Can I Have My Money Back?

The print edition of today's New York Times includes an article titled "The Vinyl? It's Pricey. The Sound? Otherworldly", written about The Electric Recording Company and its founder Pete Hutchison, by music critic Ben Sisario. To prep for the article he visited me, bringing with him an ERC mastered Johanna Martzy Bach Violin Sonatas recording and a newly mastered CD version produced by Warner Music Korea. He wanted to compare on the kind of system ERC buyers might own. He also visited The Electric Recording Company in London.

You should read the article. You'll surely enjoy it as well as the news contained therein about an upcoming ERC reissue! As I write this there are 278 comments. You might not enjoy those so much, but you will my responses to some. I've given up commenting on individual posts, so left with this one:

"I have enjoyed reading the responses to Ben Sisario's story, in which I'm referenced, though it saddens me that this story about musical enjoyment so angers some. Stereophile readers own stereos costing from very little money to a whole lot. They are all music lovers who appreciate good sound. I've never met one who owns equipment for its own sake. The ones with more money or who devote more of their limited resources to it, have better systems from which they derive a great deal of pleasure. Does anyone think "all cars drive alike"? Or that you have to be an "autofool" to drive a Maserati when a KIA will get you to the grocery store and back? Or that you'd better do a double blind shock absorber test before choosing one over another? Beyond some anger in the comments is a curious level of resentment. And over what? Someone else's preferred music source? What's that about? The digital lectures, anger and resentment began when I dared say in the early 1980s that compact discs sounded terrible. They did! When Mr. Sisario visited I wasn't there to sell him anything. He just wanted to hear on a quality audio system what exactly The Electric Recording Company was selling. When we compared the ERC pressing on vinyl to the newly mastered CD version, his comment wasn't about frequency response, or anything technical. It was that one sounded as if a person was sitting in front of him playing a cello and one didn't. You can't measure that but you sure can hear it.