Neil Peart. Ghost Rider

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I’ve been on a kick reading about rock stars. The past few weeks I’ve read Keith Richards bio, Life. Guns n’ Roses drummer Stephen Adler’s sad read and porn star Ron Jeremy’s book Hardest Working Man In Showbiz (not really a rock star, but close enough).

I just started reading Rush drummer, Neil Peart’s book, Ghost Rider. Poor dude! He lost his daughter and wife within a year. The book is about him hopping on a BMW motorcycle and hitting the healing highway. I love drums, autobiographies and travel books! So far, it’s been hard to put down.

Buy Local. If you can..

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99% of the people who come into my shop are well behaved and pleasant. There are a few “special” visitors who make me feel like that kid Stephen on YouTube who freaks out. Have you seen this kid? whoa! anger issues!

Times are tight. I don’t blame people for trying to save a few bucks by shopping around. But I DO MIND if you:

1. Use my knowledge, time, gear and services to make up your mind only to buy the same products I offer on the web.

2. Come back in and gloat about how you bought on the web AFTER wasting my time. I’m not going to be thrilled for you, just pissed. Ignorance is bliss.

3. Buy grey market goods on the web that I sell locally and then resell them, killing local sales I have been working on.

4. Buy something new on the web that you know I carry and then ask me to set it up or fix it. This is like going to McDonalds, only to bring it into another restaurant to eat it… Also, the end result of #3. I’m not going to get your grey market, broken crap fixed. Suffer.

Ask yourself this, do you like to work for free? I lose thousands of dollars a year because somebody wants to save a few bucks on local sales tax. It’s a wash because you’ll have to pay shipping, get no warranty, possibly get burned and have zero local service. Mom & Pop shops close every day because many people don’t get it. Why would you buy something you can’t hear? I could easily close my shop and become a mail order “Ho”. My site doesn’t have a shopping cart because I like educating people and demoing systems that actually work. One on one relationships are key. Just because it’s cheaper, doesn’t mean you’ll be better off. You’ll just cobble together a bad sounding mess because “it was a good deal”.

For those of you who are my clients, thanks. a lot! Business has been great because of you. I’m glad that you “get it” on more levels than one. I’ve been doing this for almost 16 years and I plan on bringing music into your home for many years to come. It’s a heck of a lot of fun!

BTW, This rule should apply to everything you buy, wherever you live.

On that note, my pal Jonathan Halpern of Tone Imports coined a great new word!

NECROAUDIOPHILLIAC. One who scours estate sales to pilfer old, dead guy’s stereos for profit. Nice! I submitted it to Urban Dictionary!

$995 Rega DAC better than the $11K dCS Debussy?

Here’s the Rega DAC review from Positive Feedback. Loaded with digital nonsense words that confuse the hell out of me, but a positive review. You can skip the asinine techno speak and just come hear it at my shop (or your local Rega dealer).
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The Leben RS-30EQ phono pre has been breaking in nicely but it looks like I’m going to have to bite the bullet and get in the Auditorium 23 SPU step up transformer so my Dynavector low output carts will sing.
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I’m looking at a few new turntable lines simply because I want to show more cartridges. Kuzma is at the top of the “Want List”. They have the Stabi SD table which holds two arms, sounds great and doesn’t cost $20K.