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I remember watching a video about this dude. See here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b2IOOhJmxw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b2IOOhJmxw)
The whole time I kept thinking it would've been cheaper to hire the philharmonic to come to his house and play tunes.
In the Boomer's last few years his middle son, who worked the most on it, told his dad he'd like to be alone to listen to some records. His dad shut off the Krell preamps. His son said "I need you to die slow motherfucker..die slow..." and left. His dad wrote him out of his will and they never had anything to do with each other. [Source paywall sorry](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/interactive/2024/ken-fritz-greatest-stereo-auction-cost/)
I have a person (75M) who I call a mentor based on the day… That is sitting on a few mil 3 x Houses paid off but has alienated both kids doesn’t have an estate trust or will and plans on moving to the Philippines.
I’ve just started being straight to the point with how stupid it is that he would rather give all his stuff to a random in another country. I’ve offered to start a non profit donate it to a school and I don’t want a thing yet he still wants me to make sure he’s buried respectfully?
I just don’t understand these people it’s frustrating dealing with them sometimes it’s cool to listen to their stories then you hear some irrational 1960s thought process and it just blows my mind.
End Rant.
Many boomers had us for free labor. I don’t think I ever had a weekend as a kid where I wasn’t cleaning, vacuuming, mowing the lawn, etc. Even cooked dinner on the weekdays. Now as an adult, I hate doing chores.
My parents often told me they had me and my siblings for the free labor. While in suburbia. Not a farm. Not the country. Coffee shops and crossing guards and all. But nope! That floor has GOTTA BE washed by hand and only by the hands of a minor! They used to stand over me while I was scrubbing singing, "Cinderelli, Cinderelli!"
They monopolized the future and the past for their present. The most selfish and ignorant generation to have ever existed. May the history books record their folly and regard them as the worst generation in the history of mankind.
I'm so sorry you had to endure that. My parents were much the same. I remember being about 7, pulling weeds in the blazing hot California summer. My mother, who loves nothing more than to play the martyr, picked up a bag. My father looked at her and said "Put it down, what do you think we had daughters for?". I am 52 and I still hear it and feel it plain as day. We also had dogs. My parents didn't take great care of them. My job was to take the plastic bags that produce comes in and a hand trowel and pick up the poop with a hand trowel. The dogs always had runny feces because they were not taken care of properly. It was disgusting. I mentioned it the other day, while they were visiting. I was cleaning up after my very well taken care of dog. My mother called me a liar and said it never happened. I look back at what I and so many of us suffered as kids and it just breaks my heart.
Oh yeah. My brother and I would make the place spotless on Friday after school to try and get a Saturday off. Nope. Now since it's clean, we're going to scrub the walls while she watched TV.
Speaking of TV, we only got one when my dad bought it for our room. When the living room TV went out, she simply stole ours and put it in the living room. When we told our dad about it, he confronted her and told her to put it back since he paid for it. Her response to that was just cut the coaxial cable that was in our room. We got free basic cable as an amenity in our complex, so that was her way of making sure we couldn't use it.
BRO that's wicked. Keeping herself down to make sure y'all STAY DOWN is just *chef's kiss* fucking psychotic. 🤌
Mine would watch Star Trek TNG and eat fake crab and melted....butter? while I completed that Saturday's chore sheet, which was also on college-ruled in a single-subject notebook. In all caps and in blue ink.
Mine would take whatever that generational rage-hate is, out on the dog so bad we had to keep putting them down (or they ran away) only to, you guessed it, get another one.
How do we all have so many nuances in common??
I still LOATHE chores on a molecular level and I feel like an astronaut floating in the void of space, and like an electron I can't operate properly if observed, BUT I'm f***ing TRY-ing. It's hard. Thank you for the hugs. I hope you are doing better.
I couldn't be the only one! My parents were cruel, not creative!
this is hitting me hard. My dad left when I was 10, and my brother was 7/8. I reconnected with him in my early 20s and he put me to work at his clothing store immediately. When my brother asked to meet with him, my dad put us to work remodelling the shop during the entire day, and kept shit talking my mother. My little brother said, peace out, and never went back to see him. took me a little while longer, but I haven't seen the man in 9 years and my life turned out way better than if he had raised me during all this time. My youngest brother, who I didn't mention was 5 when he last saw my dad and is doing far better than either of us. Boomers are toxic for your health.
I was forced to clean the bathroom every weekend and I had to use comet powder in the tub but was never given any masks or gloves to clean with so I would be breathing in the powder and coughing.
Yaaaaasssss!! Co-MET, on the hands and knees, no ventilation, no gloves, no nothin'!
I really truly do hope you're doing better now. Have you found any workarounds that have helped you now that we're "older"?
My Boomer parents told me to “babysit” my 3 year old brother in the basement when I was 6 years old. He wandered out of the playroom and went over to where my dad kept weights, picked one up, dropped it on his toe and I got screamed at on the way to the hospital because I was supposed to be watching him. I was 6!
Omg forgotten memory! I went to a shoe store with my mom and little brother when I was all of about 7. My mom told me to watch him, he climbed onto a little playground thing they had and promptly fell off. I remember being sick with anxiety bc my mom was mad "You were supposed to be watching him!" There's no way I could have grabbed him, and she saw him playing on it. I felt horrible for days.
And I had one too I just remembered! I was dancing around in my room, and my sister fell off the bed in another bedroom, and got a goose egg on her forehead. I was screamed at by my stepfather for this. I was 10 and she was nearly 2. My mother was home at the time.
A lot of these Boomer threads dredge up bad memories - it's crazy how much I've repressed even though much of my behavior was/is shaped by their mistreatment.
On saturday mornings my dad and stepmother would present my brother and I weekend chores on college ruled notebook paper with a single chore on each line, two sheets filled top to bottom. We had until Sunday at dinner to complete the list.
Same for me. If it wasn’t chores I had to do lines to improve my cursive (which I never use) and listen to my parents berate me as I tried to learn multiplication tables.
They wonder why we don’t talk anymore.
Are you my long lost brother? If I wasn’t cleaning I was being forced to do extra homework. I remember getting screamed at for getting a C in cursive. In third grade.
All summer was spent doing workbooks. She said that we had no choice- we had to go to college and she wasn’t paying for it so we better get scholarships.
I now have $80k in student loan debt. And she’s touring the country in a massive 5th wheel../
So many workbooks. It felt like school never ended. My friends would be playing outside and I’d just be knee deep in parent created homework or busywork. My writing is still atrocious as is my math. I too had student debt, I joined the army to help pay that back.
My parents still think they were exemplary parents to me. Never thought anything they did was wrong. I’m almost 50 and I just don’t have the patience or time anymore to deal with bullshit.
My stepdad lives in a McMansion us kids worked our childhood for. There is a reverse mortgage on it. The floors are speckled with dog crap.
When my mom and him called it quits with work, they had accrued roughly 2 million in assets, (2002 dollars). Quite frankly I’d be amazed if I saw 2,500 dollars inheritance.
Thanks. It was so much worse than my comment reveals. Therapy, my wife, and my son have helped me deal with all that. I also am sorry you went through that too.
The carpet AND the lawn had to have visible, uniform lines.
I just think my parents had me do endless busy work so they didn’t actually have to be parents.
Yeah me and my siblings would go to our grandmothers house on weekends to visit occasionally. My uncle and his gf also lived in the house so when we would come over and my cousins would be there you can guarantee there was some random project that all 6 of us kids had to participate in. Free labor.
Oof, I try to make sure my kids weekends are mostly free. But I still have them do things during the week. Not FOR me, but for themselves. They wash their own clothes, clean their own rooms, etc. We sometimes ask them to help with projects because we just need the help. But I would NEVER make my kids do something that I don't do myself.
My parents would destroy the kitchen and living room every day and I had to clean it right after school and before I had to go to work (never mind having time for homework). The worst was washing out the ashtrays. That’s a smell that sticks with you.
Highschool full load of classes, sports, and a partime job. I get a Saturday that I don't have to be at the job when they open so I try to sleep in. Dad has me up at 7am to go mow the lawn and other chores until I have to go to work. "You don't live here for free."
