Look at the pictures, read the specs. What else can I say?

http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/663.html

Comments and gasps welcome.

All that, and he's still using vinyl.

But, does it sund better than a good set of cans?

It must be nice to have that much free cash to spend on a music room.

Note that there is only one chair.

It must be awful lonely . . . to not have a girl-friend!

lol @ arite

None of the pictures display for me, other wise I would say its an insane room.

um-if you read all the way at the bottom of the article-he has been married for 30 years! Obviously this is his personal "cubby hole"-his wife must her own hobby area as well

Or they both sit on that chair

And that, makes the music sound that much sweeter. I wonder if her vocals sound better than the speakers. =)

"still"....??? Lots of people enjoy the sound of vinyl. And I'm sure his vinyl sounds amazing with that setup.

It looks nice and all, if not a bit over the top, however at the bottom of the page it said he's 53 -- so what a hell of a way to blow your retirement money.

The only thing I don't get is why spend all that money and not have some way to hide all the visible wiring.

ugh.

put a blindfold on this guy, and kick the hockeypucks out from under his mains leads. i bet he wont notice. then switch all his interconnects with $10 leads from the local geekstore. he still wont notice.

at 53, do you think he's going to be able to hear above 15k anyway? turn a TV on near him and he's not going to notice. this is a clear cut case of having more money than cochlear.

the thick cables remind me of tentacle-hentai

"Mikel" also use a Toshiba Portege 70XX Notebook with WLan next to his chair
Maybe he also listen to evil MP3-Music

I wonder what will happen to all those equipment after he is "gone"
all that must be worth a fortune

hmmm 53 is not "that" old, i mean thats a typical white haired manager in movies.....that go to strip clubs

Well, at 53 I was deaf, dumb and blind. BUt, I still drive, scuba dive and rip the heck out of my credit cards.

Those loudspeakers cost $65,000 a pair. Talk about living high. It is not about what you can hear. Ever heard this one: I did it because I can.

...so many hard/sound-reflective surfaces in that room... Plush carpets and some sort of sound-deadening wall panelling would improve the sound probably significantly.

The room's been designed to look pretty rather than sound excellent. The two don't generally agree with each other.

I think you need to look again. That room is full of acoustic tricks, ceiling panels, side vents all sorts of stuff. Its an all out effort by someone with deep pockets. For what that setup cost I could have a sailboat big enough to live on, and the wind to sail it.

[rant]The idea that people can spend so much money and waste so many/much resources on themselves for such a frivilous thing as this, I find utterly disgusting. How can this guy sleep at night knowing that so many people have so little, yet he can -and does- throw money out the window. More effort definately needs to go into education about world economics and sustainable living or this world will be fucked in the near future.

I bet he isn't even happy with that room . . . in fact how could he be happy with it? He wanted "no compromises" he wanted the best, yet he is stuck with crumby $65,000 frontspeakers when one could pay more than $500,000 for frontspeakers. Megalomania is self-perpetuating and his quest to have the best is pure folly. One cannot be truly free until one conquors ones desires; not that this is easy, I have a feeling that my own quest to this end will last the better part of my life.

This man is a slave to his own wants, as so many are in western society; as, I believe, I still am. We are endoctrinated from a very young age to believe that having more will produce happiness. Corporations do this through insidious, and increasingly ubiquitous, advertising schemes; with only one goal in mind: short term profit maximization. The average North American child is exposed to over 40,000 advertisments a year (lets see the parents compete with that ). The intended affect is not the creation of our degenerate society of consumption, it is only to make money. There is no smokey room full of conspiratory CEOs and other powerful industrialists, in fact many CEOs do care about issues like the environment and the health of the human race. Thus it is the system itself, or lack there of, which demands profit and is solely driven on empty dollar signs.[/rant]

but both the richest and poorest people in developed countries are in the top 5% of the world's richest.

So anyone who can afford a PC to read this should probably be giving 95% of what they earn to help others.

