Virgil gave me a ticket for his Riverside Church (NYC) concert about 1980 (I attended a couple private dinner-party concerts in his home in Palm Beach). His ‘group’ had 50 chairs on the alter. Sit anywhere you like he said. I asked, how about that seat. Sure he said. It was the bishop’s throne encased in ornate wood. I looked down on the ‘congregation’, including Van Clyburn in the front row.
The group then went to The Plaza, Virgil eventually arrived in his usual cape. As eccentric as one could get.
I had stage seats for Itzhak Perlman at the Chicago Opera House in 1983. It was weird to look up at all the people in the seats. He did turn around for two pieces and played directly at us. It was amazing to be 10 feet from a world-class musician.
My interest in Parasound’s equipment was mostly due to John Curl’'s involvement. Fine equipment and a bit of a value. A nice alternative as well Adcom and the like. At Parasound’s peak my interest was vacuum tube amplification, so no long term Parasound equipment in any of my systems. I came close to picking up a HINT Integrated, but settled for Hegel as a one box solution for our den. No regrets.
EDIT:
Interesting set of Core Values addressing practices that undermined Parasound’s long term value:
What are their core values? Sheriff enumerated them as:
Do the Right Thing
Fire in the Belly
Real, Responsible, Reliable – This value is, Sheriff says, “kind of like Yoda. Do or Do Not, there is no Try.”
Make things better – with purpose
No Drama – Here the CEO says he wants his team to move forward aggressively with passion and “…not to be sidetracked or demotivated by negative energy”
These and cleaning up dealer B Stock/Open Stock, Demo unit sales should shore up the value equation. I’ll assume brick and mortar sales will focus on the custom installation aspect of the high end market.
Now to hear just what the new designs provide for sonically.
I do like the no drama theme. Wishing Parasound luck.
Of the many thought provoking statements I found this to be the most compelling: “ …we need to think at the deepest level about what it takes for a society to be able to regenerate itself and allow the new to be born.”
In peoples day to day struggles and distractions this intangible likely occupies the least amount of societal contemplation and is, ironically, left to those who can afford to think and do something about it.
Yep, when profit is the only remaining “target” for a society, ignoring wellbeing, then this is the expected outcome.
who are also generally the least motivated to change things.
I talk about universal basic income on here now and then, as a quick fix to helping a new generation of artists from the non-“elite classes” to make a start, but UBI is only a quick fix, and an imperfect one at that.
I will stop now, I really don’t want to get political, though as I say, this is a non partisan problem e.g. in the U.K both main parties are touting virtually the same line on just about everything, and it’s all based on profit motive only.