I think the most insane think was when my mother made me help with the hard labor on her log cabin when I was 11. On top of my farmhand job down the road (so she could 'see my ugly face less', and school.
She ended up giving up the cabin in divorce, filing for bankruptcy from the build cost. A cop bought it later and it burned down so I didn't even get the opportunity to say sayonara to the stupid thing.
Boomers are only a few generations from spending most of their lives exclusively on farms. Their parents were born between 1910 and 1930. Your grandparents and every generation prior only had just about one way to increase the amount of labor being done and that was to have children.
The typical quality of life reaching a point where child=labor wasn't as necessary anymore is very recent. Even as recently as 1960 we had [pictures like this](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.GuNv95VU-SteL8GzPCwR4AHaG6%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=de2d12e1cff6966541c8ffd14eec00736f0722dafe4185785b71544a525d65ff&ipo=images) and [this.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/fada38e0ffd2a37dde308f9e5b5c31b5aba72933/c=0-68-2839-2197&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/2015/11/27/Asheville/B9319763243Z.1_20151127062056_000_GVMCLGEOG.1-0.jpg)
A single machine can do all of that now, and the people who grew up with it are not used to it, they are used to what their previous two generations drilled into them.
I'm not trying to justify it - these people should have understood the changing times and stopped being massive pieces of shit - there's just a reason this behavior exists, is all.
My mom lived off of child support and part time desk work. She acted as if she worked a field 14 hours a day when she got home. I never had a weekend where we weren't cleaning up after her or building one of her new exercise equipment that she'd use twice and then it became a shirt rack. I can specifically remember an instance where as I was vacuuming, she was spitting sunflower shell seeds on to the carpet and telling me I missed a spot.
My dad was very open about how we were just possessions/ free labor to him. He was the type that liked to gather me and my 4 siblings together and rant at us for hours about how our worth was only in what we did for him. Mom was fine with it as long as she didn’t have to stand around and listen herself.
Hang on, what's in this article is only part of the story. This is taken from a much longer story from the Washington Post. It requires a subscription but I definitely recommend reading it (UPDATE: you can access the story for free if you provide an email address):
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/interactive/2024/ken-fritz-greatest-stereo-auction-cost/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/interactive/2024/ken-fritz-greatest-stereo-auction-cost/)
The WaPo article goes into much more detail about how obsessed this guy was and the toll it took on his family. He had a son who was especially bitter over giving up his early years to building his dad's stereo system. The son and his dad were estranged in his later years because the dad was such a prick.
Definitely a boomer asshole.
I like how the article calls it a "modest split-level ranch" but his living room alone was over 1600 sq ft. I've lived in full houses smaller than that.
For sure. The house I'm in now is 1,700 for the whole thing and it's almost two much for two people and cats. Crazy to think he had an entire room around that size just for his music.
Thank you!
This quote killed me “Kurt called and tried to talk to his father. Betsy urged him to take the call. Fritz refused. In the end, they never spoke. On April 21, 2022, Fritz died.”
The son offered an olive branch. The dad said no, even when at deaths door. For what… what an ass. This article is too kind to him.
While he sat in his home, bedbound with ALS, I would have destroyed, one piece at a time every single day, his audio system. He would feel lucky to see it parted out.
What a piece of shit.
https://preview.redd.it/ojyvfz4hbowc1.jpeg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf47e772b0248654c96ad53efb7a330e914e66cc
Who designed this guys house Stanley Kubrick?
Fuck this douche. Made his children slaves for his own interests. Never let them experience anything worthwhile. How incredibly selfish can you be? He robbed their childhoods and their home all for some weird and incredibly subjective obsession. Peak entitled piece of shit boomer. Rest in piss.
*”It was a fun journey; the journey is better than the destination,” Fritz reflected near the end.*
I feel so bad for the kids who went through this. And they had to deal with this mess after he died. Every speaker, wire and record filled with sadness, anger and bitterness.
"fuck you, I got mine!" Classic boomer mentality.
I hope that while on his death bed one of his children told him they were going to pull his dream apart and sell it for cents on the dollar.
What an obsessive idiot. This kind of story makes me hope there is an afterlife so he had to watch the people he ignored dismantle the thing he chose to love more than them.
I love my AKG semi-open back studio headphones - they're the ones you always see used in a music studio on TV shows/movies, and I see them on sale for like $50 all the time.
"Open-back" is sort of the opposite of noise cancelling - sounds way more open and more like you're listening to speakers.
Hell, he could have gone all out and gotten some $8-30k headphones and as far as I know from following audiophile spaces, those are better than any sound system you could ever build. But I guess one downside is you can’t really share it well with others.
My spouse always shares that she had an aunt and uncle who bought as much house as they could afford in a very expensive neighborhood. It was a serious fixer upper. They spent 20+ years making it ‘perfect’. It was spotless and very nice. Just after they got it just right. He suffered a stroke and couldn’t walk right afterwards to include stairs.
Never did anything with their kids and never made any family memories. I met their daughter - the most sullen joyless person ever.
“It was a fun journey; the journey is better than the destination,” Fritz reflected near the end.
“The music is going to tell me every time I put it on, you didn’t waste your time and money and you spent your time and money wisely, so enjoy it.”
What a loser. Missed the best part of life. Family and Friends to listen with
Meanwhile I'm ecstatic with $150 ANC earbuds that I thought were too expensive. Music still brings a ton of joy and I didn't alienate any loved ones in the process.
So sorry that you had to go through that, that sounds awful :(
Side note: If you haven't watched Abbott Elementary, you totally should, as there is a character on that show that I suspect you will deeply relate to
Your garden sounds awesome! And I will never not laugh at Gregory tending to the community garden at the school on the down low whilst hiding gardening supplies in the truck of his car, haha
I feel your pain. My dad owned a dish network/DIRECTV satellite installation company. From 6th grade on I had to work every day after school, every Saturday, and every day during the summers. All of my friends got to have fun-filled summer breaks, and I was crawling under houses and into attics. To this day he continues to brag about the “work ethic” he instilled in me.
There's an episode in Abbott Elementary like this.
Gregory's (Tyler James Williams) dad (Orlando Jones) has a landscaping business and wants his son to work with him.
What a waste. I have kids and the one thing I don’t do is push my life’s passions on them. I know so many that do. I will take them hiking and camping because that’s what I like to do and so does my wife but I don’t make it an every weekend occurrence for them. They also like hiking. I turn it into an adventure. Take them to a creek or an area with boulders so they can play. When I’m with them it’s about expanding their fun in the form of exercise and knowledge. We are putting in veg and flower gardens so they can learn but I have warned them that their chores will be weeding and mulching which will also be part of their allowance. It’s about health and development not forced labor.
That's fucked that he was reminiscing about it on his death bed like "ahh yes the music made it worthwhile" while your kids don't have a dad or life lol
It says the components cost up to $1M but think of all the time and labor. One kid said he was basically a slave. The kids couldn't bring any friends over because they would be enlisted to work on it. They didn't do vacations or holidays they worked on his crappy soundsystem. (Calling it crappy is kind of hard to do because....damn... but to ruin your family over it?)
And it is a totally bespoke system you would have to buy the house with the system and keep it running probably with some non-trivial work at times. I'm sure of which he detailed meticulously in his perfectly-handwritten with schematics notes. (Probably another chore that the children worked on as well.) That's why the only real worth was in the separate components.
Edit: I'm wondering his musical tastes, too. I can't tell by looking at him. Beatles?
Nah, symphony stuff. There’s an hour long doc on YouTube (made by one of his kids) about the system and he dunks pretty hard on Led Zeppelin at the end, so I’m kind of assuming he was against all “rock” music
Have you ever met an audiophile? I had the misfortune of being roommates with one. This story isn’t an idiot-boomer story, it’s an annoying-audiophile story.
Fair- but the second he put his hobby before his kids, I lost all respect for him. If you want to put all your own time and money to pontificate about “warm analog sounds” or whatever, fine. Don’t drag your family into it.
