Article: Why We Need Audiophiles, The subjective perspective Options

[2tec]

I'm interested in what the HA community thinks about this new Gizmodo article, or blog, about Michael Fremer, an audio reviewer from Stereophile, which clearly goes completely against the grain around here. For instance:

"We play my solid 256kbps VBR MP3 of "Heroes" off my iPod; it sounds like shit. Free of pops and crackles, yes, but completely lifeless, flat in every way. This is the detail that matters: Audiophiles are basically synesthesiacs. They "see" music in three-dimensional visual space. You close your eyes in Fremer's chair, and you can perceive a detailed 3D matrix of sound, with each element occupying its own special space in the air. It's crazy and I've never experienced anything like it." ~ Why we need audiophiles

[Arnold B. Kruege...]

Unlike most people who post here, I've had the *privilege* of meeting Michael Fremer in the flesh. Well sort of. This was in 2005. After a few seconds in my presence, he started loudly screaming profanities about an ABX demo that some of my friends did at an AES meeting back in the very early 1990s. His friends had to forcably restrain him and drag him out of the room.

To put this into perspective, my 16 year old son died of a brain hemhorrage about 10 years ago. By most accounts I can talk about that pretty calmly. Compared to matters of life and death, there's nothing about ABX or even all of high end audio thaat is as all-fired important as Fremer seems to think that one day back in the early 1990s was. All the other people I know who were directly involved with it have pretty well forgotten about it. And well they should. That wsa then and this is now.

To say that Fremer is a little tightly wound would be IMO an understatement. :-(

IMO, the only way to understand Fremer is to consider the meaning of the word hyperbole. Fremer seems to live in a world of hyperbole where nothing is anything like what it seems. For example, the Gizmodo article http://i.gizmodo.com/5213042/why-we-need-audiophiles mentions Fremer's alleged $350,000 audio system.

My first question is who paid $350,000 for the equipment Fremer uses? It is worth that today? Is he a trust-fund baby? Does he get paid that much by Stereopihile? Or, has Fremer fanned the flames of Fremer-celebrity or possbily Fremer-fear so well that enough high end audio dealers and/or manufacters have been cowed into giving or loaning him most if not all of that equipment?

I'm sure the truth about Fremer will never be reliably known. Why should we even care?

Pardon me while I go and listen to some music... ;-)

Moderation: Removed useless full quotation of the first post.

This post has been edited by greynol: Apr 16 2009, 17:19

[cpchan]

Unlike most people who post here, I've had the *privilege* of meeting Michael Fremer in the flesh. Well sort of. This was in 2005. After a few seconds in my presence, he started loudly screaming profanities about an ABX demo that some of my friends did at an AES meeting back in the very early 1990s. His friends had to forcably restrain him and drag him out of the room.

I am totally speechless. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at such ignorance.


This post has been edited by cpchan: Apr 16 2009, 21:32