| June 1, 2010
Absolute Nonsense
 On
May 12, in the Blog section of The Abso!ute Sound website (www.avguide.com),
Jonathan Valin wrote an article about a set of electronics from
Technical Brain, a Japanese firm. In Valin’s words:
-
“almost
everyone who has used the monoblocks (at least here in the
States) has had
one or
both of them fail on him at some point”
-
“Technical
Brain is
not distributed
in the
U.S.”
-
“Their
creator, Naoto Kurosawa, is a genuine master. Now if he can only
bring his great talent to bear on the problem of reliability
with U.S. current -- and then if someone over here can find the
guts and taste to take on the Technical Brain line -- then we
very well may have a
new
reference standard in electronics.”
I added the
italics. Please
read all the
italicized words quickly in succession before you move on.
Let me get
this straight: They all break. No one seems to sell them, at least
in North America, perhaps because they all break. You, the consumer,
can’t hear them, either because they all break and/or because no one
sells them. But the
Technical Brain TBP Zero v2s
are the best thing in the world
(unless they break, and they all do). Although there is no current
price that I can find, the Technical Brain products aren’t priced
like NADs -- an old reference to the amps I found online had them
priced at over $33,000 USD per pair.
If you’re a
manufacturer of audio gear, and particularly if you’ve been in
business for 10, 20, 30 years, how do
you feel about this piece
of journalism? You pay employees, pay rent or a mortgage on a
building, use your talent and skill to develop a product line that
in some cases is generations old. But if you read between Valin’s
lines, you’re being told that your products sound second-rate when
put up against a product that you can’t hope to compete against
because they all break and no one sells them. Well, maybe you’ll
catch up one day. Keep trying.
If you’re a
consumer, why would
you
even finish reading the article? You can’t hear the product, and you
can’t buy it -- and why would you, given that they all break? What’s
the point? Is it the pleasure of exploring a think piece on the new
“best” electronics in the world? Don’t forget, your system sounds
nowhere near as good as the one anchored by the Technical Brain
components -- they’re the best, remember? And just how bad
is
your system, in comparison? In terms of resolution, this one is “an
order of magnitude higher,”
according to the article. It’s not
just better, but
ten times
better than what you have. Might as well throw your gear in the
dumpster.
I don’t know
Naoto Kurosawa. He may well be a genius of
epic proportions. And his products may be well respected in Japan.
But wouldn’t making sure that your products don’t all break be --
oh, I don’t know -- something you ought to do before offering them
for sale in a new market for
ginormous amounts of money? I wish Kurosawa the best of luck,
but I have no interest in hearing his products, or writing about
them, until I can say with certainty that they are a safe bet for
the consumer. Here are my criteria for legitimacy:
-
Behind
the product should be a company that can fix it,
regardless of the country in which the product is sold.
-
There
should be real sales channels where, preferably, the consumer
can evaluate the product, and which will support the product.
-
There
should be a warranty that the company will honor, and that will
expire while the company is still in business.
Magazines
should stay away from products that don’t meet any or all of those
criteria. Those that promote dangerous, unreliable, or unsupported
products do a disservice to established manufacturers that have
worked hard to make rock-solid lineups, and to consumers who spend
their hard-earned dollars. They ultimately damage the credibility of
the magazines that promote them,
and cast a shadow over
high-end audio as a whole.
I could go on
and on about what makes a legitimate high-end product, protecting
the consumer at all costs, writing relevant articles, etc. But do I
really need to? Aren’t the problems with pieces such as Valin’s
obvious to everyone? Am I off my rocker for letting it bother me so
much?
The Technical
Brain piece is a load of bullshit.
The Abso!ute Sound should have known better than to publish it on
their website.
. . . Jeff Fritz
jeff@ultraaudio.com
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