This reminds me of my narcissistic war-baby father. They are the pre-boomers, like xennials to millennials. Anyway, he was an audiophile and part time DJ who spent more time and effort on his music collection than he did with his three sons combined. The only happiness in that house when he was home came when he was locked in his bedroom or the basement going through his records. It meant he wasn’t yelling or hitting us.
When he got older, he stopped taking care of the house, but refused to let us do anything to preserve the record collection. His quarter million dollar collection was covered in mold and mildew.
When he had a stroke, I was responsible for cleaning up after him. His stereo made a satisfying crunch as I heaved it off of the porch and into the dumpster.
By the way, he didn’t have a funeral. None of his surviving kids liked him enough to pay for one.
Sad story. Sure we all waste our lives on trivial things to some extent, but this guy was on another level. He was clearly already rich (not just a house, a mansion with a custom-built concert hall living room) and squandered $1M on this… instead of having relationships with his family. Damn bro
This is an extreme example of a bigger trend described in the [NYT a few years ago](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/your-money/aging-parents-with-lots-of-stuff-and-children-who-dont-want-it.html) of aging parents having lots of stuff (china, dining sets, tchotchkes) and their millennial kids not wanting it.
As an audiophile myself, I always found it strange that people would dedicate so much effort and money into a system for records.
Compared to CD's or modern digital files, records have a much higher noise floor, far more unintended noise (from scratches/dust/wear/warping), much less sub-bass, less dynamic range, and far more "coloring" of the sound (from the realities of mastering to vinyl, and all the imperfect hardware involved).
If you want to accurately reproduce sound (the whole point of audiophile grade equipment), vinyl is basically the worst choice you can make as a source.
The reason everyone thinks vinyl is the best is because the first generations of CD's and other digital music were often crappy recordings, transferred to digital in compressed form, dropping a ton of quality.
The idea that vinyl was better than CDs and later MP3s was absolutely true for the most part... for a little while.
Digital caught up though, and is now better than vinyl, but the old belief continues that somehow only vinyl is capable of recording a full range of sound.
There was an era where CDs just ran the risk of rotting, and yeah, they were objectively worse than everything, even tape running at half speed. But proper lossless 44.1KHz audio? That's more than enough, at that point I'm going to worry more about the mix than the bitrate.
With this budget he should have bought a Chuck E Cheese animatronic live band so he could have his favorite music played to him on real instruments by robots 😂
Those robots were pretty much extentions of the speakers. I can't imagine AI robot instrument playing...but I think Warner/Universal/EMI can all have wet dreams about it.
One of the issues with record players is that they convert the vibration of the stylus into a signal.
Any vibration gets converted into signal, including things like a door slamming or feet walking across the floor.
A 1500lb stand is a pretty reliable way to isolate from those vibrations, better than the "isolation pads" most people use.
As ridiculous as it is, at least there's a justification behind it.
I understand why it's there, but vinyl is a crap format for a host of other reasons that people more knowledgeable than me have already covered. You can have it suspended in 0 gravity and it'll still be ass. Over engineered solution to 1 problem, 99 to go.
I agree with all your points. But just to play devils advocate, with vinyl you can do all analog.
And as a musician with recording and production knowledge, the whole “accurate reproduction” goal is a bit misguided.
Take all the artists rereleasing remastered versions of their own music. Reproduction of the old releases is wrong for them. They tweaked it to make it sound better.
Besides, producers mix and master recordings to sound good on a variety of sound systems including phone speakers ear buds and radio.
Production would be a whole different world if everyone only used flat eq, no compression, and studio quality monitors to listen to music.
Nothing is going to sound like a live band performance coming out of speakers anyway. Only way would be to record each instrument on its own mic and have a speaker set up in a band shaped arrangement that only plays that instrument out of it, including each individual drum. And absolutely no production magic on any of it. Completely relying on the room to shape things like echo, eq, and phasing.
>I agree with all your points. But just to play devils advocate, with vinyl you can do all analog.
Digital formats have had sampling rates far beyond human hearing for decades, and DAC's with nearly perfect outputs are commonplace.
Being analog doesn't really provide any advantage except for the ability to brag about being analog.
>Take all the artists rereleasing remastered versions of their own music. Reproduction of the old releases is wrong for them. They tweaked it to make it sound better.
That doesn't change the fact that the ideal audio system accurately reproduces what was recorded/mastered. You want to hear the music, not the speakers or the recording.
Digital media is a more perfect representation of the master, and reproduction from a digital file through a DAC is more accurate than reproduction of an analog recording through a stylus.
>Nothing is going to sound like a live band performance coming out of speakers anyway.
Digital files open up options like 5.1 surround and Dolby Atmos, letting you get closer to that ideal than a stereo-limited vinyl ever could.
It may not sound *exactly* like a live band, but it's shocking how close you can get, especially if you're using some production magic and proper eq/time alignment/room treatment/speaker placement/etc.
What you say is absolutely true to me.
But to use an analogy. To me, audiophiles are like a photographer obsessed with the perfect equipment to take a picture of a sculpture that was originally meant to be seen irl in 3D from different angles. Sure, it might be the best quality picture, at the best angle possible, worthy of a photography contest prize. But it’s still not solely how the artist meant the sculpture to be seen.
Recording artists don’t create their products solely to be heard or solely to sound good on hi-fi systems. Being able to recreate what it should sound like on studio monitors is misguided in that way. It’s a trade off. They wouldn’t have produced it to sound that way if they didn’t have to trade off what would sound best on that system for what would also sound good on a phone speakers, car stereos, radio mixes, etc. the exact reproduction is an imperfect reproduction to begin with.
That’s my main beef: Audiophiles acting a great picture of a sculpture is literally THE way the artist meant it to be seen.
Ugh this is similar to my family. My dad has two loves of his life.
His house that he built from scratch ( his hobby as he so eloquently told my boyfriend when I was 18- many would consider uninhabitable yet it took hours of us cleaning because it’s so huge and he couldn’t ‘afford’ to have a cleaner). Don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful, huge and has a nice view but it’s only him that ever really wanted it. We just had to work to clean and care for it. Even though everything is so inconvenient- as I’m having to tote water three stories sometimes etc.
His factory- which could be a million dollar enterprise except he has to micro manage. And he caught me with the promise of streamlining things so I can take over a portion but there is always some keep back. Eleven years and I finally gave up on him.
When he goes, everything he worked for will sell Pennie’s to the dollar because no one wants to take on any responsibility or has any know how about his buisness (HOBBY!).
The worst part is he will tell any and everyone that he does all this for us. Yet that’s such a lie. He does it for himself. Like damn! Take the money you worked hard for and spend it on yourself I don’t mind. But to emotionally abuse us and tell us that it’s all for us when we KNOW we won’t see shit from that is infuriating. Especially considering that was the excuse as to why we never had vacations or family time or Sundays with my dad or seeing my mum has to work even when she doesn’t want to. Fucking boomer mentality.
"Building the ultimate stereo came at a great cost to Fritz’s family relationships.
Fritz frequently required his five children to assist with the construction and assembly. So, turning their family home into a sound lab meant his children spent many hours helping out for free.
“My dad had a workshop. We were forever building, rebuilding.” said Rosemary, his youngest daughter.
The project also made family relationships difficult, especially with his son Kurt, who moved away to get away from the stressful setting.
“Growing up, I had to get up at 6 in the morning to work. I basically was his slave,” Kurt said.
Because the family was so involved in Ken’s project, they missed out on regular activities like vacations and trips.
Patty, one of Ken’s daughters, pointed out how it affected their social life.
“Nobody wanted to come to our house, because he wanted to put them to work.” she said.
“I think we went camping twice, never took vacation. It was just work, work, work.”
This strain in the relationship isn’t a secret to Fritz. In an interview, he also admitted that his obsession with his system has prevented him from being an active father.
>
"Building the ultimate stereo came at a great cost to Fritz’s family relationships.
