RESPONSE
TO
TRIODE GUILDOSITY


Be a Beacon
of Beaudacity

BECAUSE MY GOAL IS TO AGGRAVATE YOUR AUDIO ORTHODOXY…TO CHANGE YOUR MIND..AND BECAUSE NOTHING IS MORE DIFFICULT THAN CHANGING A MAN'S MIND…here are some responses from you…the musicmaniacs of the world…read on and right on with your right arm.

Dr. Gizmo,

I'm kind of a lurker, I've been following your antics for the past 20 or so

years, and take this opportunity to write you to thank you for enriching my

audio life immeasurably. I've been interested in audio ‹ not the hardware

so much as the experience ‹since I was old enough to charge my first

Marantz receiver at the local audio store when I was 18. I've come a long

way since then (well, maybe).

The point here is not to get mired in specifics, but to thank you for all

that your audio insight has done for me over the years. Hell, 20 years ago

when you were at NYAL, I was an assistant manager at a Woolworth's, and I

flat couldn't afford what you had to sell, although I coveted it greatly.

Now I'm 42, got a Ph.D. from Stanford and run 2 industrial websites for a

living (which affords me time for the obvious.) Along the way, I have been

able to acquire most of the equipment that NYAL designed and built, before

I got caught up in the old "'Stereophile' my amplifier's bigger than your

amplifier" crap. Last night taught me the error of my ways.

 

Dear Dr. Gizmo,

After reading you articles, investigating your website, and raising my

musical conscience, I have begun to be aware of the wholeness of the

truth contained in your mantra. Being inspired by this, I have begun to

look into the darkest corners of our hobby in order to find like-minded

individuals who could be receptive to your Fourth Wave ideas. Launching

discussion after discussion in many a chat room, I have found some who

are with us, but unwilling to come to grips with their musical/artistic

seeker lives, and others who are totally blinded by the anti-musical

B.S. that has infiltrated the audio world. From you I need advice. How

can I more fully express the Fourth Wave Modality to people? Can the

light of musical truth be shone upon the unbelieving through me? Help

me foster the musical shaman I know is within me. Anything you could do

for me would be appreciated immensely. Thank you for the inspiration.


Dear Dr. Gizmo,

I want to dance naked in front of my turntable.

I blame you.

You have to take the credit and the blame. You, Doc Bottlehead and all

the inmates over at the Bottlehead forum. I found your website back in

February while surfing for information on tube radios. I began to read

your essays and was intrigued by your style. I read and read and read.

I explored the websites you recommended. I even printed some of your

essays and read them on the potty. The more I read the more I wanted to

taste that sweet triode cream. I had been perfectly happy with my

mid-fi Kenwood receiver. You changed that with your persuasive

arguments against transistors and in favor of tubes.

Thank you Dr. Gizmo!

 

Hello Dr. Gizmo:

Been catching up on your articles lately after months

of business. Really enjoy your writing. Keep up the

foreplay, don't compromise your art for those who need

quick answers. Pretty much your audio writing is

without compare.

 

Hi Gizmo,

I have been chowing down on your ideas for a year and want you to know that

I have learned more about Musical Truth from this site than all other sources combined.

Your Majesty:

Your style of writing and sharing information is my cup of soup that really

gets to the heart and soul of what is music is about and how to get to it

without going postal on your life savings.

 

Hi There Dr. Gizmo,

A while back, I made a few sets of the Listener Magazine published DIY

Interconnects. They were really great! Problem is that I gave them all to

friends, kind soul that I am. Anyway, I lent out the issue and never got it

back. Would you be so kind as to remind me of the proper gauge of wire? I

still have all the Radio Shack parts in a box, but it comes with 3

different spools. By the way, thank God that you exist. Your warmth and

enthusiasm for this crazy thing called music is highly contagious and helps

the less technically inclined.

 

Hello Doctor!

I want to tell you that I have been able to appreciate the virtues of

an old girlfriend that I just got back together with, in part because

of your writings. It seems as though Tubeguy has an attraction to the

tribal/animal type of lover, and you helped me to validate this- my

goddess is decorated and proud, and I couldn't be happier.

Given my sheltered, suburban upbringing, I would not have been able to

break out of my shell if it weren't for your writings.

Keep it up, your views will continue to positively affect the

thermionically-aware.

Joe

 

Dearest Doctor

I found the PF piece to be a fitting way to slid away into the future; part Burroughs, part McKenna - PURE Rosenberg.

Surely one of audio's (and Hyperspaces') greats.

I remember my amazement reading "Understanding Tube Electronics" on the way

home from Bobby's Alexandria store, Excalibur, a freshly purchased copy already becoming dog-eared.I woke up the next day to a caviar omelette, a tradition still carried-out

on special occasions.I thirsted for the $10k stack o' tubes..pant, pant.

Thanks you for enriching all our lives.

Dear mr. Rosenberg,

Around a year ago I tried to send you a letter but never succeeded (because

the letter returned with a 'adress unknown', the adress came from your

ecstasy-book). But now I see your web-site and got your e-mail address.