Or maybe the others will look at this extravagance, and think "I'm going to fix the broken political system in my country that doesn't give anyone here a chance to aspire to that".

or... or... or...

Isn't capitalism, like democracy, the "least bad" system we have available? Of course, both sides do well to remember that - so that we both fight to keep it, and fight to improve it.



btw, I think the idea of having a reverberant space behind the speakers (just look at it!) works very well for some music - you get great soundstaging and depth. Our mini system was set up something like that in our old flat - it sounded absolutely gorgeous. It didn't cost quite as much


I wonder if they have kids?

Cheers,
David.

With the money he spent there he could have asked some record company to send him special proper CD releases. 30% of his music is pop, if he has started bying CDs in 1982 ~20% of his music should be clipressed (regardless possibly clipressed classical music/jazz). I bet he hasn't ever heard "loudness war".

That isn't at all true, where did you get such a false idea from? Homeless people, the very poorest, in Canada and the United States are poorer and worse off then anyone living in Cuba, for example and, I think you would be hard pressed to find many that are poorer anywhere; unless you consider the ability to root through some rich persons garbage a valid sort of income. This is well known, poverty in "first world" countries is on the rise, yet it is also an absolute scandal because of the natural advantages these countries have. If the system worked no one in Canada or the United States would be poor.



I must agree with you here. We are all at fault for buying into this unsustainable system, myself included.


Most alternative systems have never been tried. Communism has never been properly implemented, for example. On relatively small scales archo-syndicalisms and communes have worked extremely well. Once they reach a certain size, however, the state they exist within usually crushes them because they are seen as a threat to the status quo.


Are you kidding me?? Upward mobility like this doesn't even exists within "first world" countries, let alone on a scale such as that! All studies in this area have shown that children die in the same income bracket that they were raised to an overwhelming degree. Upward mobility is an illusion, even for people living within "free" countries. Oh, and just so you know, poor countries are poor because the governments of powerful countries made them that way. Why do you think Britain was the richest country in the world for so long? Because they conquered other countries with military might and squandered their resources. How did Britain maintain its wealth after the empire started to decline? They enforced favorable trade agreements with weaker countries through threat of force; no taxes on British imports, but high taxes on exports to Britain. The United States is doing the same thing now, dozens of countries around the world are little more than American vassals and they are all corrupt dictatorships. Spreading freedom and democracy indeed .

Some of you are getting very political. Not being a mod, there is not much I can do other than to say that none of this has anything to do with digital music reproduction.

By the way, that tag line about how many Americans are idiots is uncalled for and in bad taste. Would you like it if some of us started saying bad things about Canada?

Communism looks good on paper but never seems to work in practice. Even China has had to take on the idea of capitalism to survive.

Remaining off-topic, I think his signature is amusing, and I'm American. Then again, I voted for the red team. Don't take offense if you're not an idiot. I mean c'mon, would you read HA if you were?

And from what I gather from my reading and Canadians in the US, there aren't too many bad things to say about Canada anyway.

(Sorry, they got me started. And its my topic anyway.)

Dickx,

I have been called an idiot for various reasons, but not this one. Good response. Red team, blue team, purple team (pink team?!) .... Canada is OK, if you don't mind the cold.

-Ron

Yes, "still." And notice the smiley.

True enough, it has grown extremely off-topic, that was not my original intent. However, in my defense, this thread is not a particularly serious one anyway, is it? As far as my sig goes it is in reference to those who voted for Bush, not all Americans. Perhaps this is also in bad taste I set it to this while I was still raging on election day and haven't given it any thought since.


I said that communism has never been properly implemented and it hasn't. China was never really communist to begin with, Mao just paid lip service to the public in the form of Marxist rhetoric when he founded his corrupt regime. Lenin may have been better but he died before his dream was fully realized; and as for his successor, Stalin . . . I think I need not say more.