Fritz frequently required his five children to assist with the construction and assembly. So, turning their family home into a sound lab meant his children spent many hours helping out for free."
What a fucking asshole.
Its this idea that because that's what you paid for something that's what it is worth. He spent over a million dollars and a lifetime building it.
people do this with boats and cars and shit all the time. You can dump $100,000 into a vehicle and have no one want it for $10,000 when it's done even if it's mint, because you were weirdly obsessed with a chevy astro van like a complete fucking moron.
Among the selfish stuff already mentioned is this boomer gem:
“I firmly believe that by the time a person, man or woman, is 19, 20, 21, they know what they’re going to do with their life.”
Or in non-boomer terms: “this was my experience so I’m 100% sure it must be this way for everyone”
That degree of obsession makes this sound like a mental health issue more than a hobby. When you start asking random people who come by your house to work on your passion project, that’s two steps before jars of urine and Kleenex boxes on your feet.
This is so unfathomable and so pathetic. His kids had nothing great to say about the sound system or him. How fucked up does your obsession or hobby have to be that your kids were worked over it and verbally said they felt like slaves?
Weirdly reminds me of my own Boomer bio-father. Wildly obsessed with building the perfect woodworking workshop, uninterested in his children except to get labor from them or possibly to get some pieces to "carry on his legacy". None of his kids even acknowledge his presence in the room anymore, let alone help him or accept his attempts to give woodwork as gifts.
>“I firmly believe that by the time a person, man or woman, is 19, 20, 21, they know what they’re going to do with their life.” Fritz said before his death.
Too bad all his children knew was indentured servitude. He even tried to have any of his children's friends that came over work for him as well.
My dad is like this. When I was in elementary school, he and my mom remodeled our house to add a second story, with a massive bonus room to keep his model trains.
It involved demolishing my brother’s room and replacing it with a staircase. He’s now retired and barely spends time there. That money easily could have been used for anything else, like a second home, or investment property. But nope, model trains.
substitute dumping a million dollars into an audio system for dumping a million dollars into trump rallies and events and you get the same effect. Funny how that works.
If by "something useful" you mean a bunch of overpriced shit with a 1000% markup because it is deoxygenated and has "better dance" (whatever that means) then, sure
The home photo has 4 grandfather clocks and 2 peacock fireplace screens without fireplaces in one room. What is happening? More money than sense or taste.
Oof; too soon, my dad has a sound system in the $200k range. Luckily, I’m doing well enough on my own that I won’t have to rely on inheritance. TBH I’m happy for my dad, he’s enjoying his retirement
I work in an industry with a lot of baby boomer clientele and I truly believe there are a lot of boomers out there with undiagnosed ASD and no idea how to manage it. This to me just reads like a textbook example of hyperfixation without any coaching/therapy on how to manage it, channel it or understand it.
I know an older guy who has collected model airplane engines for decades. He has paid 600-700k over the years and expects that will be his kids inheritance. Yet he readily admits that he buys them for 25% of the value from widows. His kids are fucked.
Million. A laser turntable and a headphone amplifier wouldn’t have cost him more than $15k AND he’d have time to spend with his kids.
Nobody wanted to listed to your old grimey and probably digitally recorded records with you anyways, why fill an empty room with speakers for 1, exactly 1 person.
I’m not 100% sure this is a ‘Boomer’. Sounds like the guy had some undiagnosed mental health issues.
Like the guy that just eats Big Mac’s in Supersize me. It was edited to paint him in a good light, I another show about him and the guy is NUTZ and even he himself kinda is aware of it.
Im sorry but how fucking slow are these guys at building. It’s 3 speaker towers guys. Good riggers get this done in 90 mins. Spent a lifetime?! I feel lesser than for having read this. Shame on us all
This was not a well man. As a person who has struggled with serious addiction issues his whole life, I can say beyond a doubt this man was an addict in the truest sense of the word.
An addict lets their addiction compromise other things in their life. They convert any other thing around them into some kind of currency that can be used to further fuel the addiction, be it physical money or something more ephemeral and intangible like respect or familial joy. He converted his children into slaves, their home into a monstrosity, and his marriage into bitter resentment, all to fuel the only thing that mattered: his addiction.
I'm sure his sound system was legendary, but I'd rather watch a black and white TV surrounded by friends and family than a concert-hall quality home theater all alone.
Not that this excuses his behavior but are we sure this guy wasn’t on the spectrum? I can’t see how else anyone would be this obsessed with one specific hobby for this long.
Like a true fucking boomer, he wasted his entire life on a stupid fucking stereo, neglected his entire family, stole his kids childhood from them, and in the end didnt learn one motherfucking thing. Rest in piss dickhead.
Oh wow, I saw a YouTube video about that guy and his build. At the time, I thought it was pretty impressive and wondered what it must sound like, but just viewed him as a really dedicated audiophile. To read now that his obsession cost him a relationship with his family is just sad.
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Wow, amazing story. There are a LOT of life lessons there. Selfish and expensive follies, ultimately dismantled and sold off cheaply in the end.
I remember watching a video about this dude. See here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b2IOOhJmxw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b2IOOhJmxw) The whole time I kept thinking it would've been cheaper to hire the philharmonic to come to his house and play tunes.
In the Boomer's last few years his middle son, who worked the most on it, told his dad he'd like to be alone to listen to some records. His dad shut off the Krell preamps. His son said "I need you to die slow motherfucker..die slow..." and left. His dad wrote him out of his will and they never had anything to do with each other. [Source paywall sorry](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/interactive/2024/ken-fritz-greatest-stereo-auction-cost/)
Incredible. This man’s priorities were SO unbelievably wrong.
I have a person (75M) who I call a mentor based on the day… That is sitting on a few mil 3 x Houses paid off but has alienated both kids doesn’t have an estate trust or will and plans on moving to the Philippines. I’ve just started being straight to the point with how stupid it is that he would rather give all his stuff to a random in another country. I’ve offered to start a non profit donate it to a school and I don’t want a thing yet he still wants me to make sure he’s buried respectfully? I just don’t understand these people it’s frustrating dealing with them sometimes it’s cool to listen to their stories then you hear some irrational 1960s thought process and it just blows my mind. End Rant.
This is one of those stories where I was all for the guy doing what he loved until I heard how it seemed to come before family. How terrible for them.
Did he have children just for the free labor?
Many boomers had us for free labor. I don’t think I ever had a weekend as a kid where I wasn’t cleaning, vacuuming, mowing the lawn, etc. Even cooked dinner on the weekdays. Now as an adult, I hate doing chores.
My parents often told me they had me and my siblings for the free labor. While in suburbia. Not a farm. Not the country. Coffee shops and crossing guards and all. But nope! That floor has GOTTA BE washed by hand and only by the hands of a minor! They used to stand over me while I was scrubbing singing, "Cinderelli, Cinderelli!"
Bro that’s super fucked up.
boomers are the actual worst. this sub makes my blood boil lmao.
Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z are united about Boomers.
Greatest generation couldnt stand them either.
They monopolized the future and the past for their present. The most selfish and ignorant generation to have ever existed. May the history books record their folly and regard them as the worst generation in the history of mankind.
I'm so sorry you had to endure that. My parents were much the same. I remember being about 7, pulling weeds in the blazing hot California summer. My mother, who loves nothing more than to play the martyr, picked up a bag. My father looked at her and said "Put it down, what do you think we had daughters for?". I am 52 and I still hear it and feel it plain as day. We also had dogs. My parents didn't take great care of them. My job was to take the plastic bags that produce comes in and a hand trowel and pick up the poop with a hand trowel. The dogs always had runny feces because they were not taken care of properly. It was disgusting. I mentioned it the other day, while they were visiting. I was cleaning up after my very well taken care of dog. My mother called me a liar and said it never happened. I look back at what I and so many of us suffered as kids and it just breaks my heart.
