Alec said:
So you don't think AVI's 20+ years of a cracking reputation for quality hi-fi products (with 20+ years of great reviews to match) is enough?
My comment is not aimed at the products but the marketing style. It was tedious when Linn and Naim's most senior personnel were doing the same thing (only without the internet) in the hi-fi press and via their dealers and followers in the 1980s and it is equally tedious now.
There was an infamous phrase coined in the 1980s (by Linn and Naim) that claimed "If you can't hear the difference, it's not worth talking to you".
It carried the same arrogance that is frequently displayed by some of the more extreme proponents of AVI today.
In contrast look at Rega. The company and their products also - like AVI - have a great reputation, but that was achieved without any advertising in the last 40 years. They have no company web forum and you have to delve quite hard to find the rare interviews that Roy Gandy has given. He has never claimed they make the greatest products or 'dissed' other companies (or their customers).
Of course there are AVI product users who - like yourself Alec - I respect and have found quite informative and influential (and funny) and who don't have an 'agenda'. There are some others who show all the signs of being 'cult' followers. I have never liked cults in hi-fi (as I said earlier, overdosed on that in the bad old days of the Linn/Naim nexus of the 1980s that dominated the UK hi-fi scene to it's detriment I believe).