Yeah, I love this forum, learned a ****load of good info and while I don't post here that often, I'll probably get twice the ****load of criticism for the following.

What's up with all the Fletcher ass-kissing going on here?

Just came back from one of the Neve-Portico threads in awe of seeing how many Fletcher worshipers are out there, awaiting the guy to review something in order to decide how it ranks on the slutz totem pole. "Fletch, what do you think of this?", "Fletch, what do you make of that?", "does it sound like a Neve, Fletch?"....."I have some money to invest in good gear, let's see what Fletch thinks, cause if that guy says go, then the hit records will materialize!"

Good Lord, whatever happened to just using your ears regardless of what the guy thinks. Sure, he knows what he's doing and user reviews are generally a great resource, but some people seem to form their opinions on gear solely based on what Fletcher thinks, whether on this board or on TapeOp.

Not trying to get on anyone's nerves about this, it's purely an observation. I'll get my coat...

Like Coca Cola said...."There will always be leaders and Followers"

Totally agree!

And it's surely not Fletcher's fault. I dig his knowledge and his sense of humour.

But to take his views as the Gospel truth, that's where the problem begins. I bet that a lot of the posters who 'support' say Fletcher's hatred of all things Audio Universal, haven't really heard the gear in question.

What really got me thinking was the 'Fletcher's Crapola list' thread on his own PSW forum. That's almost Scientology-like I think, is it too much too ask to have something like a personal opinion?

Andi

www.doorknocker.ch

well, i bet on the corner where the crack is being sold the dealer is one popular dude.....

and we are all crack heads.

can't wait to fire up that next rock! i mean daking pre, gefell mic, distressor......hehe

toady (tō'dē)
n., pl. -ies.

NOUN: One who flatters another excessively: adulator, courtier, flatterer, sycophant. Informal : apple-polisher.
VERB: To support slavishly every opinion or suggestion of a superior: bootlick, cringe, fawn, grovel, kowtow, slaver, truckle. Informal : apple-polish, brownnose, cotton. Slang : suck up. Idioms: curry favor, dance attendance, kiss someone's feet, lick someone's boots.

I agree- I would guess it probably gets pretty annoying after awhile....

tottaly agreed! ive been a reader for a long time and learned some cool stuff here but dont post much only because this forum could really have some biased opinions. Its like some topics read, "killer drum sound" and people rush to the board and try the new EQ settings someone mentioned, and all of a sudden its the best sounding kit they've heard. Well, I bet if that eq was bypassed without them knowing they would still here a diffrence becuase in their head someone posted "killer drum sound" so it HAS TO BE BETTER. What happened to "its all about the music"????

Ah, dunno.

Fletch has been around a long time. He's earned props in an industry that's hard to make buck in.

I don't need to kiss his ass because I don't know him, he doesn't know me and petting his cat don't feed my dog.

I'll say this, however:

Fletch strikes me as one seriously street smart sumbitch. This aint no suburb boy, hothouse grown rose, kids.

A lot of gearheads sit about saying "Yeah, I'll do A, B, C and then I'll have this business and, voila! I'll be fine."

Fletcher has farmed a business, and from what I can see a pretty repectable one, from ground zero and kept his skills and principals. And opening a business while doing that is almost not do-able. Keeping it open and doing that is stone motherf*cker.

If you value what he thinks of product, groovy. If not, meh. That's cool, too.

I think Fletcher would be one of the first people to tell somebody who based their system's acquisition plan on nothing other than his reviews to stop being a sheep and just LISTEN to the stuff.

Some people want to be told what to do. Some people want to tell people what to do. Some people just want to get all of those dip****s barking at each other in one room so that they can get the f*ck back to work, without all the barking.



