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Crazy rich Asian audiophiles
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 พ.ย. 2018
- The Audiophiliac recalls his years as a high-end audio salesman, and his favorite Asian customers.
Check out Steve's first Crazy rich audiophiles video here, • Crazy rich audiophiles
Money can't buy you love . But it can buy expensive audio equipment.
Which is lovely...
Which is lovely. ..
Don't all women love money brings them love more than a man can
Trent Steel - It can buy you love, but fake love. Not real love.😂
@@pf5658 I bet if I put $5,000 on a table I could buy her love what about it? Love
This is what makes your channel special. Not just those generic cut-and-dry reviews, but personal and often funny stories and insights. A few good morning laughs here! Thanks!
Forget audio - I want to meet the person who sold you that *shirt* : THAT is a salesperson !
You made my day, ROFL
Lol
😂😂😂
@WoolFlannel I'm not sure whether that shirt represents a *statement* so much as a cry for help ;)
That is an African(Ghanaian) shirt the symbol on it is an ADINKRA symbol(war horn) symbolizing vigilance
This is great! I love stories from people such as yourself, who were on the frontlines of the high dollar sales of a specific industry. Your videos are audio related, and I’ve also watched some on cars as well. It’s fascinating! I love how you shared a passion for the equipment as well as an application of the unique tastes of your customers! Hats off to you sir! Thank you for your willingness to share these experiences with us! I’m a new fan and now a subscriber!! Happy Thanksgiving!
Rich audiophiles are the best rich people
@ Yes. Because they can afford stuff most of us can only daydream about. The best rich people are the ones who don't abuse their position.
@ I am NOT an Asshole.
Glad to hear it.
Not according to their neighbours.........
I wouldn't trust an audiophile with my child.
Audiophiles of which I've been one for many years, are an odd lot. We're always searching for perfection but not really finding it for very long. It's the "hunt" for this perfection, though elusive as it is, that keeps us excited and moving onward.
Not too long, not too short.. perfect. Very interesting stories.
Love the stories Steve! Keep them coming
Great stories, thanks for sharing them.
+1
Bravo Steve Guttenburg Audiophilliac!
it's nice to know you see a lot of positive things on your customers and understood them well.
Wow one of your best video's yet. You tell an excellent story...I'm sure you were an exceptional salesman!
Cables are for idiots. Geniuses use 24k Gold bars.
It does save money
@@shawncox9277 🤔 you guys are geniuses
24K Gold bars are not as electrically conductive as copper, so I don't use gold bars to connect up my speakers
Ado topp - that is why the gold connectors make the sound better ;) ;) wink wink
How do I fit a banana plug to the gold bar please?
2:46 Larry David sells audio equipment?!?
Pretty pretty good.
Pretty much lol
I never get tired of watching the series of videos, "JBL XXXX speakers restored by Kenrick Sound has been delivered to Mr. XXX's room." Is that crazy?!
Steve mentioned that he had heard some vintage large JBLs some time ago. He seemed to like them, at least in the venue and with the music played. It's hard not to enjoy rockin' out on some 4343s.
Kenrick's rooms could benefit from some sound treatment IMHO.
Hartsfield!
Scotty Schumann yea its hilarious. spending 50k on a half a dozen loudspeakers to stack up in their unfurnished, acoustic treatment-free tiny 300 square foot hongkong apartments. always gets a laugh out of me.
BlankBrain ha most of the rooms they install in would be best served with some headphones.
Scotty Schumann placed in rooms with bare walls and polished floors 🤣
Ya, just had an experience with an Asian gentleman. Advertised a pair of Rowland mono amps, had them polished and ready to listen, he came in, didn't listen to them saying "box them up" and transferred the 10k. Nice, easy sale that one! :)
Steve, excuse my language but the stories in this video were f**king gold! :)
He puts his case on the counter and counted out 10.000 s of dollars and I said ; Oh Yeah ! Hahaha , 😂 makes me laugh , you make my day with this clip ! Have a nice day !