Ahhh, I hope you still don't take offense but I was referring to the "Red team". If you don't already know something like 80% of Canadians preferred Kerry to Bush. Personally I can't stand either of them, least of all Bush, if I was an American I would have voted for Nader.

I don't want to drag this thread anymore off-topic then it already is. If anyone else wishes to discuss politics further, or if you simply want to refute my points I would encourage you to do so but please start a new thread in the Off-Topic forum. Or if a mod sees this, I think this thread has probably gone far enough to merit splitting.

The development of this thread just shows that there is large interest in politics and (US-president) Bush-issues among HA members. I continue here because I think we should wait for a mod to split the thread at the right position, maybe David's post above. I'd like to see offtopic threads appear among the active topics.


The idea of communism has never worked properly and won't ever, because its basic assumption is a wrong idea of human nature. Marx thought humans are in principle selfless creatures and willing to work without the need of any personal reward, what has been proven wrong. Capitalism works because any action causes as well a personal reward as an overall reward for all people. Say, a baker earns money for his bread and thus feeds his customers. On the other hand, capitalism can only work properly if a controlling power exists if the form of official departments (say, the European office for trust).
The US have hard-core capitalism; say very poor state help for people who lost their work (is there any at all ?). Most other states (like Germany) have a sort of what we call "social market economy" with a social state system to prevent real poverty. Thus I'd say David's 5%-claim is true for Europe.

And democracy is indeed the least bad what we can have. Some say, democracy is bad because they're inprinciple incapable of developping themselves. Everytime a government starts to reform, it's no longer reelected.

A China scholar recently told me (while I was in China) that the reason China was not really communist was that it was based on an agrarian society and that communism was based on an industrial society. At any rate, the Chinese economy is 40% privately owned today with that percentage growing. As far as living in a communist country is concerned, even one run in a more idealistic fashion than has been done in practice, I am not interested, with extreme prejudice.

For a foreigner to have wished that Kerry was elected is a far cry from living down here (especially in Texas) and knowing that when you go to vote you will have to suffer with the result.

I would say that the main problem of democracy is the lake of long term view. A lot of issues generally associated with democracy are in fact linked to power (corruption, personal interest, …).

Sure, you should suffer more than here in Europe ... but probably less than in Iraq.
Anyway, I think that the worst with this election would be to divide US and Europe.

which are supposed to be worse in other forms of government, e.g. a monarchy or a dictatorship.

Yes. Actually, sometimes monarchy can bring long term view, but it's not often the case. More generally (it works for democracy, monarchy or dictatorship), the skill needed to get the power is not the same than the skill needed for manage it.

in the end every form of government is deemed to be far from perfect, because it deals with humans. there will alway be someone or many that abuse the power they got or otherwise dont play according to the rules.

which is kind of selfregulating (hopefully).

I agree that this is preferable and I am heartened by the fact that there does seem to be so much interest. Political debate and rational thought about politics are incredibly important if you believe in democracy .


Has it been proven wrong? I would greatly like to see the proof. I am not saying that it would come easily, current society has been leading us astray from this type of altruism, however I do not believe it has been totally eradicated. In pre-1949 Tibet any act of violence was so foreign that people would hardly know what to do when they witnessed it and it was common practice to let strangers into your house and feed them even if you didn't have enough food for your own family. Thus I don't believe that this sort of attitude is as far removed from human nature than we currently precieve it to be. I think this assumption seems to be wrong today of the effects of capitalism, not because of human nature. Although I certainly admit that I could be mistaken.


