My good friend Jim Cohen is a world renown chef and makes the tastiest ketchup you've ever tried. Compared to Heinz or your favorite supermarket ketchup, Jim's is just head and shoulders better than anything I've ever tried. We could easily say Jim's ketchup is high-end.
Heinz is everywhere: it's convenient, tastes good (not great) and soon it'll most likely be even easier to use - I just read about MIT's discovery of a new surface that is so slippery even ketchup won't get stuck in a bottle anymore - and I'll bet you money this'll be the next reason they will urge you to buy bottled ketchup - not because it tastes better but because it's easier to get out of the container.
So why are you reading about ketchup in Paul's Posts about high-end audio? Because our society's trend toward quick, easy, convenient vs. taste, experience and quality may well affect the future of high-end audio, separates and all that goes along with it.
Tomorrow we'll start reflecting on the nature of separates in high-end audio: what their history is, what their value was and is and finally why this paradigm shift in our society is perhaps a good thing if we play our cards right.