YMMV

As I said on the thread in question....

i'll say this, when i first started down this road several years ago
i called up mercenary audio and asked about a hhb radius 40
he said it wasn't worthy to piss on.....

being the ass that i am i listened to the schmoes at sweetwater and bought it anyway

well.....

mr. flechter was right,


tho it is o.k. for a direct box, not much else

i still have it, cuz it ain't worth sell'n for what i'd get
and it looks better than an empty space in the rack

just a story, there are a lot of people like that around here,
of course flechter is a pimp, he admits such,
but he is our pimp heh heh heh heh heh

Fletcher is the Man! Thats all i have to say.

We get what you're saying, but you seem to miss the panache aspect of the man and the entertainment value it has. Giving some appreciation for what a man brings to the table is all it's about. Not a bad thing unless making it seem so gives you some satifaction. Enjoy the ride, be discerning for yourself first... and we'll do the same.

What a silly thread.

Let's kill Fletcher. Grab your torches and pitch forks. We'll hang him.

:roll:

Fletcher is one of those guys who usually gets his hands on all this stuff. Lots of guys here don't. When I'm in L.A. there's so much lovely recording gear to play with, but when I'm in Austin, I know that the sluttiest mic I can get my hands on in a store is one of those GT jobs at Guitar Center.

I occasionally have to buy gear I've never seen and hope it'll be up to my expectations.

Fletcher is something of a 'known entity' and isn't beholden to advertisers like the reviewers in every damn recording magazine.

I'll reply to this thread as soon as I get the go ahead from Fletcher!
Toady

Damn right ! Let`s burn down Mercenary ! (after we loot of course.)

Goofy thread guys.

Imagine how embarrassing it must be for him to read this stuff.


I like the guy too but come on......





Does he really need his own thread ???





Where we discuss our feelings for him ???





Behind his back but not really because he can see it anyways ???







I could think of a few very unpolitically correct things to say here but I`ll leave it be.......

The thing I like about Fletcher is that he an opinion, and he sticks with it...no BS'ing or pulling punches. If he likes something, he tells you, and if he hates it, he tells you that too. Nothing wishy-washy.

And all I can say is that Mercenary Audio is a FIRST CLASS business that treat their customers like gold. The service that they provide is beyond belief, and is a testimony to the man himself...Trish, Samara, Jay... I'd take their opinions over 95% of the reviewers out there, but again, it all comes down to our own final judgement, and Fletcher will be the first one to tell you that. Try it, if it is not for you, trade it in for something else. It just don't get no better than that. He gets all my money from here on out!

The million dollar question is...

did Fletcher ever recommend something that sucks ?

I personaly haven't seen a post where someone says how betrayed they felt with something they bought from him and didn't do the job he described would.

And I don't need to kiss his ass because I don't have the money to purchase anything he sell anyways hahaha

I find Fletcher entertaining. My comment was certainly not directed at him as a person, engineer, gear guru or dead-on Rock Hudson look-alike. That's obvious, but more about the entity and persona he radiates across the forum, and how he is perceived by some. I do value his opinion as much as the next guy, and perhaps if I was in a position to acquire such great gear at regular intervals, I may have thought twice about my post and found myself amidst the hearsay bandwagon, anticipating his opinion on this or that item before parting with my cash. Again, it was merely an observation about a few isolated cases, where all new acquisitions are halted until the oracle speaks.

Hello! He's in the room. Nothing like being talked about like your not there.

the way i see it, people are simply using fletcher as a filter to eliminate unworthy contenders from the get-go. if he likes it, that's no guarantee you will too. but if he says it's unimpressive, a lot of folks figure it's probably a safe bet to skip it and move on.


gregoire
del ubik

Really? My wife doesn't even get that deal. Sounds like true love.

Actually he told me that the Langevin Elop sounded like a LA3a. I completely disagreed and it went back. Consider that that was 1 time out of about 20 and he's still doing OK by me. His return policy is second to none and he has even sent me more expensive versions of a product if he didn't have the cheaper one in stock. At no cost to me.

As mentioned before, if he likes it, I'll try it and draw my own conclusions. If he hates it, I probably won't even try it. Unless it's software. Ask him what he thinks of my Pro Tools HD rig?

