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January 27, 2009 - 11:33am
#1
Shoot me if I ever go this far
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What's the point of all that collecting if you can't listen to it? There's just so much stuff, there's no way to enjoy most of it. You wind up with your own radio museum.
I'm sure that's exactly what Marx meant when he said, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Yes, I'm aware that China hasn't been a Communist country in a long time. My question is who is going to break it to THEM. 
Some of the comments are cool:
"Mr. Li's assistant (he has a full-time employee to take care of the systems) played some multichannel SACDs and the effect was mind-blowing.
The sense of space, continuousness of the soundstage from front to back, and immersion were as good as I've heard from any multichannel setup."
For another room: "Again, the sound was spectacularly great; effortless dynamics, huge soundstage, and tremendous bass extension and power."
Another: "This is where we spent the next 45 minutes listening, with Mr. Li choosing selections from his vast library. Watching him adeptly run the system, along with his ability to put his hands on any piece of music he wanted to play, showed me that all this gear wasn't for the sake of having the gear, but of using it as a vehicle for exploring the world of music.
There was a reason we spent most of our listening time in this room; the sound was extremely warm, beautiful, and musically engaging. Mr. Li had had the Kharmas only two weeks and said they needed more break-in time."
Sounds like he has the same bug we do, but no 'off' switch!
If by "off switch" you mean "credit limit"...
Yeah!
He has a financial gas pedal, but no brakes!
He seems like a great guy.
I see it as PURE gluttony. Where the line gets drawn between passion and gluttony is hard to define but this guy is so far on one side the point is almost moot. As a capitalist I believe he has the right to amass as many audio products as he wants, but just because you CAN do something doesn't mean that you SHOULD do something.
Mr L, I could quiz you about your take on Randian Objectivist Ethics but let's not go there for now. However, when you say 'doesn't mean you SHOULD' is that a comment on the ethics or the psychology of the gentleman collector?
What I'd really like to know however is how those massive power conditioner/protection thingies improve the sound of high end gear. It's always annoyed me that you can spend a fortune on high end equipment yet somehow it still needs to be protected from the real world. Something doesn't add up.
It's a sad reality of AC power systems that they have noise in them. This noise comes through quite clearly in linear PS systems in linear power amps. Not much can be done, except to have your own power company, or spend similar to fix the AC power.
Or use my method. Run all you audio gear off a large bank of solar powered batteries. I still don't understand why high-end audio gear can't include well designed power regulation and noise suppression from the get go. Am I asking too much?
or maybe it does, and this power stuff is just one more shelf filler for the tweak/fringe/mystic crowd.
I use them too(Richard Gray), but...
It was mostly a comment on the morality of it, which of course is somewhat subjective.
There are some ultra high end brands that encourage their customer to NOT use power conditioners because of their power supply. Boulder immediately comes to mind. Ayre also says that using a traditional power conditioner with their products can reduce performance. Charlie Hansen puts an incredible amount of thought into power supplies. They recently came out with a power conditioner that does no surge suppression increase what the power supplies of their components are doing and so that people that use non-Ayre gear can get the same technology. As far as surge suppression goes Ayre's take is that's what home insurance is for.