What a coincidence, my grandma's shirt!
This is such a cool channel! I grew up building speakers from around 10 or 11 with mail order parts cuz we was poor. Seeing you talk about actual interactions with people who buy the crazy top-end stuff, it's quite fascinating. It's like I'm 12 and reading Stereo Review again!
Hi Steve, new to your channel. Love your enthusiasm and passion for high end hi fi gear - it is a learning experience! Keep the good work up! Cheers form England
Wow great stories , thank you so much Steve
Love these...you tell stories like you did something important or meaningful hahaha pure entertainment gold
Good stories, thank you for sharing the good old days on a night like this.
Having the amp isolated from the rack and able to dissipate transformer energy to create cleaner sound; the reverse should be true as well. Shaking your amp should induce noise issues.
CAP 60hz is too frequent to induce by simply shaking it.
60hz of electrical waves have no bearing of 60hz of physical motion. There only connect is that they are measured in hz.
It is like saying your friend standing next to you at one foot taller in height is having an effect on your height (all in the head).
@@bighands69 are you suggesting that many if the adiophool tips and tweaks are merely expensive placebos? I honestly don't know why there's not been more class actions in the "high end" accessory market. Take for example, Mars bars. "A Mars a day helps you work rest and play." They cant say that anymore, yet "this interconnect cable is essential" is perfectly OK. I think some of the best at it are the guys at shun mook, they're the best salesman in the world. Have you tried their stone soup yet?
Sophism and ego are the two things that drive hifi sales.
Glad to see you in front of your equipment
Glad I stumbled across your channel. I saw the turntable one the other day and this one popped up. There's an older gentleman that is into Audio Research equipment. The two power amplifiers that he marvels over (but he has many different types) is the Audio Research that's 125 watts per channel RMS vacuum tube and the 250 watt RMS vacuum tube one. He played the intro to the live version of Hotel California from the Hell Freezes over CD and to me there's nothing that sounded like it. The bass was really tight and it had a warmth that I can't explain. I wish I remembered what kind of speakers that he had. They weren't ordinary. They almost had a "futuristic" look to them and were from 1973. My main amplifier is a Nakamichi TA-4A receiver. It sounds really nice to me and it's super clean. I had to repair it, but it was worth it (it didn't cost anything but the hot solder and my time troubleshooting). Thank you for sharing.
One of the interesting aspects of Far East society is that about the only thing that they can show socially acceptable emotion publicly, is their hobbies.
That 60 hz thing you mention, the floating amplifier: I have a story of 60 hz that's not the same but may illustrate that it can be a true problem. I had a system in a house that I could not get to sound correct. I took the speakers and amp to my friend's house, set it up, sounds beautiful. What's wrong? Well, the house I lived in was connected to a garage used by my landperson. Turns out, she was always running a generator in their charging batteries for a relative. The 60 Hz hum from that damn thing was poisoning my entire house. When I moved, I never had the problem again and my system sounded as pristine as I heard at my friend's house when testing.
It was not the 60hz that probably was causing problems.
EMF was probably inducing currents into the circuits of your system but I am surprised there was no shielding present to overcome this.
The cables must have been really close to your system which would be more of a safety concern.
Thank you for sharing this story. This is why before purchasing any system, regardless of where I live it and which room the setup will be in. I always ensure to test the power on the outlet and have always used a Power Center/ Noise Filter / Surge Protector. You will be amazed at what a difference it makes.
so just buy power plant for that and problem is gone (ps audio sells them for ex.)
Your stories are amazing!
I enjoyed those stories very much! Thank you!
AMAZING FUCKING VIDEO STEVE!!! Keep telling us more stories of your past!
Great experience vid. Smiled the entire time. Priceless.
Here's my view, for what its worth. It's not about spending £1000s. First record player I had at 16 was a Dansette. A big heavy box about 2ft square that sounded so good, with a wonderful bass sound. Best listening experience I ever had was lying in my bedroom as a young boy with a fresh pair of ears playing my few LPs on that system. Because I just loved that simple little piece of kit. That's a feeling that spending £1000s sadly can't replicate.