I don't think the phenomenon you've observed has as much to do with Fletcher's opinions being "golden" as it does with the fact that (for most of us, anyway), Fletcher is a "Known Quantity". In other words, he has expounded about gear so prolifically and consistantly over the years that when he speaks about a piece, we know how to take it (agree, disagree, with a grain of salt, etc.). When dealing with opinions from a bunch of anonymous or semi-anonymous entities on the 'net, it's comforting to have a touchstone.

YMMV

nicely put

I find it very funny that most of the answers to this thread EXACTLY 'proof' the orginal poster's points.

The original thread wasn't about Fletcher but rather about his 'followers'.

Why do people feel the need to speak for him?


Look, I bought from Mercenary (o.k, it was 'only' a Coleman LS3) and I will happily do business again with them.

I also admire a company that only sells stuff they fully believe in, kudos!

But it's still HIS take on the stuff.

What I don't like about Fletcher's 'politics' is his desperate need to chime in on discussions about certain gear/manufacters that he , for reasons best known to himself, had bad experience with or plainly dislikes.

Anytime a few keywords like 'UA', 'Korby', or 'Sank' appear it's much like what the red cloth does to the bull.....

It's mostly very entertaining but again, the problem to me isn't Fletcher but his 'congregation' who totally will agree with his opinion, often without (at least that's my guess) any personal experience with the gear in question.

I think that's unnecessary. I could care less because I own stuff like a Sank-modded M260 and various UA gear and am very happy with these things.

I mean, you need to get information about stuff SOMEWHERE. If you're really honest with yourself, you'll realize that practically every decision we make in daily live isn't really our own but a mix of opinions we read/heard/trust along with the 'coolness' factor and hopefully some hand-on experience with the objects in question too.

I admit that my decision to buy say a TG-2 was largely due to the press it got here , along with the 'legacy' of the thing which is what the 'coolness' factor is about to me.

I really happy with it but I'm equally happy with other gear that doesn't have Fletcher's stamp of approval.

And no, I don't think that this thread is silly. I think it's VERY smart of the original poster to bring this up because the 'phenomenon' isn't just about gear, it's exactly the same with music writing/production/playing:

The desire to copy what already has been done, the belief that some magic box will make you 'better',etc

Food for thought.


Andi

www.doorknocker.ch

Well how can the man be such a gear genius when he's soooo wrong about the Liquid Channel?

Wrong, wrong wrong.

heh

Like someone mentioned above - some people are in a position to evaluate a lot of gear. Fletcher is definetly one of them.

I have read this thread, and it is funny.

Fletcher is an interesting guy... I have stated on threads many times before how funny it is when people take dealers and manufacturers word as gospel with no regard for their intentions... Fletcher is the best/most obvious example. He is cool, no disrespect to him, but he does have reasons for his opinions. He uses a lot of gear (??) I guess, I know he deals gear... I do not know what he does recording wise (I have never heard anything he has recorded or mixed, etc.), so I do not know if I would like the same gear as he does. He is on a forum to spread his word, which will hopefully generate sales for him. That puts him in a different position. Sometimes it seems some people forget that, and become sheep in a heard. Many people have/will make or advance a career by living on forums.... nothing wrong with that. It is the people who indulge it that make it possible.

Just remember: You will never hear any dealer say anything bad about products they sell.... Sometimes with dealers who frquent the forums: you will get subtle (well phrased) implications that something else may be better for your applications (Always something they deal).... Coincidence???

Then the sheep will chime in and take over pushing the product/dealer

Well, he does know an assload about audio. He sees and hears a lot of gear so he is quite a resource. Also, he is really into audio and has spent quite a bit of time talking to me about gear (about things he sells and also thing he doesn't) seemingly just because he's into it. While I have bought quite a few things from Mercenary, it was never while talking to him. I usually get the info from him and if I decide to buy I will order it from the website later on.

Having said that, I have always thought there's been way too much ass kissing going on.

I just think he's got a nice ass.