Robert February 22, 2024 Collecting, Commentary

TOM PORT and Why More Audiophiles Don’t Take His Advice

A while back I learned of a show on Youtube featuring Tom Port. It was, in fact, Tom himself who alerted me he’d be on, and shortly after it aired he asked me to watch it and share my opinions, which I did.

Tom and I then had the following email exchange, which he suggested I put on my site.

Tom: I think I owe you an apology for asking you to watch that video and make notes. It’s clear to me now it wasn’t worth your time, sorry about that!

Me: Not at all Tom! Any show you do or article you write, I’m always
interested. I always learn something from you.

And while I may not always find the topics of conversation on these shows particularly interesting, I enjoy watching you on them because I’m fascinated by the dynamics between yourself and the other guests.

You challenge them, and it’s interesting to see how they respond to that.

Years ago when I was very early in my now 30+ year relationship with yoga, I was taking Bikram yoga classes in San Francisco. I was pretty good at it for a relative newbie, and very bullish on the school I was going to and what I was learning there.

One day I ran into a guy who I knew from that school. He had been going there longer than I had, and he mentioned he had recently started going to a different school where they taught a very different style of yoga. At one point in the conversation, he just came right out and said to me “Robert, it’s better.”

My first reaction was to get upset. “He’s arrogant!” I thought. “He’s overstating his opinion!” “What I’m doing is great and others I respect also think so. Who is he to say it’s better?”

I hemmed and hawed and wrung my hands and made a fuss, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t go and take a class at that school very shortly thereafter. And after I took that class, I never went back to the first school again.

I went on to make a career out of yoga and movement, disciplines on which I would now consider myself something of an expert. And while I’ve long since moved on from that second, “better” yoga school to get where I am, it was knowing I had to get past my reactions to being challenged, get over myself as it were, and go out and learn for myself what was better and what wasn’t that has led to what I consider to be a pretty successful career doing very rewarding and valuable work.

Now that I’ve had a similar experience with audio, I understand where many of the people watching “these shows” are coming from, and how and why they get upset with some of what you say to them.

I’ve been upset with things you’ve said to me on numerous occasions Tom, but I’ve managed to train myself to not waste my time stewing and instead get on with the business of seeing for myself if what you’re telling me is wrong is, in fact, wrong, and whether what you’re saying is right, is right. After all, it’s never personal. You just have a way of dispelling knowledge that is more direct than is comfortable for most people’s egos.

Fortunately your track record is so stellar it’s made it relatively easy to succeed in my training to get over my reactions. And if I ever do start questioning whether something you recommend is worth trying, I don’t have to think very far back to a past success for encouragement. Plus, I know at this point that I can always count on you for that encouragement as well.

It’s frustrating that more audiophiles aren’t willing or, if we’re being honest, able to accept the challenges you put in front of them and respond the way I have. I never considered myself all that special in my ability to confront challenges and accept criticism, but perhaps I give others too much credit and myself not enough.

In any case, it would seem most audiophiles out there are struggling to get past whatever it is that keeps all of us from growing into our full potential in this hobby. We might argue that some just don’t care enough, but when we consider that those same people seem very hungry for advice on what is the best pressing of this record or the other, it would seem they very much do care on some level. They just don’t like being challenged all that much.

Anyway, sorry for the long email. I just find this whole business rather fascinating. That is, when I can get over my initial reaction that “these guys” are just a bunch of idiots and see they share the same challenges and insecurities that I do.

I look forward to your next appearance!

Please share!

12 Comments

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Denny says:

February 23, 2024 at 7:06 pm

Very long and thoughtful response to a very short email from Tom. Hard to imagine myself getting an email response like this in the real world. Love your passion Robert!!

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- Robert says:
  
  February 23, 2024 at 8:17 pm
  
  Thank you Denny! It was a moment of inspiration that inspired that response.
  
  Reply
Richard Metzger says:

February 25, 2024 at 7:50 pm

I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon a few months back going down a deep rabbit hole on the Steve Hoffman Forums. Two of the terms I searched for that day were “Tom Port” and “Better Records.”

It was interesting. Obviously Tom would be controversial on such a forum. It looks like he gave up posting there years ago, but a common element to his interactions there was Tom offering up what *he knows* to be a statement of fact, but it’s taken by others like he’s being smug instead of helpful. There’s almost zero exception to that sort of reaction.

Which says more about the posters there who are replying to Tom than it does about him. The Hoffman forum is *already* a place full of crazed loners whose entire self-identity is wrapped up in their prowess as record collectors and it’s rife with absolutely ridiculous flame wars and pointlessly aggressive fanboy nattering. Throw Tom’s two cents into the mix–or merely mention his name–and it becomes pretty combustible there. The most innocuous of comments can see someone getting butthurt.

Easy to see why he left. Nerd fights get tiresome fast. (I noticed Adam sticking up for Tom and arguing naysaying Better Records haters to a standstill with “um, there’s a money back guarantee.” Also that Steve Hoffman himself sticks up for Tom and vouches for his integrity in several threads.)

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ab_ba says:

February 26, 2024 at 9:47 pm

Richard, I started a thread on SHF called “The Better Records Appreciation Thread”. After two weeks and 13 pages, the whole thread got taken down.

There’s no tolerance on that thread for the information Tom and Robert are sharing.