Amazing stories
Random question, are those X-LS's on the stands in this video? I lament the history of AV123 but those were some great cabs. Even if they might be a bit pedestrian for your taste!
I visualize Steve Gutenberg in Pulp Fiction’s glowing suitcase. Bengwa balls to stand your amp with.
Interesting anecdotes Steve. Thank you.
Love the stories Steve! Love the title of this video more! Can’t imagine what inspired it :)
I like that pass labs amp in the background. Good amps.
Steve, been here in China almost 20 years and I just came back from a few days in Guangzhou whereby I had my first opportunity to visit the famous audio gear neighborhood there, pretty incredible and a crazy rich Asians dream come true. Imagine a couple hundred high end audio stores carrying everything you can imagine on display, even stores that are like department stores decorated like museums, I kid you not. Cheers, Mario, Shenyang
I recall a story from several decades ago about a Japanese guy who spent over 3 weeks of every month soldering battery cells together just so he could power his high-end hi-fi from pure DC for a few hours for one weekend. I can't find it now, but it always struck me how dedicated they could be to the cause.
I connected some car batteries together to power my equipment for a while, but in the end it wasn't really worth the hassle so I took it all apart some months later. A really well made and regulated power supply sounds just as good to be honest.
Little did he know, that man was a legit yakuza.
Cool anecdotes Steve!
Love your stories!!!
Symposium Rollerblocks and platforms. Yes, they make a significant improvement with most high-end components but at a high price. Years ago we decided to take the DIY approach. I mean, how hard can it be to buy some ball bearings, have a machinist drill out concave cups in aluminum blocks, and glue together platforms made from various density constrained layers? After spending time and money, we ended up with worse sound. You could hear the distortion from the ball bearings chattering on a micro level. My friend finally pulled the trigger on Symposium Rollerblocks, Superballs, and Symposium platforms while I finally went the route of Star Sound Technologies Sistrum platforms. We both have high-end systems so the improvement was quite noticeable.
Moral to the story: 1) In high-end audio, everything matters - the platforms, components, power conditioning, cables, and tweaks. 2) While high-price doesn’t necessarily equate to high-end, high-end audio is expensive. 3) To each their own. Wilson Watt speakers sound like glorified boom boxes to me.
Symposium rollerblocks are bad ass. They work
I just discovered your channel! I've learned a lot already, thanks!
These stories about your customers I could listen all day , you should do 1 about your craziest or worse customers
steve love your audio passion, i have sae equiptment, technics sl110a turn / sme arm , with allison one speakers...happy listening folks !!
listening to your floating amp story, makes one wonder kind of of mushroom were being smoked?
When you said he took you out for dinner, I thought for sure you were getting a new 10k system in your house.
Azn guy here, Steve, crazy maybe but not rich. What I notice is that the majority of the AZN guys are serious audiophiles - even the guys who work regular jobs. There are many guys (sorry, but I do not know of any female audiophiles) who spend 5K on an amp and 20K on a pair of speakers, yet drive a Camry or Accord (I still don't get understand this mentality yet). And they love to brag about their audio/video systems to even people they have just met!
He's talking more about people who has 200 000k + to use on stereos and still have money for stereos for their flirts ( They're still audiophiles though ).
One thing i'm curious about is what sound signatures asians are going for, since most of the ones i've met is going for a more analytical and maybe cold sound, which is quite similar to what i like myself.
@@wheeledllama7907 Here's what most Asian guys like: turning the treble and (sometimes) bass knobs to the maximum level(s). They even install separate tweeters and place them on top of the main speakers. I think John Atkinson, Micheal Fremer or Steve would not like that idea.
