I begrudge no one their largesse or experience. Whether that experience is derived from the hard work of reviewers or the frequent ability of others to change and buy new STUFF. It gives others at various tiers standards to strive for as we all continually try to learn more and be better. I recently helped a close friend audition an array of speakers and like to think I provided meaningful contributions. I thought “a ship would come in” for me later but no such luck. Doing the next best thing produced surprising results. Better speaker wire, new speaker positioning, quieting of my room’s resonance all significantly totaled a smile producing result. A new Marantz CD6006 CD player didn’t hurt either as this player punches far above it’s weight class. If fortunes change, I know exactly what I would do and why. Until then, as Kurt Vonnegut would say “And so it goes.”

At some point in your 50’s (just yesterday, right?) you come to terms with who you are, why you ended up as you did, and are good with the outcome. Sometimes your career chooses you, as helping the disabled thrive was not my most lucrative talent but it just needed doing. The road to Olympus might start with “if I had $5-10,000 what would I do for a single component or pieces and why would I do it?” A good example of this is the vision quest of TZ50. From there people might ratchet that up to the carefully considered (and outstanding) choices of stalwarts such as Kal Rubinson, Jason Victor Serinus, John Atkinson, Thomas J Norton and a pantheon of others across a number of publications.

Well past the summit of Olympus lies a cosmic entity that puts all comic book powerhouses to shame. Thy name is Mikey Fremer. No mortal mind can contemplate a creature in the multiverse that can approach, never mind surpass him. Aside from singlehandedly saving the turntable, he is his own standard when people say someone has “gone all Mikey Fremer.”

Mikey has outdone himself as a standard I doubt anyone will ever approach: It has almost nothing to do with wealth. For most of the rest of us we might get a “these sound very nice” and a once a decade pity approval of the wife to get something new.
I never thought I would hear stories of a woman born of woman say not one but 2 things: That 1) experiencing a component was “better then sex” and 2) “you have to get these speakers.” Thanks, Mikey. No small feat making Olympus look bad by ALSO having a goddess for a wife. That’s being just plain greedy.