Jim Smith's ACK Attack

No revelations in his first article.....it listed everything we already know.
Hopefully he gets into some good pointers in the next one
 
HA! Had your first cup of sarcasm for the day I see Mike.:D
 
Jim Smith said:
It was designed to elicit questions, so that I might see what the readers might find interesting.
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Jim.......I get that self promotion is important for your business model. You want to sell books, DVD's and private consultation. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I found it totally unnecessary to seemingly set yourself up as THE source of accurate information while discounting forum posters as uninformed strangers and insinuating that someone who accepted information from some "stranger" might not be receiving anything of value. Granted their are plenty of inflated egos on the forums and a boatload of inexperienced opinions spouted on a regular basis, but there is also a conglomerate of intelligent, experienced individuals who have long term relationships and friendships built from years of audio forum involvement. These people are not numb skull strangers with no worthwhile information to aid their fellow audiophile friends. I found the general tone of your article to be a self promotion at the expense of those you deem the audio unwashed. It was actually a turn off for me.

Sure, I have your book. It is informational and has provided me with a number of useful tips that have helped me maximize the performance of my various sound systems. I thank you for your contributions. None the less, your book certainly doesn't constitute the only sage advice available. I have received excellent audio advice from any number of other very knowledgeable individuals, engineers, manufacturer's representatives, and seasoned forum members through the years, not to mention the personal knowledge I have gained on my own through nearly five decades of involvement in high-end audio.

I realize you are a respected audio contributor. It is good to see you published in Copper and for you to get exposure in Paul's online mini-magazine. It's like free advertising that you don't have to pay for. That's always a good thing for a business man. I would find your future musings far more entertaining and enlightening if you held the bashing of others to a minimum. Good luck with your endeavors wherever they may take you.
 
Double-D said:
Jim.......I get that self promotion is important for your business model. You want to sell books, DVD's and private consultation. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I found it totally unnecessary to seemingly set yourself up as THE source of accurate information
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Sorry, Dan, that wasn't remotely my intent. I apologize if it came off that way to you or to anyone else.

Double-D said:
Granted their are plenty of inflated egos on the forums and a boatload of inexperienced opinions spouted on a regular basis
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Well we do agree on this part...

Double-D said:
but there is also a conglomerate of intelligent, experienced individuals who have long term relationships and friendships built from years of audio forum involvement. These people are not numb skull strangers with no worthwhile information to aid their fellow audiophile friends.
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Having actually met hundreds - maybe thousands - of these folks, we don't entirely agree here on the worth of the information part. Sadly, all I have to do is look on just about any other forum to immediately find misinformation, and lots of it...

Double-D said:
I found the general tone of your article to be a self promotion at the expense of those you deem the audio unwashed. It was actually a turn off for me.
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Sorry again. Maybe I should have inserted an "in general" modifier on those statements. Years ago, when I originally wrote it an earlier Quarter Notes, it received a great response. As a Get Better Sound owner, you should have seen it, as all GBS owners receive the Quarter Notes as a part of their purchase.

Double-D said:
I would find your future musings far more entertaining and enlightening if you held the bashing of others to a minimum. Good luck with your endeavors wherever they may take you.
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Thanks! It never occurred to me that I was bashing folks. Maybe it should have. I was trying to get some response so as to know how to write answers as well as future articles.

I do appreciate your comments.
 
Jim.......I appreciate your even tempered response to my post. I was hoping you would not take my comments as a slam on you personally as that was never my intent. I respect your wisdom and your desire to share your knowledge.

I read your article twice before commenting in my post just to make sure I wasn't overreacting to my initial response. I felt the same upon the second reading. Even then I thought three times across the course of a couple of hours whether to respond with my thoughts or just leaving it alone.

I am in total agreement with you with respect to the volume of misinformation that gets published in online forums and treated like the gospel. To say it is epidemic is an understatement. Fortunately for all of us there are still gems of wisdom that are offered and prove useful. You just have to learn to glean the jewels from the carnival glass.

Once again, I appreciate your polite response.
 
Jim,

I enjoyed reading the article and am happy to see you on Copper. It's hard to get credible information in audio and I do consider your recommendations seriously. It's refreshing to see your reply to Dan's post. While I agree with Dan to some extent, I also have experienced ACK pain on more than one occasion.

I look forward to reading your commentary on Copper.

Regards.
 
First, I've known Jim personally for many years, and in my experience there is not a single self promoting cell in his entire being. Jim is the antithesis of a self promoting salesman and in fact has worked hard to purge that kind of attitude and demeanor from the audio community. He's been to my house twice to help with my set up and I've been to 2 of his locations and listened to 3 different system set ups in his dedicated rooms over the years. We've also exchanged dozens of emails and had numerous discussions on the phone.

Jim is extremely humble, very helpful, and incredibly knowledgeable. And as I've incorporated many of his ideas and techniques into my systems, he's always been right! In fact, of all the folks I've met in the audio profession, Jim has had the most profound influence of anyone in helping improve the sound of my systems. With that said and with due respect, I find Dan's comments to be completely inaccurate and unnecessary. Jim's extremely tempered and thoughtful response above stands as a testament to his remarkable character. There is a lot more I'm tempted to say about this but will leave it at that.
 
Tedtag.......That is what makes online forums fun and keeps them interesting. People get to express different thoughts, view points, and opinions you may not necessarily agree with. I respect your point about knowing and associating with Jim Smith. You have a personal relationship with him that I do not. Perhaps my original comments would have been different if I also shared the same knowledge of him. None the less, my post was about my initial impression of his short article in Copper and not about Jim personally, which I made clear in a subsequent post after Jim's kind comments to me. Whether or not you consider my comments inaccurate and unnecessary doesn't influence my perspective in the slightest. Just like you, I am entitled to express my thoughts. You are entitled to express your thoughts and opinions as well, although I get the impression Jim doesn't need a referee or a cheerleader to support his position, but I'm sure he appreciates your enthusiasm. Jim's response to my post impressed me and gave me insight into what he is hoping to accomplish with his articles. I did not have that insight when I initially penned my post. As they say, hind sight is always 20/20.
 
I'll start this by saying, I have no idea who Jim is.
I did however read his article in Copper a couple days ago.
It was, to me, so incredibly accurate that I seriously thought about copying and pasting it across a number of forums. (or at least some key excerpts from the beginning).
The "signal to noise" ratio across most forums is terrible. Period.
Worse, the "noise" is not just drivel from some who have too much time on their hands, it is just plain wrong.
Frankly this site, and one other, are the only two that I pay any attention to anymore - at least they are civil (good job Mike!) and with better/more accurate content.
Jim - whoever you are - I bow down to you.
 
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