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Richard Metzger says:

February 27, 2024 at 8:33 am

I saw that thread and tried to contribute to it. The post never went live and then the thread was gone. I might have been the final straw before they tanked it.

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TOM PORT says:

March 5, 2024 at 5:47 pm

I always find what happens on the Hoffman forum interesting, at least on some level, but ultimately the reason it can have no real value to anyone pursuing better sounding pressings is that there is no way to judge the credibility of the posters making claims for the sound of the pressings they are discussing.

Whom do you believe?

How these folks go about determining which pressings sound best to them and which don’t is a mystery, to everyone.

But there is a way to do it right if you actually want to contribute to the knowledge of others who are part of the audiophile record collecting world.

Robert shows you his stereo, talks about the improvements he’s made to it, then plays records and reviews them, sometimes on video even!

How he comes by his opinions is key to knowing the value of his opinions.

Nobody on any forum that I have ever been to seems to appreciate the value of this approach.

All the things that are key to making good judgments — the tweaking, the tuning, the setup, the equipment, the room treatments, the mistakes, the breakthroughs, all of these things and more — are simply never part of the discussion.

For good reason. I suspect these forum posters have never done much of this kind of work, don’t understand it or the need for it, and simply believe that what they hear coming out of their speakers is every bit as real and reliable as what comes out of any other speakers.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

The result is that instead of actual empirical knowledge, we get lots of conflicting opinions, any one of which is as good as any other. Everyone has their say. They’re all experts.

All well and good, it’s what audiophiles like about forums, especially Hoffman’s.

But apparently there are some opinions which are beyond the pale, and a line must be drawn. Hoffman is the line drawer.

Why not? It’s his world. He can run it however he likes.

If people don’t like the way he runs it, they have other places they can go to post their opinions. Some of these place surely have folks with ears that are more receptive.

I’m fine with all of it.

Thanks for reading,

TP

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Alex Bunardzic says:

March 7, 2024 at 4:37 pm

Two or more people, sitting in the same room listening to the same equipment, doing shootouts of various pressings of the same album, may very likely disagree on which pressing is better and which pressing is not as good. At the end of the day, it really boils down to personal taste. And de gustibus non est disputandum (“in matters of taste, there can be no disputes”).

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Slime says:

March 20, 2024 at 2:48 am

Robert. Once question. When we that picture of Tom taken?

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- Robert says:
  
  March 20, 2024 at 4:23 am
  
  No idea. It was a photo Tom asked me to use back when I interviewed him several years ago.
  
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TOM PORT says:

March 22, 2024 at 3:23 am

I actually do not know when that photo was taken. It was during the quarterly sales days that Record Surplus used to do, probably around 2007-2010 most likely.

I am proud to have my picture taken after picking up that early pressing of the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto, although nowadays we find the Ashkenazy/Kondrashin recordings for Decca from 1964 have the best sound. Stick with the originals. They are truly outstanding.

Regards,
TP

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TOM PORT says:

March 22, 2024 at 3:39 am

I disagree with Alex here:

“Two or more people, sitting in the same room listening to the same equipment, doing shootouts of various pressings of the same album, may very likely disagree on which pressing is better and which pressing is not as good.”

Having done plenty of shootouts of one kind or another with audiophile friends and hangers-on, it is rare for anyone in the listening panel to prefer a pressing that the others did not like as much. I can’t remember it ever happening.

If the stereo is doing its job, the differences are usually fairly obvious and no one in the sweet spot doesn’t hear it.

I’ve retired and no longer play records in shootouts, but 80-90% of the time, the same stampers that I knew well from the old days still win the shootouts.

And when different stampers win, I chalk it up to the new studio having better sound than the old one, not to any matters of taste.

Now one could argue that I chose my main listening guy for the job because he shares my taste in sound, but I think if you like the sound Robert likes, you will like the sound I like, you will like the sound our customers like and we will all agree what the best sound is.

How anyone can play the average Heavy Vinyl pressing and not hear what’s wrong with it is not a mystery. It’s mostly a case of the playback being at fault. Robert himself has written about this extensively, as have I.

The White Hot Stamper pressings win the shootouts, they clearly have the best sound, and they almost never are returned for anything but surface noise.

Second- and third-tier quality titles, yes, they are doing some things right and some things less-right, and one can prefer one set of strengths over another set of strengths.

But the best is the best and nobody ever has trouble recognizing it when they hear it, in my experience anyway.

Regards,
TP

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Alex Bunardzic says:

March 25, 2024 at 9:43 pm

“How anyone can play the average Heavy Vinyl pressing and not hear what’s wrong with it is not a mystery. It’s mostly a case of the playback being at fault. Robert himself has written about this extensively, as have I.”

I’m in complete agreement with that. It is quite easy to agree with my fellow listeners on a bad pressing. It always sticks like a sore thumb.

But when it comes to several pretty good sounding pressings, I often see slight disagreements begin to emerge. Some people crave better soundstage and imaging, while some other people crave body, texture, slam, while some tend to gun for impressive bass performance, etc. I had several experiences where some LPs offer amazing almost real life soundstage while remaining a bit shy in some other qualities. And vice versa.

Then again, there are those rare birds, those unicorn pressings where everything is just perfect. But in my experience, those tend to be quite rare to find.

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The Broken Record

TOM PORT and Why More Audiophiles Don’t Take His Advice

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