmakers and the Von Schweikert VR-1s, both of which are carried by custom installers in the area that do not have stores and I have had very little luck. The Totem dealer I have at least spoken with and he says that his latest shipment that include the pair I was to demo was delayed and he should have them for me early next week. But the Von Schweikert guy I have called a few times and he has not called me back. Now I understand that these guys are busy, but all it would take is a phone call. The frustrating thing is that there is not really an alternative. I mean I could just order some speakers from Auidogon, but buying speakers unheard is a dangerous proposition. So I guess I just have to sit back and wait, and hope that I will have the opportunity to give these speakers a listen.

Coming to a society near you...

Well I am tired and it has been a long week already; and it is only Wednesday so I will try to keep this short. Yesterday evening I went to my first meeting of my local audio society. Wow. These guys are crazy. And yes, they were all guys. It was the group's audio science fair, where members would talk about the DIY projects they had been working on. There was a rebuilt tube amp, a heavily modified turntable, and an original design/built-from-parts digital amp that had so much capacitance that the builder was able to unplug the amp while we were listening to it and the music kept going for at least 30 seconds. One thing that made it so cool was that though most of these guys were just hobbyists, some of them were engineers and designers at some major audio companies. It was neat to hear them talk about building the gear that I only dream of listening to. The whole experience was entertaining and quite educational. I learned a lot about how gear worked just by listening to these guys converse. I highly recommend looking in your area to see if you have an audio society near you.

The Drawing Board

Well. What a weekend it has been. My friend Ben came and picked up his Gallos and associated gear and we moved them to his new place. We set them up and they sounded quite good in the new space.

While Ben's system was a guest in my house I was able to live high on the proverbial hi-fi hog. As I have said those speakers are an amazing feat of engineering and are a joy to listen to. However now that they are gone I have had to go through a bit of a reality check. I have had to come back down to earth, if you will. I want to build my own hi-fi system, but I have reached the conclusion that building one of my own that is the caliber of Ben's is just not practical for me right now. So what does that mean for me? That means that I need to find a system that will be both a pleasure to listen to and not dent the wallet too hard. Once I reached this conclusion it became apparent to me that much of the research I had done up to this point, though fun and educational, was not very practical. So back to the drawing board!

And of course by "the drawing board" I mean the hi-fi stores.

On Saturday I went to one of the stores I frequent to check out a pre-amp and amp by Rotel that was a bit closer to my reality. I had a lot to do that day so I headed out early and arrived at the store right as it opened at 10am. I found the salesman and told him what I was looking for and he got me all set up. The system I had wanted to listen to was hooked up to some electrostatics, which is definitely not what I am looking for, so I had him hook up a pair of Paradigm Studio 20s. I am fairly familiar with the Paradigm studio line at this point so these were a good choice for auditioning. I have to say I was pretty impressed with the little Rotel combo. The imaging was pretty good, and all of the information in the music was there where it should be. It was not as present as some setups I have heard, but that is to be expected. Also, to my surprise and delight I did not hear the brightness that I had experienced in previous sessions with the Studio line. All in all it was quite enjoyable to listen to, and a bit of a relief to get great sound out of a system that does not cost an arm and a leg.

I did not bring a lot of music with me on this trip because I did not have much time for auditioning. I listened to a few tracks off of Haughty Melodic by Mike Doughty and Nick Of Time by Sunny Sumter & The Larry Willis Quintet off of the Mapleshade's Music Festival disc. Since I picked up Haughty Melodic it has become one of my favorites and I was very pleased with how well the Rotel system reproduced it.

When I had finished with the Rotel system I headed to another one of my regular stores to check out a NAD preamp and amp. Unfortunately, the NAD preamp was out for a demo, so I was unable to give the system a listen. I will have to save that for another time. At that point there was nothing left to do but ponder my new audio reality and head to the Potbelly Sandwich shop for a sandwich, and of course, a cookie!