Unaccessible link - behind a paywall
Can you share a regular web link? I canât read that one.
I got access just by inputting an email address and clicking No to all the marketing options.
In short:
- Man spends decades custom-building astonishing audio system.
- Obsession results in him being estranged from at least one son
- Diagnosed with ALS/MND just as the system is finished
- Becomes unable to use or enjoy system
- Dies before he can be reconciled with family
- System is too custom and huge to generate any interest, so is auctioned off for a fraction of its value
Here endeth the morality tale.
Have read, a tragic story to say the leastâŚ
I think complete systems often donât generate much interest. We all build systems differently.
I am always kind of amazed when complete Naim systems are put up for sale on Audiogon, etc and the sellers insist on selling it all together. Iâll bet in most cases they have to break them up anyway. The smart sellers just list components individually. Selling a 252 with SC or a ND555 with 555PS together â for example â makes sense, but trying to sell an entire system as a whole not so much.
If anyone is interested:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he-spent-his-life-building-a-1-million-stereo-the-real-cost-was-unfathomable/ar-AA1mUqsx
Whilst it is a shame what the system was finally sold for, I wouldnât go as far to say itâs sad story. Quite the opposite possibly. I suspect he enjoyed the process of building the whole system as much as playing it, and had the money to support this hobby. Thankfully he got to the point where it was completed, whereas many people dont get to achieve their goals.
I think to give his system a monetary value doesnât feel right, as you cant put a price on all the excitement building the system and record collection must have given him
Seen him/his system on YouTube in the past. Thatâs a genuinely sad story, a bloke whose obsession broke his family. Iâd rather have a Rega ÂŁ1,000 starter system and my family.
âBut later, I followed him out to his car, where he confessed that, no, it sounded off that day.â
Whether you put together a system from the best measuring, the most highly reviewed or most scrupulously auditioned components thereâs always that moment when you play it for a friend and think âSounds a bit sh1te todayâ.
They are often thinking the same thing.
Itâs more fun playing friends new music rather than equipment.
Did you get to the bit where he was estranged from his son for years, due mainly to his obsession with building the system?
Itâs very sad . I had opened the thread about the man and his system, 2 years ago . See âexotic system â.
At least he achieved his dream and had built to the end what he wanted. But itâs sad he couldnât enjoy it longer.
Sounds like an OCD type of illness to me. You whole life is consumed by something fairly insignificant.
No less than building a house, a Yatch or a plane during all the life. Why criticising?
The âCâ in OCD doesnât stand for âcollectingâ 