This is as theoretical as any of the assumptions about communism, in my opinion. Not the way the system actually works at all. The problem is that action that cause a reward for some, definitely do not cause a reward for all, in fact I think rarely cause a reward for all. For example take the fast food industry. They design their food and their advertising to make money, not to provide people with proper nutrition or to create decent jobs. Their food is designed to be addictive and their advertising is designed to make people feel good, or feel cool while eating it. Despite the fact that it only causes problems for them phisiologically and psychologically when they gain weight as a result. As well everyone knows that McJobs are nearly the same as no jobs at all for a person trying to survive on their own, this is by design too so that the corporations save as much money as possible on employment paychecks. Not to mention the fact that they try to suck in children at a young age and get them hooked on a bad diet for life. In conclusion: A personal reward for McDonald's (or Burgerking, or Wendy's or whatever) is not an overall reward for the people, in fact I would say it is an overall penalty for all. This is just one example, but you don't need to look far to find dozens more. Wherever their is a profit to be made be exploiting consumers or workers, you will find a corporation doing just that.


Socialism might be a good way to deal with the follies of capitalism, but I doubt it. As long as money is the number one motivator someone will find a way to exploit others to their own benefit.


I agree entirely. In fact I don't look at democracy as being bad at all. The only problem with it arises when big corporations control the flow of information and thus control the information that is used by the voter when casting a ballot. This is probably my biggest problem with capitalism and it can be dealt with only by the use of very strong anti-trust laws. However these laws, which were once fairly acceptable in the US and Canada have been whittled down by corporate lobbies almost to the point of nonexistence . . . if a method of keeping them firmly in place could be devised capitalism would be far more acceptable. Until then, however, a true democracy with knowledgeable, informed voters may be nearly impossible to achieve.


Why not? Do you know something that I do not? If so please share it.


What are you saying? That Kerry would be worse then Bush? If so how/why? Please elaborate statements such as the one you just made are worthless without more information to back them up.

This is also a considerable problem with democracy. I believe that the best way around this problem is education and active social forums where people get to think for themselves and discuss their ideas with others. These things could create a further view among voters and hopefully, with enough grassroots support a more longterm view for politicians as well.

Education and information are keys elements for an healthy democrarcy.

What kind of proof can people provide for you on this. I think the example you show will always be confined to being a very rare occurence, and not because society conditions us not to be altruistic from the start (which I don't think it does).

It's because humans just aren't naturally altruistic. We are not genetically designed that way. Our brain is built on a system of reward for effort.

You ask people for effort and they will expect reward proportional to their effort, and it is not unreasonable for them to ask this.

Because a person displaying true altruism is so improbable, those who are altruistic are labelled as saints and remembered long after their deaths. Now communism expects us all to be altruistic?? That's just too far removed from reality to be workable.

Also again because of human nature, any communist government with the absolute best of intentions is guaranteed to become corrupt in time. Of course this is also true of other governments.

For those that did not get it, I think my comments were fairly obvious to anyone who is a native English speaker. Please don't troll me with words like "worthless".

????

I'm not trolling and I understand the language that you used, in that I fully comprehend your sentence (I am english first language). What I mean is that I would like to know why you feel that you would have to "suffer the result" if Kerry won. What suffering do you feel that Kerry would cause as opposed to Bush and why? If you make only general comments it doesn't leave much to discuss, thats all I meant by worthless. I am very sorry if you were offended, I really did not mean any offense .

edit: @Yaztromo: I have three calculus assignments due tomorrow . . . not to mention that I am writing my final exam in that course as well, so I don't have time to write another lengthy post tonight. Suffice it to say that I agree with you on some points but there is more I would like to add. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon once I am out of my exam, or late tomorrow night if I get drunk . GMT -04:00 here.

As vilifying as a good conspiracy theory is, this comment is lacking in facts and truth. The reasons for differing standards of living around the world are quite complex and can't be appropriately addressed in this forum. Suffice to say that poor countries are not poor because powerful countries made them that way.

Its part of the problem and, I believe, the reason why upward mobility is all but impossible in the aforementioned regard. Yes it is a gross oversimplification in the way I worded it here and for that I am sorry.

edit: Oh, and calling this a conspiracy theory is a good way to simply write off the truth that there is in this statement. Please if you feel that something I say is inaccurate, by all means tell me about it, I do hope to learn much from this political debate. However writing something off as a conspiracy theory is counter-productive and I don't very much appreciate it.