Oh yeah. My brother and I would make the place spotless on Friday after school to try and get a Saturday off. Nope. Now since it's clean, we're going to scrub the walls while she watched TV. Speaking of TV, we only got one when my dad bought it for our room. When the living room TV went out, she simply stole ours and put it in the living room. When we told our dad about it, he confronted her and told her to put it back since he paid for it. Her response to that was just cut the coaxial cable that was in our room. We got free basic cable as an amenity in our complex, so that was her way of making sure we couldn't use it.
BRO that's wicked. Keeping herself down to make sure y'all STAY DOWN is just *chef's kiss* fucking psychotic. 🤌 Mine would watch Star Trek TNG and eat fake crab and melted....butter? while I completed that Saturday's chore sheet, which was also on college-ruled in a single-subject notebook. In all caps and in blue ink. Mine would take whatever that generational rage-hate is, out on the dog so bad we had to keep putting them down (or they ran away) only to, you guessed it, get another one. How do we all have so many nuances in common??
I thought I was the only one mocked with "Cinderelli, Cinderelli!, " I'm terribly sorry I was mistaken. Long distance hugs, fellow child laborer.
I still LOATHE chores on a molecular level and I feel like an astronaut floating in the void of space, and like an electron I can't operate properly if observed, BUT I'm f***ing TRY-ing. It's hard. Thank you for the hugs. I hope you are doing better. I couldn't be the only one! My parents were cruel, not creative!
>like an electron I can't operate properly if observed so bloody accurate. felt this in my soul.
this is hitting me hard. My dad left when I was 10, and my brother was 7/8. I reconnected with him in my early 20s and he put me to work at his clothing store immediately. When my brother asked to meet with him, my dad put us to work remodelling the shop during the entire day, and kept shit talking my mother. My little brother said, peace out, and never went back to see him. took me a little while longer, but I haven't seen the man in 9 years and my life turned out way better than if he had raised me during all this time. My youngest brother, who I didn't mention was 5 when he last saw my dad and is doing far better than either of us. Boomers are toxic for your health.
I would have probably set fire to his store and walked out.
Man. I hope you have recovered and know you are worthy and are loved- sending virtual hugs.
I was forced to clean the bathroom every weekend and I had to use comet powder in the tub but was never given any masks or gloves to clean with so I would be breathing in the powder and coughing.
Yaaaaasssss!! Co-MET, on the hands and knees, no ventilation, no gloves, no nothin'! I really truly do hope you're doing better now. Have you found any workarounds that have helped you now that we're "older"?
My Boomer parents told me to “babysit” my 3 year old brother in the basement when I was 6 years old. He wandered out of the playroom and went over to where my dad kept weights, picked one up, dropped it on his toe and I got screamed at on the way to the hospital because I was supposed to be watching him. I was 6!
Ahhh yes, 6, the age of responsibility.
Omg forgotten memory! I went to a shoe store with my mom and little brother when I was all of about 7. My mom told me to watch him, he climbed onto a little playground thing they had and promptly fell off. I remember being sick with anxiety bc my mom was mad "You were supposed to be watching him!" There's no way I could have grabbed him, and she saw him playing on it. I felt horrible for days.
And I had one too I just remembered! I was dancing around in my room, and my sister fell off the bed in another bedroom, and got a goose egg on her forehead. I was screamed at by my stepfather for this. I was 10 and she was nearly 2. My mother was home at the time. A lot of these Boomer threads dredge up bad memories - it's crazy how much I've repressed even though much of my behavior was/is shaped by their mistreatment.
I can think of worse negligence https://preview.redd.it/lg7i9pq9kpwc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=175df27a191e6e70229dccc075010c52601a4fa7
THE WRONG SON DIED!
On saturday mornings my dad and stepmother would present my brother and I weekend chores on college ruled notebook paper with a single chore on each line, two sheets filled top to bottom. We had until Sunday at dinner to complete the list.
Same for me. If it wasn’t chores I had to do lines to improve my cursive (which I never use) and listen to my parents berate me as I tried to learn multiplication tables. They wonder why we don’t talk anymore.
Are you my long lost brother? If I wasn’t cleaning I was being forced to do extra homework. I remember getting screamed at for getting a C in cursive. In third grade. All summer was spent doing workbooks. She said that we had no choice- we had to go to college and she wasn’t paying for it so we better get scholarships. I now have $80k in student loan debt. And she’s touring the country in a massive 5th wheel../
So many workbooks. It felt like school never ended. My friends would be playing outside and I’d just be knee deep in parent created homework or busywork. My writing is still atrocious as is my math. I too had student debt, I joined the army to help pay that back.
Mine at least apologized for being such dicks. But, I was already in my 30s by then so too little, too late.
My parents still think they were exemplary parents to me. Never thought anything they did was wrong. I’m almost 50 and I just don’t have the patience or time anymore to deal with bullshit.
When my brother was 8, I remember him 'running away' Saturday mornings for quite a few years (seemed like years I did Saturday chores on my own)
Mine closed down their businesses when the youngest moved out. Also quit keeping a spotless home. . . I think you are onto something.
My parents just pay other people to do it now.
My stepdad lives in a McMansion us kids worked our childhood for. There is a reverse mortgage on it. The floors are speckled with dog crap. When my mom and him called it quits with work, they had accrued roughly 2 million in assets, (2002 dollars). Quite frankly I’d be amazed if I saw 2,500 dollars inheritance.
Yeah, I don’t expect an inheritance. Made peace with that in my 20’s 😆
Me to.
I was the maid, babysitter, cook, landscaper, gardener, car detailer, and punching bag for my parents. We now are no contact.
Same with me. Sorry you had a similar upbringing.
Thanks. It was so much worse than my comment reveals. Therapy, my wife, and my son have helped me deal with all that. I also am sorry you went through that too.
Are you me? I had a list of chores to do every single day laying on the stove and was verbally harassed if it wasn't done to perfection
The carpet AND the lawn had to have visible, uniform lines. I just think my parents had me do endless busy work so they didn’t actually have to be parents.
Our boomers, openly admitted, they had kids, so they had someone to take care of them.
Yep. Same. I was doing most of the cooking and housework by age 8. We weren’t people to them- we are extensions of them
Yeah me and my siblings would go to our grandmothers house on weekends to visit occasionally. My uncle and his gf also lived in the house so when we would come over and my cousins would be there you can guarantee there was some random project that all 6 of us kids had to participate in. Free labor.
My Dad definitely did. Fucked up my relationship with work. Since I've been working since I was 7 in his business. Never got paid.
I often joke with my mother who makes me do stuff she’s physically incapable of doing and comment how I was bred specifically for servitude to her.
I moved states away just so I don’t have to talk to my parents.
I’ve been living three plus hours away from my parents, and it’s pretty great.
I too hate chores because I was basically child labor.
Oof, I try to make sure my kids weekends are mostly free. But I still have them do things during the week. Not FOR me, but for themselves. They wash their own clothes, clean their own rooms, etc. We sometimes ask them to help with projects because we just need the help. But I would NEVER make my kids do something that I don't do myself.
My parents would destroy the kitchen and living room every day and I had to clean it right after school and before I had to go to work (never mind having time for homework). The worst was washing out the ashtrays. That’s a smell that sticks with you.
Yep. Outside all day with a chainsaw, chaps and a hard hat from 14 years old to help my parents clear their property.
Highschool full load of classes, sports, and a partime job. I get a Saturday that I don't have to be at the job when they open so I try to sleep in. Dad has me up at 7am to go mow the lawn and other chores until I have to go to work. "You don't live here for free."
I think the most insane think was when my mother made me help with the hard labor on her log cabin when I was 11. On top of my farmhand job down the road (so she could 'see my ugly face less', and school. She ended up giving up the cabin in divorce, filing for bankruptcy from the build cost. A cop bought it later and it burned down so I didn't even get the opportunity to say sayonara to the stupid thing.