In 1995 I wrote a book-review of your 'search for ecstasy' for the dutch

magazine 'Audio & Techniek'. I tried to make a comparison between Pirsig's Zen and Lila and some of your concepts and thougths.

Anyway, a few months ago I published a book on management, quality, the

business of commercial services, the internet, the new economy and decided to put in some related audio-topics as well.

I am glad to send you a copy of the book but since it is written in Dutch

you wouldn't understand must of it. You can see the cover of the book and

some lines of comment on:

Dr. Rudy van Stratum

 

Dear Dr Gizmo,

I have been reading your articles about audio on the magazines The Listener

and Positive Feedback and in the sites of PF and Enjouthemusic for a long

time, having acquired a great respect and admiration for your works.

I consider you a trully great audio expert & guru with a genuine knowledge

about sound reproduction.I think that all the audio community around the world has

the same thinking about that and that your articles must be read by everyone

with a genuine interest in audio.Your articles and great knowledge are very precious for me and for manny audiophiles in the world.

Allways you,

 

Hi Harvey,

Good to be able to read your stuff again after quite some time.I

need your span,breadth,vision,experience,and humor,to be able to laugh deeply.

Thanks,Raanan

 

Your Excellency:

You are one crazy son-of-a-big-gun and this neurotic audio world should thank you for it big time. Whatever you do, just keep up being a crazy son-of-a-gun. We have too manyboring writers in the audio world.

Dear Harvey:

Thank you for the article about Christianity in Russia. Funny thing about the

appreciation of music and fine sounding audio equipment using 300Bs is that I

have never heard, read, or seen anyone deranged and detached from GOD who is

appreciative of music and finer things in life. Ergo, it must be that only

GOD loving men like you and I appreciate music and 300Bs because it is a

by-product of this reverence that roots from knowing and believing that there

is a loving Supreme Being out there. Without that we are just walking matter

who thinks pentodes are the way to go.

 

Hello dr. gizmo!

i have been a fan of your website and have been evangelizing it to some

friends of mine lately. i am a just barely past being a spring chicken but

i have been bitten by the audiophile bug, and much to the ANGST to my well

entrenched audiophile friends have eschewed the monster krell/ML

electrostat route because of a visit to our local hi-fi retailer and have

HEARD with my own ears the difference between HI-FI hype and a simple

CaryAudio SET-integrated running a simple pair of JoesphAudio 2ways. i

havent forgotten the synergy, and i find nothing quite adds up to what i

heard in the BACK of the hi-fi shop ..

compared to what they REALLY WANT TO
SELL.

 

Hi Giz-

I just felt inclined to pop you an e-mail saying what

a pleasure it's been reading your column once again. I must

admit I laugh out loud once or twice with every Gizmo writing.

Add that up with the circulation numbers, and you have alot

of smiles out there in the mostly dismal stereoland.

Thanks again for your cheerful insight, experience and wonderful

sense of humor. Kind of gives a guy the warm fuzzies.

Hello Dr. Gizmo:

Been catching up on your articles lately after months

of business. Really enjoy your writing. Keep up the

foreplay, don't compromise your art for those who need

quick answers. Pretty much your audio writing is

without compare.

Don

 

Hi There Dr. Gizmo,

A while back, I made a few sets of the Listener Magazine published DIY

Interconnects. They were really great! Problem is that I gave them all to

friends, kind soul that I am. Anyway, I lent out the issue and never got it

back. Would you be so kind as to remind me of the proper gauge of wire? I

still have all the Radio Shack parts in a box, but it comes with 3

different spools. By the way, thank God that you exist. Your warmth and

enthusiasm for this crazy thing called music is highly contagious and helps

the less technically inclined.

Thank You!!!

Jon

 

Dr. Gizmo

Well, your influence has extended yet another level

into the psyche of the Modern American Male. Yes,

I'm talking about me. This morning I ordered a

kit for Apollo 1 amps from Ron Welborne. At some

point in the not so distant future, I'll be able to

groove to the spiritual SET monster.

I don't yet know whether to thank you or curse you.

Actually, I can unquestionable thank you for

re-awakening in me a sense of appreciation for simplicity and art in

mechanical creations. In other words, I stop looking at specifications, and

start listening to the music.

Eric

 

Dear Dr. Gizmo,

They won't go away! They won't die! (Well, some of them have gotten

sick). They are the SuperITs! Mild-mannered, unassuming little phono

stages that contain untapped potential beneath their plain, black cases.

. .

But I don't need to tell you that -- you were there at their birth. You

nurtured them and sang their praises to the great unwashed masses. You

sent them out to make their way in the world. To some rapt audiophiles,

you were "Mr. NYAL", if not "Mr. SuperIT".

 

Dr. G,

       I am writing on behalf of a small group of IT and SuperIT owners

that have gravitated together on the internet to share our limited

knowledge of all things SuperIT. Several of us have broken IT's, several

have stock, unmodified SuperIT's, a few have Mr. George Kaye modified

SuperIT's, but all of us have a thirst for knowledge. That is why we

prostrate ourselves at your feet, humble supplicants at the alter of

your greatness!

 

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All the material contained within the above articles may not be reproduced without his express permission.