| A
New And
Improved
Shortcut
To
Product
Evaluation |
| Commentary |
| Jonathan
Foote |
| 3
May 2001 |
Remember
when the feds
reintroduced
the two-dollar
bill? It
bombed. Too
young for that
one? Okay
then, remember
that dollar
coin, the one
with the
Native
American lady
on it – you
know, the
chick who
helped Lewis
and Clarke
paddle through
soon to be
real estate?
Sackajellybeans,
something like
that. Anyway,
another bomb.
So
where are
they, these
Sackajellybeans
dollars? In
nobody's
pockets or
cash
registers,
that's for
sure. I’ll
tell you where
they are. They’re
off in a
government
warehouse in
Nummnutz,
Nebraska,
stacked
ten-high in
crates under
forty-two
60-foot-by-60-foot
tarps where
nobody has to
be reminded of
them. This is
not exactly
common
knowledge. I’ve
gone to a lot
of trouble
here. I hope
you appreciate
it, not to
mention the
use to which I’m
about to
suggest these
Sackajellybeans
dollar coins
be put.
We
high-end
audiophile
journalists
need a tool
that
transcends
mere
listening.
Measuring
instruments
are of course
out of the
question,
discredited,
vulgar. Nobody
in our line of
work would
ever
condescend to
mere
measurements
on which to
base an
opinion. I
blush even to
mention this.
Surely
the attentive
reader has
remarked a
relationship
between a
component’s
suggested list
price and a
high-end
audiophile
reviewer’s
opinion of how
it sounds: the
larger the
number
immediately to
the right of
the dollar
sign on said
object’s
ticket, the
better the
reviewer’s
opinion.
According to
Mikey F., that
turntable-arm
combo from an
idyllic little
town tucked
into a fjord
on the Maine
coast, the one
that costs
about $73k —
the table
thingy, not
the fjord —
is by far and
away the best
he’s ever
heard, and he’s
heard tons of
’em.
Probably
literally. A
question
remains,
however: to
what height of
precision does
a component’s
suggested
retail price
square with
its audible
distinctions?
Enter the
Sackajellybeans
dollar coin. I
have gone to
some trouble
here too,
which I hope
you continue
to appreciate.
Okay, hunker
down and start
frowning:
A
Sackajellybeans
dollar coin
weighs
.771-ounce.
Now it gets
squirrelly.
Say the
component
under review,
a speaker,
weighs 115
pounds
uncrated.
(Packaging
doesn’t
count, unless
it’s a
tropical
hardwood, and
then it does.)
That’s a
pair of
speakers at
230 pounds,
exclusive of
corrugated
cartons and
crude pine
crates.
Calculate that
figure with
the .771-ounce
figure for a
total in
ounces. That’s
ounces, not
pounds. Then
calculate the
speaker system’s
price, say
$11,250.00,
with the same
.771 figure,
this time in
inverse,
double-quadrennial
or even
triple-quadrennial
Fibonacci
sequence (mind
the turns, it’s
slippery out
there), and
pretend to
divide your
first total by
the second, or
the other way
around, should
the second
outnumber the
first, and
multiply
(seriously)
this new total
— careful
now, the
decimal point
migrated
eastward —
by 771.00.
Those
simplistic
one-to-ten
scales?
Pathetic! For
cretins! The
final
Sackajellybeans
dollar coin
figure, based
entirely on a
component’s
price, weight
and the
high-end
audiophile
reviewer’s
mathematical
brawn, will be
every bit as
exquisite as
any test
finding you’ve
ever seen in
print.
And
the coins
remain under
their tarps in
Nummnutz,
Nebraska,
undisturbed!
Talk about
conservation!
A new day
dawns!

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