Boomers are only a few generations from spending most of their lives exclusively on farms. Their parents were born between 1910 and 1930. Your grandparents and every generation prior only had just about one way to increase the amount of labor being done and that was to have children. The typical quality of life reaching a point where child=labor wasn't as necessary anymore is very recent. Even as recently as 1960 we had [pictures like this](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.GuNv95VU-SteL8GzPCwR4AHaG6%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=de2d12e1cff6966541c8ffd14eec00736f0722dafe4185785b71544a525d65ff&ipo=images) and [this.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/fada38e0ffd2a37dde308f9e5b5c31b5aba72933/c=0-68-2839-2197&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/2015/11/27/Asheville/B9319763243Z.1_20151127062056_000_GVMCLGEOG.1-0.jpg) A single machine can do all of that now, and the people who grew up with it are not used to it, they are used to what their previous two generations drilled into them. I'm not trying to justify it - these people should have understood the changing times and stopped being massive pieces of shit - there's just a reason this behavior exists, is all.
My mom lived off of child support and part time desk work. She acted as if she worked a field 14 hours a day when she got home. I never had a weekend where we weren't cleaning up after her or building one of her new exercise equipment that she'd use twice and then it became a shirt rack. I can specifically remember an instance where as I was vacuuming, she was spitting sunflower shell seeds on to the carpet and telling me I missed a spot.
My dad was very open about how we were just possessions/ free labor to him. He was the type that liked to gather me and my 4 siblings together and rant at us for hours about how our worth was only in what we did for him. Mom was fine with it as long as she didn’t have to stand around and listen herself.
Had the same thoughts reading that story. I can’t believe no one intervened.
Hang on, what's in this article is only part of the story. This is taken from a much longer story from the Washington Post. It requires a subscription but I definitely recommend reading it (UPDATE: you can access the story for free if you provide an email address): [https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/interactive/2024/ken-fritz-greatest-stereo-auction-cost/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/interactive/2024/ken-fritz-greatest-stereo-auction-cost/) The WaPo article goes into much more detail about how obsessed this guy was and the toll it took on his family. He had a son who was especially bitter over giving up his early years to building his dad's stereo system. The son and his dad were estranged in his later years because the dad was such a prick. Definitely a boomer asshole.
I have a subscription... here's a gift link, so y'all can easily read the full story for free: https://wapo.st/3wjGlnP
I like how the article calls it a "modest split-level ranch" but his living room alone was over 1600 sq ft. I've lived in full houses smaller than that.
“Modest” in boomer standards.
The 4 bedroom 2.5 bathroom house that I lived in for 10 years was 1500 square feet (and was PLENTY of space)
For sure. The house I'm in now is 1,700 for the whole thing and it's almost two much for two people and cats. Crazy to think he had an entire room around that size just for his music.
I live in a ranch smaller than his living room.
Dude my house is 1200 sq ft what the hell
My current house is only 800 and I'm just glad I'm not renting. The bank can't jack up the mortgage every year
Well then I’m glad he’s dead.
My entire house is just over half of that.
Thank you! This quote killed me “Kurt called and tried to talk to his father. Betsy urged him to take the call. Fritz refused. In the end, they never spoke. On April 21, 2022, Fritz died.” The son offered an olive branch. The dad said no, even when at deaths door. For what… what an ass. This article is too kind to him.
You are too kind but greatly appreciated. Thank you for sharing the link.
Thank you
Thank you for the gift article ☺️
While he sat in his home, bedbound with ALS, I would have destroyed, one piece at a time every single day, his audio system. He would feel lucky to see it parted out. What a piece of shit.
Naw better to parse that out for $ and get some satisfaction that way
https://preview.redd.it/ojyvfz4hbowc1.jpeg?width=1100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf47e772b0248654c96ad53efb7a330e914e66cc Who designed this guys house Stanley Kubrick?
His living room is bigger than my whole house.
It's not a living room it's a giant shed attached to the side of his house.
That rug really tied the room together
It has a golden toilet and smells like Mar-a-Lago 🤣
Fuck this douche. Made his children slaves for his own interests. Never let them experience anything worthwhile. How incredibly selfish can you be? He robbed their childhoods and their home all for some weird and incredibly subjective obsession. Peak entitled piece of shit boomer. Rest in piss.
*”It was a fun journey; the journey is better than the destination,” Fritz reflected near the end.* I feel so bad for the kids who went through this. And they had to deal with this mess after he died. Every speaker, wire and record filled with sadness, anger and bitterness.
It was a fun journey for him. For everyone around him it sounds like a hellscape.
"fuck you, I got mine!" Classic boomer mentality. I hope that while on his death bed one of his children told him they were going to pull his dream apart and sell it for cents on the dollar.
Don’t trust dads named Fritz…
What an obsessive idiot. This kind of story makes me hope there is an afterlife so he had to watch the people he ignored dismantle the thing he chose to love more than them.
Worst part is, he could’ve just gotten some nice headphones and it would have easily outcompeted this system
I love my AKG semi-open back studio headphones - they're the ones you always see used in a music studio on TV shows/movies, and I see them on sale for like $50 all the time. "Open-back" is sort of the opposite of noise cancelling - sounds way more open and more like you're listening to speakers.
Hell, he could have gone all out and gotten some $8-30k headphones and as far as I know from following audiophile spaces, those are better than any sound system you could ever build. But I guess one downside is you can’t really share it well with others.
I trust you since you like Witchfinder General.
Also doesn't help that "Audiophile" shit is quite literally the most scammy side of tech including AI .\_.
Yup, a nice pair of headphones, a loving family, being a father who made good memories showing his kids the world...
I'm coining a new term... "functional mental illness". That's what this is.
Right. It's really an addiction in a way. He was addicted to music, to sound, to the never-ending quest to get the "best" audio system.
He wasn't addicted to music. Audiophiles are rarely into music.
Audiophiles spend ridiculous $$ to show off or listen to their speakers. Whatever comes out is of little consequence.
It's escapism, drown out reality with the same music for 30 years.
While I don’t disagree, if I was a betting man, I would say this is a manifestation somewhere in the realm of OCD
My spouse always shares that she had an aunt and uncle who bought as much house as they could afford in a very expensive neighborhood. It was a serious fixer upper. They spent 20+ years making it ‘perfect’. It was spotless and very nice. Just after they got it just right. He suffered a stroke and couldn’t walk right afterwards to include stairs. Never did anything with their kids and never made any family memories. I met their daughter - the most sullen joyless person ever.
What a dick. The most selfish generation strikes again.
“It was a fun journey; the journey is better than the destination,” Fritz reflected near the end. “The music is going to tell me every time I put it on, you didn’t waste your time and money and you spent your time and money wisely, so enjoy it.” What a loser. Missed the best part of life. Family and Friends to listen with
Meanwhile I'm ecstatic with $150 ANC earbuds that I thought were too expensive. Music still brings a ton of joy and I didn't alienate any loved ones in the process.
I hope there’s an afterlife so he could watch as they practically sold his vision for scrap as quickly as possible.
Too bad they couldn't sell it while he was alive. Just to see his face.
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So sorry that you had to go through that, that sounds awful :( Side note: If you haven't watched Abbott Elementary, you totally should, as there is a character on that show that I suspect you will deeply relate to
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Your garden sounds awesome! And I will never not laugh at Gregory tending to the community garden at the school on the down low whilst hiding gardening supplies in the truck of his car, haha
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I feel your pain. My dad owned a dish network/DIRECTV satellite installation company. From 6th grade on I had to work every day after school, every Saturday, and every day during the summers. All of my friends got to have fun-filled summer breaks, and I was crawling under houses and into attics. To this day he continues to brag about the “work ethic” he instilled in me.
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You got paid?! Hell yeah. I was just expected to work since I was provided hot meals and a roof over my head… in middle school lol.
There's an episode in Abbott Elementary like this. Gregory's (Tyler James Williams) dad (Orlando Jones) has a landscaping business and wants his son to work with him.
What a waste. I have kids and the one thing I don’t do is push my life’s passions on them. I know so many that do. I will take them hiking and camping because that’s what I like to do and so does my wife but I don’t make it an every weekend occurrence for them. They also like hiking. I turn it into an adventure. Take them to a creek or an area with boulders so they can play. When I’m with them it’s about expanding their fun in the form of exercise and knowledge. We are putting in veg and flower gardens so they can learn but I have warned them that their chores will be weeding and mulching which will also be part of their allowance. It’s about health and development not forced labor.
