The Japanese amp/high end amp demo was set up by a group of skeptical objectivists, and was written up at the time, I think in the JAES but it's been a while so I am not sure of that, I could probably find out for sure. And jeez, what in the world would make anyone think a high end amp maker would do something like this? As for differences, I tell

John, your post also pretty well describes the cutthroat discount store world here in the US as well. Not fun and it always feels kind of slimy. When I got my Beosound and Beolabs, since I bought them from a large chain store, I managed to get some discounts. I bought the Beosound when they had a storewide "buy any receiver and get X% off"

Funny story, I feel sad for someone who will buy something they don't like as well because of what their alleged friends would say. There was an audio show once where a "cheap and crappy" Japanese integrated amp, I think it was a Yamaha, and a high end tube amp were setup so you could switch between them with a large A/B switch. They let

John, I understand what you mean about the road to Damascus. Same path for me with this B&O. I think part of it is realizing how little difference the constant tweaking/maintenance issues made compared to more stable gear, and another part of it is as I got older and move involved in other things the hobby aspect became less of a fun hobby/something

Oh I agree completely about Apple being great at marketing and making people think they are the 2nd coming. I'm not an Apple fan boy by any stretch, I have some Apple products, and generally find iTunes an OK music server s/w, but am not in love with them. I can also agree that given a choice, even if only for "I wanna have all the bits"

Nothing new here, every studio used to have a pair of Horrortones (Auratone) speakers, crappy little boxes with small whizzer cone full range drivers. They tended to sound like crappy car or boom box systems, and most all pop music producers run the mix thru them to make sure it sounds decent on the low end systems. Substitute ear buds for Auratones

I guess I am, or used, to be what might be considered an "audiophile" but not an audiophool. One of the things that I find enjoyable about B&O is it basically freed me of the obsessive need to worry about different components, etc. I'd already moved from subjectivist to objectivist in my philosophy, thanks to a number of helpful people

In this case the "little hifi shop" was Tweeter/Sound Advice. Sound Advice was a Florida company, tons of stores, that was bought out by Tweeter, which was more of a nationwide US company. My buddy worked there starting with Sound Advice. One day visiting him he was in the back eating lunch, and I stopped and stared at the large "Drug

This is the kind of thing that really hacks me off, particularly with products that are as much a work of art as an audio component like B&O. Sloppy and careless, and shows no respect either for the product or the person you're shipping it to. I see a lot of very badly cared for and damaged B&O for sale, which I have to pass on even though

The Mysterious Flying Orchestra, a late 70's RCA jazz album, each track a different artist. Really good jazz tracks, and I'm listening to it on my just reinstalled and dialed in system, Beogram 3300, MMC2, phono preamps.com phono stage, Beosound 9000, and Beolab 8000's. Wonderful. Just before this, Oxygene, by Jean Michel Jarre, ripped from