I'd love to hear some stories of nightmare customers you've had over the years
A rich Asian tobacco importer I knew did not want to wait in line for a new Maserati, so he bought a Maserati Dealership. Interestingly enough, he didn't seem to care if he sold any of his deliveries. I remember his sales manager being contacted by a New York, New York person who got wind of a new Maserati just dropping at the dealership. The guy wanted to deal. The sales manger said, "I'm not going to sell this car to you at any price, cause I don't like your attitude." Then, the sales manager hung up on the guy. I looked down at the pennies in my Bass Wenjun's and thought I might need those two pennies someday, so I'm not sure I would have been so cavalier as the sales manager but I also thought, wish I could afford to hang up on some of my obnoxious customers.
I love your cloth. Such unique and cool fashion.
Coolest shirt I’ve seen all week!
You remind me of guitarman Albert Lee. Great stories!
They do shop at the same store and have the same barber. ☺️
Love your stories Steve
These videos are very enjoyable :)
Sorry that logic of floating amp is BS... but entertaining though 😆
strange on an amp, definitely on a speaker though, only thing i can think of is the force was enough to move the system as a hole assuming the bearings allowed no friction that allowed there to be no change in position relative to everything else so no buzzing would be created. Seems super strange but I'm guessing it would be something similar to a coil chine you often hear on high power graphics cards (not in terms of sound but why it exists)
What were the bookshelf speakers beside you, Steve?
Awesome stories bro!
4:07 "It's All Ball Bearings Nowadays"
Audiophiles are the common mans best friend, they replace their gear regularly ,sometimes cheap, thank you god.
Awesome stories 😂
How long did you work at Crazy Eddie's? :)
I love hearing these stories. I hope to find some audiophiles, here in Mississippi/Tennessee...
you are a great find!
interesting things to hear. always is nice those kind of experiences. thanks for sharing.
I would have sold those returned cables and got something else for thousands of dollars... had he given them to me.. Cables? Man the physics of this stuff is mind boggling -
I am sure cables make a difference - but with thousands of dollars of cables I would have preferred thousands of dollars in a MacIntosh or something of the like...
It's so nice to discover your Nirvana and then be so excited and rich enough to share it on that level. Thats what I would find fun about being rich - to have that much passion and have the generosity to share (even when it is somewhat Sugar Daddy like) as long as it is coming from a good place (not manipulative - but truly wanting to have someone else have nirvana and enjoy seeing that in their eyes). What a blessing. Using power to do good things and share good feelings - that is, as they say -" What's Up"....That must have been so much fun for you, and was compensation for having to deal with people who did not know how to behave with their fortune (making others feel like poo poo). Good memories fo you Steve - so cool!
Peace
Some people on Audiogon think the opposite... EX: Spend $10k on an amplifier, and attach $1k speakers. The speakers are apparently "just showing how good the amp is" according to them. Quite silly I think, considering it's harder to make an accurate speaker than it is to make a flat microphone or amplifier, the latter of which are almost always flat in the audible range, and have distortion an order of magnitude lower than speakers are going to have.
$10k probably are needed when doing some sort of complex signal processing or maybe in some high end system playing to an audience in a stadium.
In the home they serve no purpose.
@@bighands69 Besides power handling, they also make no difference in any audio context. For other kinds of signals in the ghz range they can though, or for very long data runs extra shielding would be important.
@@stevenswall Cables definitely make a difference, but you can get technically "perfect" (at least for human hearing purposes) cables for less than $100, or for speaker cables, less than $5 per meter. It's kind of funny to see people pay thousands for stuff like this, especially when some of the people put their stereo in a room with absolutely AWFUL acoustics, which will affect the sound quality 10-fold more than a decent speaker (not exaggerating, look it up) and more than 100 times bigger difference than the cables.
geeze....
THAT OLD LADY TELLS A DARN GOOD STORY !!!!!!!!!!
Steinway & Lyngdorf have the same belief. They make a CD player that comes in an extremely heavy chasis to fend off distortion.
Please tell us more stories about high and low rollers. Bet you have 100s of interesting stories.