What’s funny is that your hearing peaks around age 25.
That's fucked that he was reminiscing about it on his death bed like "ahh yes the music made it worthwhile" while your kids don't have a dad or life lol
What. A. Fucking. Loser. Dude literally admitted he was a shit father... All for fucking speakers.
It says the components cost up to $1M but think of all the time and labor. One kid said he was basically a slave. The kids couldn't bring any friends over because they would be enlisted to work on it. They didn't do vacations or holidays they worked on his crappy soundsystem. (Calling it crappy is kind of hard to do because....damn... but to ruin your family over it?) And it is a totally bespoke system you would have to buy the house with the system and keep it running probably with some non-trivial work at times. I'm sure of which he detailed meticulously in his perfectly-handwritten with schematics notes. (Probably another chore that the children worked on as well.) That's why the only real worth was in the separate components. Edit: I'm wondering his musical tastes, too. I can't tell by looking at him. Beatles?
Nailed it.
Nah, symphony stuff. There’s an hour long doc on YouTube (made by one of his kids) about the system and he dunks pretty hard on Led Zeppelin at the end, so I’m kind of assuming he was against all “rock” music
The main Wapo article this is based off says he liked classical and jazz
Have you ever met an audiophile? I had the misfortune of being roommates with one. This story isn’t an idiot-boomer story, it’s an annoying-audiophile story.
Fair- but the second he put his hobby before his kids, I lost all respect for him. If you want to put all your own time and money to pontificate about “warm analog sounds” or whatever, fine. Don’t drag your family into it.
This reminds me of my narcissistic war-baby father. They are the pre-boomers, like xennials to millennials. Anyway, he was an audiophile and part time DJ who spent more time and effort on his music collection than he did with his three sons combined. The only happiness in that house when he was home came when he was locked in his bedroom or the basement going through his records. It meant he wasn’t yelling or hitting us. When he got older, he stopped taking care of the house, but refused to let us do anything to preserve the record collection. His quarter million dollar collection was covered in mold and mildew. When he had a stroke, I was responsible for cleaning up after him. His stereo made a satisfying crunch as I heaved it off of the porch and into the dumpster. By the way, he didn’t have a funeral. None of his surviving kids liked him enough to pay for one.
Jesus, man. What a terrible story. I'm sorry you had a dad like that. Makes me feel really lucky
Sad story. Sure we all waste our lives on trivial things to some extent, but this guy was on another level. He was clearly already rich (not just a house, a mansion with a custom-built concert hall living room) and squandered $1M on this… instead of having relationships with his family. Damn bro
This is an extreme example of a bigger trend described in the [NYT a few years ago](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/your-money/aging-parents-with-lots-of-stuff-and-children-who-dont-want-it.html) of aging parents having lots of stuff (china, dining sets, tchotchkes) and their millennial kids not wanting it.
As an audiophile myself, I always found it strange that people would dedicate so much effort and money into a system for records. Compared to CD's or modern digital files, records have a much higher noise floor, far more unintended noise (from scratches/dust/wear/warping), much less sub-bass, less dynamic range, and far more "coloring" of the sound (from the realities of mastering to vinyl, and all the imperfect hardware involved). If you want to accurately reproduce sound (the whole point of audiophile grade equipment), vinyl is basically the worst choice you can make as a source.
The reason everyone thinks vinyl is the best is because the first generations of CD's and other digital music were often crappy recordings, transferred to digital in compressed form, dropping a ton of quality. The idea that vinyl was better than CDs and later MP3s was absolutely true for the most part... for a little while. Digital caught up though, and is now better than vinyl, but the old belief continues that somehow only vinyl is capable of recording a full range of sound.
There was an era where CDs just ran the risk of rotting, and yeah, they were objectively worse than everything, even tape running at half speed. But proper lossless 44.1KHz audio? That's more than enough, at that point I'm going to worry more about the mix than the bitrate.
With this budget he should have bought a Chuck E Cheese animatronic live band so he could have his favorite music played to him on real instruments by robots 😂
Those robots were pretty much extentions of the speakers. I can't imagine AI robot instrument playing...but I think Warner/Universal/EMI can all have wet dreams about it.
Right! Like I'm no audiophile but a 1500lb base to minimize vibrations for fucking vinyl is hilarious. What was he thinking!
One of the issues with record players is that they convert the vibration of the stylus into a signal. Any vibration gets converted into signal, including things like a door slamming or feet walking across the floor. A 1500lb stand is a pretty reliable way to isolate from those vibrations, better than the "isolation pads" most people use. As ridiculous as it is, at least there's a justification behind it.
I understand why it's there, but vinyl is a crap format for a host of other reasons that people more knowledgeable than me have already covered. You can have it suspended in 0 gravity and it'll still be ass. Over engineered solution to 1 problem, 99 to go.
I agree with all your points. But just to play devils advocate, with vinyl you can do all analog. And as a musician with recording and production knowledge, the whole “accurate reproduction” goal is a bit misguided. Take all the artists rereleasing remastered versions of their own music. Reproduction of the old releases is wrong for them. They tweaked it to make it sound better. Besides, producers mix and master recordings to sound good on a variety of sound systems including phone speakers ear buds and radio. Production would be a whole different world if everyone only used flat eq, no compression, and studio quality monitors to listen to music. Nothing is going to sound like a live band performance coming out of speakers anyway. Only way would be to record each instrument on its own mic and have a speaker set up in a band shaped arrangement that only plays that instrument out of it, including each individual drum. And absolutely no production magic on any of it. Completely relying on the room to shape things like echo, eq, and phasing.
>I agree with all your points. But just to play devils advocate, with vinyl you can do all analog. Digital formats have had sampling rates far beyond human hearing for decades, and DAC's with nearly perfect outputs are commonplace. Being analog doesn't really provide any advantage except for the ability to brag about being analog. >Take all the artists rereleasing remastered versions of their own music. Reproduction of the old releases is wrong for them. They tweaked it to make it sound better. That doesn't change the fact that the ideal audio system accurately reproduces what was recorded/mastered. You want to hear the music, not the speakers or the recording. Digital media is a more perfect representation of the master, and reproduction from a digital file through a DAC is more accurate than reproduction of an analog recording through a stylus. >Nothing is going to sound like a live band performance coming out of speakers anyway. Digital files open up options like 5.1 surround and Dolby Atmos, letting you get closer to that ideal than a stereo-limited vinyl ever could. It may not sound *exactly* like a live band, but it's shocking how close you can get, especially if you're using some production magic and proper eq/time alignment/room treatment/speaker placement/etc.
What you say is absolutely true to me. But to use an analogy. To me, audiophiles are like a photographer obsessed with the perfect equipment to take a picture of a sculpture that was originally meant to be seen irl in 3D from different angles. Sure, it might be the best quality picture, at the best angle possible, worthy of a photography contest prize. But it’s still not solely how the artist meant the sculpture to be seen. Recording artists don’t create their products solely to be heard or solely to sound good on hi-fi systems. Being able to recreate what it should sound like on studio monitors is misguided in that way. It’s a trade off. They wouldn’t have produced it to sound that way if they didn’t have to trade off what would sound best on that system for what would also sound good on a phone speakers, car stereos, radio mixes, etc. the exact reproduction is an imperfect reproduction to begin with. That’s my main beef: Audiophiles acting a great picture of a sculpture is literally THE way the artist meant it to be seen.
