The amazing fallacy of High End stuff...

WOT, what you're not proud you started a thread with almost 1k responses? I've never been honored in such a way. Wanna talk about boring? At least you brought enough "sauce" to the space to keep folks hangin' round - for whatever the conversation regenerates into.

Notice I didnt say "degenerates"...
 
if an endeavor is highly successful in some part due to the music used shouldn't there be compensation in some form to the estate or at the least (if there are no direct descendants) the percentage due should go towards music education .....or is recognition enough?

considering most of the artists were unaware/unable to protect their rights back then it just seems a little low?
 

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that's probably what zeppelins attorneys said to their families.
as soon as intellectual property becomes profitable for another (especially when stolen) the right thing to do would be to share the wealth proportionately.
but greed usually overcomes......in fact I wouldn't doubt if in many instances legal fees exceeded what would have been accepted in the first place.

I'm sure there are examples where there were amiable agreements but they seem rare.
 
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WOT, what you're not proud you started a thread with almost 1k responses? I've never been honored in such a way. Wanna talk about boring? At least you brought enough "sauce" to the space to keep folks hangin' round - for whatever the conversation regenerates into.

Notice I didnt say "degenerates"...


I don't know if you can use the term "honored" for this thread, but it surely rambles on and on.
And as for "sauce", yeah, I've been called saucy at times, life of the party even.
Particularly if I've had too much to drink.
 
It has been interesting reading about other people's experiences with 'technician boredom' etc, but Scott goes too far when unfairly criticizing the CTC Blowtorch preamp, and what it costed, etc. His memory is spotty.
First of all, we set out to make an 'all out preamp'. There was no point in making anything else, as our costs were almost the same as an amateur buying from a distributor. We didn't want mass production, indifferent assemblers, etc, we wanted something that we 'threw the book at', covered every base we could think of, and we even (almost as a joke) went for the heaviest, most outrageous cases, and of course, this cost us extra, in fact most of the material cost of the unit. Initially, we wanted to see how good we could make a preamp, mostly for ourselves, but we sold to others to pay for our personal units, with the relatively slight profit that we made with from the extra units. Over a few years, we made about 45 units. Most went to Japan, others went to personal audiophile friends, and still others to doctors (quite a few) and other well healed audiophiles. In the end, about 2005, we wanted to quit making them, as they cost US too much to make, it was getting boring, and we were running out of our initial circuit board order. We made them in our bedroom (lab), to keep the overhead down, and sold direct in the USA. Unfortunately, we had to sell to a distributor in Japan, where they could mark each one up to $50,000 although they always paid us $10,000 (seemingly a whole lot of money at first).
We rarely got more than $10,000, sometimes less, especially from friends. Only adding a modified Vendetta phono stage, did the price go up significantly, and that was only a few units. I hate to say it guys, but IF you have any regard for your time and effort, you might put a reasonable price on it. After we made our first units (for ourselves) it was mostly work (perhaps satisfying work), but we didn't make enough from each unit to actually live on. That is the nature of this sort of thing.
Now, is it practical, does Parasound (for example) follow our lead? Of course, they would like to, but it just is too expensive and just plain impractical to do so. For example, when I designed the Parasound JC-2 preamp, it had twice as many features, many of the same active parts, and was less than 1/2 the price of the cheapest Blowtorch, BUT it is not as good a unit, sonically. Is this my fault? Of course not. I put the same effort into both, but not the same circuits, volume controls, switches, wiring, or case. And yes, there is an audible difference. Just like my Porsche 944 will never be the same as a Porsche 911, in driving performance, even though it might give me something close.
Now, with many of you, with small, cost effective speakers, amps, etc, the CTC Blowtorch would be a waste of money. Heck, you might be able to put something together in your workshop in a tinfoil lined cigar box that will work well enough. But, you won't compete with the big boys, like we had to, to get international recognition.
Now, everyone should enjoy what they like, within their means. I am 'top heavy' with expensive audio equipment only because I make it through some manufacturer that I design for, I buy it used, or I am given it by a grateful manufacturer that I have made a successful product for in the past. I can't even afford my own stuff, either!
But, world class audio engineering does not come cheap, like many of you would think, it is just that you have modest needs, and therefore find my efforts, often over the top, etc. But to others, who really care about ultimate audio quality, I have never done quite enough, so I continue to learn how to make even better sound quality partially for myself, but mostly for others. You guys can either learn from my, and others' experience, or ignore it, it doesn't matter that much to me.
 
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But to others, who really care about ultimate audio quality, I have never done quite enough, so I continue to learn how to make even better sound quality partially for myself, but mostly for others. You guys can either learn from my, and others' experience, or ignore it, it doesn't matter that much to me.
Then please share some of your experiences on room acoustics, one of two bottlenecks of sound reproduction. Thank you.
 
It has been interesting reading about other people's experiences with 'technician boredom' etc, but Scott goes too far when unfairly criticizing the CTC Blowtorch preamp, and what it costed, etc. His memory is spotty.

Did you even read what I said? It was ironic someone would mention the BT while starting a thread complaining about a $900 phono stage. If you correct for inflation the popular Conrad Johnson and Audio Research phono stages of the 80's were much more than that.