Ken Fritz - Audiophile Documentary

[Mr. Widget]

I've been following the Ken Lantz story for several years, and as mentioned in another thread, was fortunate enough to visit the house when they held the auction.

For an audio guy, seeing this system in person was like a visit to the Great Pyramid.

I had a very nice conversation with his daughter and several of his audiophile friends who were there to answer questions. I didn't get a bad vibe from any of them about Ken.

When I read the Post article this weekend, I was quite surprised at the family backstory and particularly about his relationship with his eldest son.

Any way you look at it, this is a sad story... nice to see that Fritz was able to "complete" his dream before his health failed him, but sad to hear that he allowed his obsession to damage at least some of his personal relationships and of course sad to hear that his time to enjoy the fruit of his and his family's labors was cut so short.

Whether building an audio system on the lunatic fringe or amassing the ultimate robe collection, there are lessons here for all of us. I thank Fritz's family for sharing their story.

 

[Digby]

So we are 100% clear, there are thing KIDS can say that will stop you from wanting to help them. No ifs ands or buts. 7.9 billion people on this earth now
with ONE man and a dream that has passed. His family was one lucky bunch to say the very least. His oldest could have made it right and still can by
admitting he was wrong. A simple act of contrition from a BRAT goes a long ways in the stearnest of fathers.

Don't you think you might be at risk of doing to the son what you others are doing to his father, essentially being presumptuous? FWIW I don't care about the story much, but I don't think airing this dirty laundry has helped anyone. I still wonder what the author was looking to gain or is any scandal $$$$ waiting to be claimed, such is the price of capitalism?

I think the author has dealt people into hi-fi (who, these days, number about the same as people into model trains) a blow, because an association will made by readers.

The only person doing well out of this story is the author.

 

[kemmler3D]

I've watched this thread dip into the WBF world of pure assumptions and talking ill of the dead. No I don't like it. Nor do I care for comments about
his family life. He was a successful businessman that raised a family. He had one kid that was an ASSHOLE and as a son will realize the rest of the
family had the same choice. To embrace their fathers dream or not. I'll bet good money his first born is a full blown brat. I seldom got to see my
kids when the school years started. For 18 long years (between my two kids and their 2-30 different friends we raised) I struggled between 3 jobs.
The wife worked full-time and time spent with my family was WORK time, not play time.

I may not have gone on the family vacation, because of work, but I made sure my family had what I NEVER had as a kid. A VACATION. I came off a
working 55 acre sugar pine farm in Prattville Alabama. I was the youngest so I drove the old Ford 8N (5 years old) tractor. I remember when he had
the money for a 9N. The PTO would disengage if you depressed the clutch, nice feature.

So we are 100% clear, there are thing KIDS can say that will stop you from wanting to help them. No ifs ands or buts. 7.9 billion people on this earth now
with ONE man and a dream that has passed. His family was one lucky bunch to say the very least. His oldest could have made it right and still can by
admitting he was wrong. A simple act of contrition from a BRAT goes a long ways in the stearnest of fathers.

His oldest is very lucky that his father even mentioned his existence, my father would have struck his name from the family Bible and never spoke his name
again at some point. You can only be the prodigal son if you act like one. It's a wonderful story of redemption and JEALOUSY about BOTH sons.

I wish his family well and I personally will pray for his oldest son. I'm a praying audiophile, imagine that.

BTW My kids didn't come with instruction manuals. It's obvious with his first, his didn't either.

Side note: My only regret in my life at this point, is that I didn't have 3 wives at the same time and 15 adoring children that all married billionaires
to give me 100 grandchildren and build me a palace and a tomb. One so I can enjoy and the other so they can visit their wonderful GRANDPA after
he kicked the bucket.

Regards

I didn't watch the doc but there was nothing in the article to support the idea that the eldest son was the main problem.

I'm going to rely on the math to make my judgment here. He spent a million dollars on himself instead of the family, to the point that they didn't have time or money to go on vacation, ever.

e: I should say that for me, that's the canary in the coal mine. Plenty of otherwise great parents don't have the resources to provide things like vacations to their families. It's the fact that he had a choice about what to do with his time and money, and from where I sit, it looks like he highly prioritized his own wants, not the family's.

No parent is perfect and some kids are just brats or worse. But in this case I mostly see a severe misallocation of resources on Fritz's part.

"One man with a dream" is just a euphemism for "One nutjob with an obsession" depending on who's telling the story.

 

[tmtomh]

I've watched this thread dip into the WBF world of pure assumptions

Of which your post is an excellent example.

 

[pavuol]

"I have enough vinyls already."
[said no Fritz ever]

 

[Esprit]

I didn't read the article because it's paid but I understood by reading the thread.
My only comment as a European: what an ugly decor.

 

[beefkabob]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/deep-reads-the-real-cost-of-one-mans-1-million-stereo/

 

[beefkabob]

Podcast version.

 

[Gringoaudio1]

I didn't read the article because it's paid but I understood by reading the thread.
My only comment as a European: what an ugly decor.

He’s actually trying to look European. Ha ha ha.