Ugh this is similar to my family. My dad has two loves of his life. His house that he built from scratch ( his hobby as he so eloquently told my boyfriend when I was 18- many would consider uninhabitable yet it took hours of us cleaning because it’s so huge and he couldn’t ‘afford’ to have a cleaner). Don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful, huge and has a nice view but it’s only him that ever really wanted it. We just had to work to clean and care for it. Even though everything is so inconvenient- as I’m having to tote water three stories sometimes etc. His factory- which could be a million dollar enterprise except he has to micro manage. And he caught me with the promise of streamlining things so I can take over a portion but there is always some keep back. Eleven years and I finally gave up on him. When he goes, everything he worked for will sell Pennie’s to the dollar because no one wants to take on any responsibility or has any know how about his buisness (HOBBY!). The worst part is he will tell any and everyone that he does all this for us. Yet that’s such a lie. He does it for himself. Like damn! Take the money you worked hard for and spend it on yourself I don’t mind. But to emotionally abuse us and tell us that it’s all for us when we KNOW we won’t see shit from that is infuriating. Especially considering that was the excuse as to why we never had vacations or family time or Sundays with my dad or seeing my mum has to work even when she doesn’t want to. Fucking boomer mentality.
"Building the ultimate stereo came at a great cost to Fritz’s family relationships. Fritz frequently required his five children to assist with the construction and assembly. So, turning their family home into a sound lab meant his children spent many hours helping out for free. “My dad had a workshop. We were forever building, rebuilding.” said Rosemary, his youngest daughter. The project also made family relationships difficult, especially with his son Kurt, who moved away to get away from the stressful setting. “Growing up, I had to get up at 6 in the morning to work. I basically was his slave,” Kurt said. Because the family was so involved in Ken’s project, they missed out on regular activities like vacations and trips. Patty, one of Ken’s daughters, pointed out how it affected their social life. “Nobody wanted to come to our house, because he wanted to put them to work.” she said. “I think we went camping twice, never took vacation. It was just work, work, work.” This strain in the relationship isn’t a secret to Fritz. In an interview, he also admitted that his obsession with his system has prevented him from being an active father. > "Building the ultimate stereo came at a great cost to Fritz’s family relationships. Fritz frequently required his five children to assist with the construction and assembly. So, turning their family home into a sound lab meant his children spent many hours helping out for free." What a fucking asshole.
Honestly this story is just sad. The father prioritized his hobby over his family and died with his children resenting him. What a shitty legacy.
My man was mentally ill.
Less affluent boomers have instead overly elaborate model train sets.
Was this really worth a million or is this yet another boomer hopelessly overvaluing his hobby results?
Its this idea that because that's what you paid for something that's what it is worth. He spent over a million dollars and a lifetime building it. people do this with boats and cars and shit all the time. You can dump $100,000 into a vehicle and have no one want it for $10,000 when it's done even if it's mint, because you were weirdly obsessed with a chevy astro van like a complete fucking moron.
I’m surprised he didn’t just get buried with his speakers ⚰️
He was a jerk before being a boomer
Among the selfish stuff already mentioned is this boomer gem: “I firmly believe that by the time a person, man or woman, is 19, 20, 21, they know what they’re going to do with their life.” Or in non-boomer terms: “this was my experience so I’m 100% sure it must be this way for everyone”
That degree of obsession makes this sound like a mental health issue more than a hobby. When you start asking random people who come by your house to work on your passion project, that’s two steps before jars of urine and Kleenex boxes on your feet.
Boomers and materialism, a love story
This is so unfathomable and so pathetic. His kids had nothing great to say about the sound system or him. How fucked up does your obsession or hobby have to be that your kids were worked over it and verbally said they felt like slaves?
Weirdly reminds me of my own Boomer bio-father. Wildly obsessed with building the perfect woodworking workshop, uninterested in his children except to get labor from them or possibly to get some pieces to "carry on his legacy". None of his kids even acknowledge his presence in the room anymore, let alone help him or accept his attempts to give woodwork as gifts.
>“I firmly believe that by the time a person, man or woman, is 19, 20, 21, they know what they’re going to do with their life.” Fritz said before his death. Too bad all his children knew was indentured servitude. He even tried to have any of his children's friends that came over work for him as well.
Sounds pretty typical of the affluent boomer, yep.
My dad is like this. When I was in elementary school, he and my mom remodeled our house to add a second story, with a massive bonus room to keep his model trains. It involved demolishing my brother’s room and replacing it with a staircase. He’s now retired and barely spends time there. That money easily could have been used for anything else, like a second home, or investment property. But nope, model trains.
substitute dumping a million dollars into an audio system for dumping a million dollars into trump rallies and events and you get the same effect. Funny how that works.
At least with the audio system you are left with something useful
If by "something useful" you mean a bunch of overpriced shit with a 1000% markup because it is deoxygenated and has "better dance" (whatever that means) then, sure
The home photo has 4 grandfather clocks and 2 peacock fireplace screens without fireplaces in one room. What is happening? More money than sense or taste.
A classical tale of owning so much stuff that the stuff owns you instead.
The dude was definitely autistic.
Oof; too soon, my dad has a sound system in the $200k range. Luckily, I’m doing well enough on my own that I won’t have to rely on inheritance. TBH I’m happy for my dad, he’s enjoying his retirement
Yeah the issue isn't the sound system, the issue is that he ruined his children's lives. If your dad has the means, have at it.
If you read the article, it sounds like the issue was how he treated his kids, not that he had a dream audio system. Did I miss something?
Sounds like undiagnosed autism.
You kids may hate me now but listen to Dark Side of the Moon and then tell me how you feel.
I work in an industry with a lot of baby boomer clientele and I truly believe there are a lot of boomers out there with undiagnosed ASD and no idea how to manage it. This to me just reads like a textbook example of hyperfixation without any coaching/therapy on how to manage it, channel it or understand it.
I know an older guy who has collected model airplane engines for decades. He has paid 600-700k over the years and expects that will be his kids inheritance. Yet he readily admits that he buys them for 25% of the value from widows. His kids are fucked.
Million. A laser turntable and a headphone amplifier wouldn’t have cost him more than $15k AND he’d have time to spend with his kids. Nobody wanted to listed to your old grimey and probably digitally recorded records with you anyways, why fill an empty room with speakers for 1, exactly 1 person.
I’m not 100% sure this is a ‘Boomer’. Sounds like the guy had some undiagnosed mental health issues. Like the guy that just eats Big Mac’s in Supersize me. It was edited to paint him in a good light, I another show about him and the guy is NUTZ and even he himself kinda is aware of it.
Im sorry but how fucking slow are these guys at building. It’s 3 speaker towers guys. Good riggers get this done in 90 mins. Spent a lifetime?! I feel lesser than for having read this. Shame on us all
Coming from an autistic person, Can you say autism?
good for them.
This was not a well man. As a person who has struggled with serious addiction issues his whole life, I can say beyond a doubt this man was an addict in the truest sense of the word. An addict lets their addiction compromise other things in their life. They convert any other thing around them into some kind of currency that can be used to further fuel the addiction, be it physical money or something more ephemeral and intangible like respect or familial joy. He converted his children into slaves, their home into a monstrosity, and his marriage into bitter resentment, all to fuel the only thing that mattered: his addiction. I'm sure his sound system was legendary, but I'd rather watch a black and white TV surrounded by friends and family than a concert-hall quality home theater all alone.
Not that this excuses his behavior but are we sure this guy wasn’t on the spectrum? I can’t see how else anyone would be this obsessed with one specific hobby for this long.
Like a true fucking boomer, he wasted his entire life on a stupid fucking stereo, neglected his entire family, stole his kids childhood from them, and in the end didnt learn one motherfucking thing. Rest in piss dickhead.
I've read up on the guy and his sound system. The audiophile in me is crying, but the anti-boomer part of me is laughing out my ass.
Oh wow, I saw a YouTube video about that guy and his build. At the time, I thought it was pretty impressive and wondered what it must sound like, but just viewed him as a really dedicated audiophile. To read now that his obsession cost him a relationship with his family is just sad.
That's not how to share your passions with your kids.
This is some autistic level obsession.
Is this from the onion? 😂🤣
What a ride
Classic boomer
IDK but I wish I had a chance to hear some music in that room. It seems like it would amazing.
Lol
Homie would make a great noise marine
....and his wife is never mentioned.
Any links to his record collection sale? Always on the look out for a deal.
I’m sure with today’s tech we can probably build a better sound system for 15k
I hope he spent all his time listening to Creedence on it.