William Inge on Old vs. New

toxcrusadr

Omelette au Fromage
I found an astounding quote from 19th century English author William Inge (not the American playwright William Inge, but the Anglican priest William Inge) that strikes at the heart of the Old vs. New debate at AK:


"There are two kinds of fools: one says, 'This is old, therefore it is good'; the other says, 'This is new, therefore it is better.' "


<drops mike, turns on CD player connected to 1976 receiver, sips drink>

:cool:
 
"I don't want any of that old dusty wine! Let's get some FRESH wine!" Nailed it!

Truthfully though I've had old wine that was bad, and new wine that was pretty darn good. Which is actually the point of the original quote: neither wine nor audio gear falls neatly into categories based on age.
 
I have found that at the cost of wine.... I have to drink water! I also can not afford any of the supposed "better equipment" out there. In fact it is very hard to find an audio store that even has a properly setup vinyl driven system, to compare what I have in my little living room. The owner of a local shop told me that he didn't know anything about cartridges. He doesn't want to know about such silliness. He would be very happy to sell me a $40,000 McIntosh streaming system though. The way their main room was setup was so bad that I could not tell what all this expensive stuff was doing, but it did not sound good to me. The gear I have is from the 70's including my cartridge, and it exceeds all of my requirements. It is in good working order, but it hasn't been re-capped (shame on me) and it may stop working any day now... BUT so may I !
 
I have found that at the cost of wine.... I have to drink water! I also can not afford any of the supposed "better equipment" out there. In fact it is very hard to find an audio store that even has a properly setup vinyl driven system, to compare what I have in my little living room. The owner of a local shop told me that he didn't know anything about cartridges. He doesn't want to know about such silliness. He would be very happy to sell me a $40,000 McIntosh streaming system though. The way their main room was setup was so bad that I could not tell what all this expensive stuff was doing, but it did not sound good to me. The gear I have is from the 70's including my cartridge, and it exceeds all of my requirements. It is in good working order, but it hasn't been re-capped (shame on me) and it may stop working any day now... BUT so may I !
You're not living in Paris, are you?
 
So, he was telling me not to buy the hype? Stick to what I know? That I don't have to be the first one to get the next big thing? Different is not necessarily better? Wise words, indeed.

Aaaaah, what does he know? Adventure is not safe, no matter your obsession. Now, one'a y'all hold my beer and watch this....
 
I"There are two kinds of fools: one says, 'This is old, therefore it is good'; the other says, 'This is new, therefore it is better.' "
Is anyone really that shallow?

I follow my senses to that which captures the sound of live, unamplified music.
 
In the pilot episode of 'Banacek' (played by George Peppard) one of his investigative rivals looked around at all his antiques and asked, "Don't you like anything new?" To which he responded:

"It's not a question of old or new; it's a question of good or bad. We've got about maybe, 10 years of new and thousands of years of old, [meaning] that the odds are, there are more good old things than new ones."
 
So if neither old or new is good,then what? Your out of options.

It's not saying that everything is good or bad, only that it can't be assumed to be good or bad based only on whether it's new or old.

@E-Stat: Yes, there are people who are that shallow. Not so much here at AK, but in the general populace, yes, quite a few of them.
 
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