 

[BobbyTimmons]

It's sort of the ultimate realization of the audiophile mythology - if you want better sound, throw more money at your system and you'll get better sound. There's no doubt Ken got "bigger" sound for his money. But that doesn't necessarily mean better sound. I've been to a lot of concerts over the years, and I don't think any of them could hold a candle to the sound quality I get from my $600 headphone setup in terms of clarity and detail and instrument separation etc. I mean sure, a few of them made my bowels vibrate and my headphones can't do that, but all that gut punching power definitely came at the cost of a lot of sonic clarity. And I've never been at a live show in any large venue that had any sort of sensible spatial positioning of instruments. It's pretty much just sound coming from everywhere in my experience. I think the whole spatial positioning aspect gets over-played a lot by audiophiles. Ken put together what he felt was an amazing system. Personally, beyond the first 10K (or maybe/probably even less) dollars I think all he really got was bigger sound for an unnecessarily larger room.

That is not what Fritz did. He didn't just throw money at the system, he designed and built it himself. He said many times he doesn't care how it sounds in the end, it was the journey and the hard work of the project that brought him happiness. This discussion is full of people who are commenting on him without bothering to watch the video first and see what his real views were.

 

[BobbyTimmons]

I've been following the Ken Lantz story for several years, and as mentioned in another thread, was fortunate enough to visit the house when they held the auction.

For an audio guy, seeing this system in person was like a visit to the Great Pyramid.

I had a very nice conversation with his daughter and several of his audiophile friends who were there to answer questions. I didn't get a bad vibe from any of them about Ken.

When I read the Post article this weekend, I was quite surprised at the family backstory and particularly about his relationship with his eldest son.

Reading these comments brings to mind the family dynamics of some friends/ acquaintances of guys with big boats - particularly sail boaters, who race. I've seen a number of these guys who are successful, Type A's with 40' plus sailboats who turn into absolute tyrants once the starting guns sound. They are obsessed with their boats and winning the race and F U N doesn't factor into the equation. That's why I no longer crew on these boats. I isn't any fun for me.

I'm betting Ken was like a number of these sailors. He was apparently a successful business man with disposable income, but I speculate that Ken probably didn't have a lot of other hobbies than his sound system. As one who apparently, didn't sit still well, it seems used all of his spare time focusing on this project.

The moral of the story, to me, is have a couple of hobbies/ passions in life, truly appreciate your friends and family and be content with a full and well rounded life filled with good (maybe not the absolute best) experiences and memories.

He had 5 children. Having a bad relationship with 1 out of 5 is not so out of the ordinary statistically.

 

[Pearljam5000]

His speakers were sold at auction for like $10K
I thought they were worth a lot more than that

 

[tmtomh]

He had 5 children. Having a bad relationship with 1 out of 5 is not so out of the ordinary statistically.

What a bizarre (not to mention unconvincing) response to @TheWalkman ’s post.

 

[Axo1989]

What a bizarre (not to mention unconvincing) response to @TheWalkman ’s post.

It's a mantra.

 

[pseudoid]

I have a tl&dr way of saying this but KenFritz' version is much more appropriate for the history books videos.

 

[BobbyTimmons]

What a bizarre (not to mention unconvincing) response to @TheWalkman ’s post.

What a bizarre (not to mention unconvincing) response to @BobbyTimmons' post. TheWalkMan said Fritz's family and friends gave him a good vibe about the man. The article was trying to uncover something negative to write about Fritz to titillate its readers. The worst the article could find was a bad relation with one of his 5 children. Statistically if you have 5 children having a bad relation with 1 of them is not much evidence for the article to muster for its narrative about Fritz's alleged neglect of his family. He had a good relationship with his wife too. His other son made an adulatory video about him. This is audio science review. You expect people might have critical thinking. Someone who has a bad relation with 5 of their children you would have some evidence for the thesis he 'neglected his family'. He had a good relationship with 4 of his children and his wife. We only know about a bad relationship with 1 of the 6 family members mentions. In Amazon reviews it's 84% approval. We also know his friends gave a positive vibe about him.

 

[BobbyTimmons]

I didn't watch the doc

That explains a lot of your comments here.

 

[Axo1989]

He said Fritz's family and friends gave a good vibe about the man. The article was trying to find something negative to write about him to interest the readers. The worst the article could find was a bad relation with one of his 5 children. Statistically if you have 5 children having a bad relation with 1 of them is not much evidence for the article to muster for its narrative. He had a good relationship with his wife too. His other son made an adulatory video about him. This is audio science review. You expect people might have critical thinking. Someone who has a bad relation with 5 of their children maybe you would have some evidence for the thesis he 'neglected his family'. He had a good relationship with 4 of his children and his wife. We only know about a bad relationship with 1 of his family members. In Amazon reviews it's 84% approval.

FFS the article does not say he had a "good relationship with 4 of his children and his wife". I know that won't stop you ...

 

[BobbyTimmons]

FFS the article does not say he had a "good relationship with 4 of his children and his wife". I know that won't stop you ...

Another example of a lack of critical thinking treating the article as the definitive summation. You believe the journalist not mentioning his good relationship with his other family members is evidence of its absence. It's evidence of the narrative he wanted to create. He had a good relationship with his other children and wife including posts on other forums, interviews with his daughters, adulatory videos made by his son and even an eyewitness statements from people who talked to his family.

 

[Axo1989]

Another example of a lack of critical thinking treating the article as the definitive summation. You believe the journalist not mentioning his good relationship with his other family members is evidence of its absence. He had a good relationship with his other children and wife including posts on other forums, interviews with his daughters, adulatory videos made by his son and even an eyewitness statement on this page.

No I wasn't doing that, and I did watch the doco. As I mentioned upthread, it was hagiographic. You are positively weighting the uncritical material. I mean, who slags off their dad or their mate to a stranger at a wake?