All audiophiles are more or less the same - they love sound... and music. So, they-we are all ok people.
Dragan Antonijević audiophiles love kit not music. That's my problem with them.
@@TrueFilter I am an audiophile and I like the result = music, sound, not so much equipment. And for PsycheGaming, I'm a musician too and I play guitar, so I'm not a problem for any of you two. Those with whom you (and all of us real audiophiles) have a problem, it would be better to call them audio snobs or something like that, because audiophile is a nice and complex word, which means a fan of sound (someone who loves sound). It is composed of the Latin word audio = sound and the Greek phile, philo = fan, lover (same as a philosopher = lover of wisdom). Cheers!
@@TrueFilter this is a gross generalisation . Where are the results of your research published? I would love to study it.
Great stories Steve. You have amazing taste in music equipment, but I'm starting to question your fashion choices. ;')
I wonder when we will hear Crazy Rich Africans ...?
So, did he share any of his Japanese models with you?
Good stories! Spectral make some of the best transistor amps. (crazy expensive, but very rare type of sound)
It would be heaven having lots of Asian girlfriends
Sir (dude), I was going to write anyway and you have reminded me. I've watched a lot of your reviews, and others. I had 4 Bose 10.2 speakers in my surround system since like 1987. A Polk audio sub (younger) and an old klipsch center. I thought it was a pretty sweet system, but lately I kept listening to my friends newer systems. And frankly I learned the hard way how poorly those Bose 10.2's sounded, I got successfully marketed by Bose years ago. Which is embarrassing I consider myself immune to marketing. Not so, lol.
That's not the story, just the preamble, hang in there, this is good. So I ordered 4 KEF Q750s, sold my Bose 10.2s on Ebay for $25.00 more than they cost in 1987 (holy F). Got my new KEF speakers, a new and much better Klipsh center cuz the KEF center would not fit in my stereo cabinet. Recycled the Polk sub. Bananna plugs, new wire. Got high cuz this was gonna be fun and I knew it. Spliced all that stuff together, sat on the couch (bong handy) flipped the switches and holy Shit. It was like I had never heard music before. Listened to all my old favs on my new system and got a really big hard on. I'm 64 so that's a lot more rare than it used to be.
That's not the story, this is just the Pre, Pre Amp. The speakers came with carpet spike feet. I have drop dead gorgeous expensive Travertine floors. I was not putting those spikes on my floor. The speakers were sitting on the plenum on my floor. So I searched around, Amazon sold a variety of "feet" for those spikes to use on hard floors. Little steel washer thingies the go beneath the spikes. I added furniture feet felt pads the the bottom of the washers also to isolate the sound from my floor. Added the spike feet, with my new washers, with my felt pads. Put it all together, sat and listened and immediately noticed my new speakers seemed to sound even better? I chalked that up to better pot. Kept listening, turned it off, and back on. A few days passed, and I realized those speakers not only sounded better in my living room. They sounded better in the next room... all through the house? Those KEF speakers sounded significantly better using the spike feet (and washers) lifted off of the floor (maybe 1 1/2").
I'm still dumbfounded by that, just wanted to share. Love the show.
Hugs
Randy McLean
I need a rich asian that buys me an audio system
I made my own cnc roller isolation with ball bearing. It works wonder with speaker but i never test with amplifier.
Dude got a $4000 tip
Love the “Spaniard in the works cover” in the background
Yamaha has some anti vibration technology... Is it related to the story of that amp over ball bearings?
A kilobuck for a one meter RCA cable? Further evidence that there truly are people with more money than sense.
lmao, dont think cables making a difference? smh. BAD
cleanerpath94 Not sure if you're making a joke or not.
audiofool
I have some magic beans...wanna buy ?
@@superlameusername362 It's called Audiophile
My town has a very strong alliance with japan and yeah japan people make great audiophiles and all round great people.
Awesome stories! I would have loved to be an audio salesman with those kinds of experiences. Audio nuts tend to be quirky, but nice.
