Ken McCarty has spent, oh, about $500,000 on his stereo system.
He keeps it in an acoustically isolated room. His twin speakers stand 5 feet tall and weigh 465 pounds each. There’s a pre-amp, an amp, a turntable and lots of other heavy gear stacked on shelves 6 feet wide and 5 feet high.
Just the cables to connect all these boxes cost $40,000 or $50,000.
“That’s just a guess,” said McCarty. “I’m not sure I want to know. … I’m very embarrassed when people realize what it costs. It’s crazy. I am a fanatic.”
McCarty, 50, is the chief financial officer for a hedge fund in Dallas. He’s been collecting equipment – and thousands of records and CDs – since he was 15. He frequently flies to Denver to buy gear from an outfit called Audio Unlimited.
“Colorado,” he says, “has some of the finest producers of high-end audio equipment in the world.”
Many of these companies will be exhibiting their wares at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (www.audiofest.net) at the Denver Marriott Tech Center today through Sunday. Exhibitors include Broomfield-based Teres Audio, which makes a $13,000 turntable (yes, it’s just a record player) cased in cocobolo, an exotic rosewood from South America. Then there’s Boulder Amplifiers, which McCarty swears are the best in the world. And Littleton-based Bolder Cable Co., whose custom-made cables cost only about $500 a pair.
Bolder Cable founder Wayne Waana nen said his $500 cables are all most audiophiles really need. So what’s up with the $50,000 cables?
“This would be used in a very expensive rig with people trying to get that final (tenth) of a percent,” Waananen said.
For McCarty, it’s all part of his lifelong quest for audio perfection.
“I’ve been all over the world listening to classical music in all the great concert halls,” he said. “I know what live music sounds like, and I’m trying to replicate what the real thing sounds like.”
McCarty is a rare breed. Of 36,000 subscribers to The Abso!ute Sound magazine, only 12 percent spend $100,000 or more, said editor Robert Harley. On average, his readers spend about $13,000.
“Music can be reproduced with a quality that most people don’t know exists – and it doesn’t always have to be expensive,” Harley said.
I talked to several audiophiles this week, and I’ve decided that they are nuts. Many of them would rather listen to old vinyl records than CDs or iPods. And they’re willing to spend thousands of dollars on machines that use a 1906-vintage technology known as vacuum tubes.
“Some people believe they sound better,” said Al Steifel, the Audiofest’s founder and owner of Red Rock Audio.
Steifel builds amplifiers that sell for nearly $40,000. They use glass tubes that are not made in Silicon Valley. “Actually, they are Russian-made,” he said. “Those factories have been around a long time.” As has the steam locomotive.
Art Tedeschi, 58, founder of the Colorado Audio Society, keeps speakers that are 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide in his standard-size living room. “My daughter’s friends thought they were beds standing on end,” he said.
His turntable runs on two air pumps, which make a little noise, so he keeps them outside and runs the air hoses through the wall. “One sucks the record down to the platter, and the other one suspends the tone arm,” he said.
“It’s better than being at a live event,” he said. “I can sit in my listening chair and almost point to sort of holographic images of the musicians playing behind my speakers. I can differentiate the 2 or 3 feet of space between each musician. … A lot of folks say they don’t have those kind of ears, but when you bring them into a room with a good system, they hear the difference.”
Mark Medrud, a design engineer, told me he went to a meeting of the Colorado Audio Society many years ago and hasn’t been the same since: “When I left that first meeting, all I could think of was, ‘How do I rearrange my life so that I can afford this kind of stuff?”‘
Melrud likens his quest to disease – but keeps to his shoestring budget.
“I have the disease,” he said. “But I’ve never had the disposable income.”
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to him at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-954-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