All Americans have to "suffer the result" no matter who wins. By the way, I am not trying to make a case for either red or blue here. Its just that things are way different when you are part of it, rather than looking in from the outside. Perhaps a few calculus problems will help clear your head. Then try a few decades of living, working, paying bills and putting your own kids through college. No telling what you will think of things by then.

I thought you were poking fun at him for listening to vinyl, like it is old-fashioned or something.

In this election the "red team" represented the Democrats. I voted for Kerry, and yes, I had also heard that most Canadians favored Kerry over Bush. Just wanted to clear that up.

I can say, "He has too much money!"

Thats curious. On the news they always pictured republican states red and democrat states blue, I thought these were the official colours of both parties?


Ah, I see what you are saying now, that makes it much more clear. Thank you. However, I do believe that, unfortunately, the result of the US election has a far broader scope then you recognize. Canada is heavily tied to the US economically, so if, for example, a US president were to cause the collapse of the American economy, the Canadian economy would collapse as a direct result. Also some American politicians and government officials try to bend Canada to their will. There have been threats against our government here for introducing legislation to decriminalize (not legalize, unfortunately ) possession of small amounts of marijuana and for other legislation that sectors of your government do not like. So we in Canada, and those in many other parts of the world, have to live with the results of the American election too; although, I fully admit, to a smaller extent.

Funny to see the topic changing from high-end audio hardware to politics...

capitalism=least bad...
In German we call that "painting in black"; recognizing only the bad aspect of the whole issue. What disadvantage can you see about my small baker example ? The people going to MCDonalds are happy with the food they get there, probably they even know that they'll get thick etc. It's up to the governments to inform and warn people to not ruin their health; some sort of the neccessary controlling power I mentioned above.

I totally agree with you.

Rich countries are definitely preventing the poor ones from developping. How do you think the world's economy works ? Take agrarian products: The EU provides so high subsidies for their own products that they can compete on the world market. You can find a lot of other examples. Even collecting old clothes and shipping them to the 'third world' prevents their own cloth industry from developping. The world's economy would no longer work if all countries would become developped. The aid rich governments provide is just to say "he, we do something" but in fact they want to keep the status quo.
And I'm egoistic, I don't want to lose my own life quality. Or do you want it, music_man_mpc ? From what you're writing here it sounds like you're willing to sell your PC and give the money to some poor children ? You see, your PC is the reward for some work/time you once offered and you want to keep it.

I find it highly unfair that all non-US citizens didn't even have a bit of vote in this election. The USA is a sovereign state, but its president's decisions affect a lot more people. Europe has now proven that it is relatively independent, but Bush definitely affected the destiny of all people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shouldn't they have some influence ?

What if Bush would have been president during the Cuba crisis in the early 60s ? Most likely the world would no longer exist. God bless JFK (Kennedy).

Don't most major religions and teachings try to "teach" or "command" us to be more altruistic?

If altruism was the natural dominant human state, why would it need to be taught or commanded?

If it's so foreign to humans, how can you base an entire political system on it?


...and back to hi-fi: I like the look of that turntable. It's over $70,000 and supposedly the parts cost $30,000 - I wonder how "cheaply" one could make a hydraulic linear tracking turntable?

There are obvious technical advantages to linear tracking, but it seems difficult and expensive to do it well. Hence most good turntables use conventional pivoting arms.

Cheers,
David.

Maybe religions teach altruism because they're religions...
On the other hand, given naturally altruistic humans: What kind of religions would we have ? Our religions would probably teach to be more egoistic in order to survive oneself...

Personally, I think that religion was originally created to make people more altruistic but it has been quickly hijacked by politics for the power.
That’s why I don’t really believe in religion (even if I think some symbolism in it are interesting) and also why we are very suspicious about the relation between religions and politic here in Europe.
However, if you have a society without religion you need to compensate with education, culture and ethic.