I would buy the 200 at $350 just for the all of digital features and sub woofer connection.
Nice a riveting watch Thanks
Cool never knew about rollers. Interesting theory behind it. The more you know
It's short of fetish..... Though I haven't herd many audiophile grade system but I love the dynamics the openness the fiedelity they provide. When you start loving it you spend hell lot of money for small things as well. No matter how much people say that expensive cables are shit but they do make difference, ofcourse there there are scam products, but it is everywhere.
Re: your mention of the validity of expensive cables, I would refer you to the YT channels of Audio Science Review & also that of Ethan Winer.
Those rich bastards.😂 Love the stories, Steve.😊
Great stories bud
If I were crazy rich , two words : WESTERN ELECTRIC
You mean the old stuff? If you do, why?
A better investment than gold, too!
Steve...maybe this question is out of line...not sure. I've been listening to you for a ling time and I know you will likely say "if you like how it sounds, that's all that matters...." but, this weekend I bought a recapped and upgraded Sansui AU-317. It is driving my Monitor Audio Silver's beautifully (REGA RP1 Ortophon Red). Very warm tube-like sound....here is the kicker....is this an "audiophile" system or just a musically enjoyable system? Is my rebuilt AU-317 up there with some decent modern gear? Not trying to be a value shopper---just loved the unit and bought it and it made me happy....
The way you describe it, it's both an audiophile and musically enjoyable system!
@@SteveGuttenbergAudiophiliac knock me over with a feather:) Made my day!
Hi! My dad has his 317 (but I think 317 II), with matching tuner and celestion ditton 15 xr since he bought it all in 81 or 82 or maybe 83. In Croatia. I have lived 7 years in Calgary and I've listened many many times my tracks on big pathos monoblocks, rega 8 and grand utopia em at my favorite store in Calgary that is now closed. There is nothing wrong about 317. Sounds even better than bigger 5, 7 or 9 models. To the day its default sound tone. 100 % true hifi audiophile product.
@@boris994 yeah, this is my first restored amp. Mostly I figured they paid a lot more attention to phono sections back then and that it would be a better phono section than someone tacked onto a new amp. I think my gamble paid off.
@@peteanddrake4242 phono is very good for a integrated but it is not the best. But still good.. Even has a Subsonic filter just in case you wanna listen loud! And that sweet sweet volume pot...
I love you so much and i am your fan from iran♥️♥️♥️
Yes, I'll admit we have money... but not many of us would buy ball bearing stand snake oil!
First , I'm a poor working man blessed or cursed ( depending on how you would look at it ) with good ears . I would be the first to admit that there are many snake oil beliefs on audio that prey on the insecurities of those who love music enough to invest strongly . That being true there are legit mods , tricks that do work that even today engineers can't truly explain the how and why .
You see , when your low middle class you are always on the lookout for those designs that rock the industry in musical quality for a measly amount of money . ( note that I don't say audio quality ) So in the middle of the snake oil desert some do have merit even if they do defy explanation and against the word of the Audio engineer gods .
manuel perez please help me!
So audiophiles in their 50s spend shitloads of money even though they can't even hear anything above 12khz .
Sounds about right.
Yeah but they can hear everything else, so why not hear "everything else" at it's best? Jealous much?
Sounds about right!
Murrant Diller It’s not about frequency as such, but tone.
He has cash and he can spend it jealous much
I am in my forties and can hear frequencies to 18khz and I am a classically trained musician and have been studying classical music since I was a child and I have no idea what many of these audiophiles are talking about.
I have a system that costs about $2000 and I showed it to my friend with a live orchestral performance on CD and he could not tell the difference between that and his $200,000 system.
Most of this is psychological. I bet you could trick many of them with a bose set up and they would probably have an allergic reaction and break out in some audio psychological seizure.
@@formaset
I can hear 18khz but so what. I feel most of it is nonsense.
Most audiophiles are rich. The ones that arent rich usually work in the industry