Ken Fritz - DIY audiophile dreams do come true. RIP - plus 2024 WaPo story on page 2*

Ken's daughter emailed our audio group to let us know Steve Guttenberg has posted a video about Ken's amazing system.

I have been incredibly fortunate to enjoy the hospitality of Ken and his family on a number of occasions. I can say without reservation that the only thing better than Ken's system is the experience of enjoying it in the company of friends.

If you want to see what true audiophile passion can create, you have to check this out.

 

WOW! Just an amazing system and an amazing driven guy and I hope his son or someone carries on with that system. Thanks for sharing. Glad Ken got some recognition for it and sad to hear his days are short I hope he listens all day and every day now.

 

Wow, some people dream of something like that but he actually did it. What a magnificent system. Hope he beats the odds and needs to get some of those carts retipped!

Billwojo

 

On one of the last visits over to Ken's we listened to some gifts he received from Ken Callait. This acetate sounded incredible on his system.

 

Thank you for sharing that. Ken is an amazing person who has an amazing family. He has a tough road ahead and I wish him the very best.

 

Wow. What an amazing system Ken Built. I feel really bad for him, and I hope that he can somehow get better to enjoy his system and his family. You can tell he is a special guy.

 

The coolest audio houses I would pay admission to see:

1. Graceland
2. Big Pink
3. Ken's house

That's it. Amazing room and touching video.

 

Does anybody have a contact for Ken Fritz? I would like to write about him. [email protected]

 

Geoff longtime Washington Post reader/subscriber here and if you do write about Ken please post a link here thanks!

 

Experiencing the shock of a truly magnificent large setup will alter your life forever.
The aspirational aspect of our little hobby should not be underestimated.

Simply accepting the challenge of great audio should be enough to let you know you were alive on the planet.
So happy for Ken and his family joining together in his quest for greatness.
We should all gain the richness of life from our endeavors.

Whether they develop from merely being an outdoors man or a simply a lover of great art or perhaps an audiophile.
Greatness humbles the man or woman with the sudden shock they are standing in the presence of the entity which produced our world.

Owning greatness is a responsibility and a great pleasure not to be missed.
Carry on my friends!
We are all on a journey to some place we dearly wish to live.
I too have hit some of those high spots.
Nothing else in life has been as reliable as a great HiFi.

Even my dear wife who is not an audiophile has sat with me night after night as we explore the incredible richness of our musical heritage together.
May you and yours feel the same.
What a gas!

 

Interesting 60 minute documentary.

 

Just watched this. Amazing.
But what’s with all the grandfather clocks? Not quiet and you even hear one chime in the documentary.

 

Pretty sure, with that system, you could drown them out if you wanted to!

 

Funny, I've never noticed hearing the clocks at all. Ken may silence them for our gatherings. I don't even recall hearing them ticking, but it's been a year since we've got together. ll have to make note to see if they are running next time I'm by.

 

I would love to hear Time by Pink Floyd on that system. Straight answer for you Axis_67: Is this the greatest system and audio experience in your life? It looks like it brings the concert hall to his home. Pushing on have you listened to church pipe organs on it and if so do they put you inside a church if you close your eyes?

Thanks for sharing

 

It is one of the most amazing systems I've heard. It betters everything else in effortless presentation. The music is just "there". No matter how loud you turn it up everything sounds clean, clear, detailed and natural. Somehow, even at very loud listening levels with the music all around, you can still carry on a somewhat normal volume conversation. It may be the near complete absence of distortion in the system or the fact that you're in a large room, 20' from the drivers. Whatever it is I made that observation on a previous visit and thought it unusual. About the only thing some systems may edge it out on is imaging. With so may drivers you don't get the pin-point placement of instruments you do in the best systems using fewer drivers.

I think it betters a concert hall in that you get the power and volume of a concert experience, without the distortion and the drunks nearby talking over the music and spilling their beer on you.

Haven't heard any organ music but we've run the system through its paces on a few occasions. When we listened to that Rumours acetate I posted up-thread it sounded as close to being in the studio as I can ever recall.

 

I have that same experience in my listening room may it be on a smaller scale. I have magnepan Tympani I speakers, supported by subwoofers (2x18 inch 2x10 inch) and really lots of Acoustic measures I took to get it all right. Custom crossover setting l, like ken the speakers do not see anything under 60hz they are cut off...

I was watching his video,and I couldn't believe how much he has done (as far as ideology goes) I did the same.

It's incredible, I can crank up the volume and still have a conversation with my normal voice. 0 fatique,0 compromise ok the soundfield (as far as my equipment and room allows) effortless on everything it's getting fed.

It's pretty clear that the room makes a huge impact. And I am glad I understood that when I build my system.

I can only imagine the scale he's experiencing it, such a amazing human being too , hearing his passion just mind blowing. I read he has been getting worse health wise, his past video he could barely talk coherently..

Breaks my heart... I hope he has still a couple years in him to enjoy his work . Because to me that there ?! Is audio Valhalla

 

The 60 minute doc posted above by BSU is the one to watch. I was disappointed when near the end, the interviewer asked to hear some Zeppelin and Ken laughed and said "I would never buy any of that music". Yet Axis_67 said they listened to that Fleetwood Mac acetate. Does Ken really despise all music other than classical?
I would love to hear some Zep, The Who, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, SRV, etc on that system.

 

No right or wrong when it comes to musical taste. Whoever buys the house when it gets sold next will get to pick the tunes! I give him serious props for chasing his dream to the extent that no one has before.

 

I never said he was wrong for not playing Zeppelin. I just said I was disappointed.
Never could understand anyone who limited their music to one genre only.

 

I just watched the long-form documentary last night. I thought a brief write-up of his system might be interesting:

Custom room:
Poured concrete floors
Rebar-reinforced cinderblock walls filled with pea gravel - using a method used in Florida to build hurricane-proof structures
Angled walls and ceiling based on the design of a music hall in Japan
Double-layered sheetrock walls
220V AC service for amplifiers
Voiced by Acoustics First using Owens Corning acoustic panels


Front Channel Speakers:
Open-baffle dipole designed with input by Igor Levitsky, Joe D'Appolito, and Vance Dickason
(24) Scan-speak mid-bass drivers
(4) Bohlender-Graebner RD50 dipole midrange drivers
(40) Panasonic EAS-10TH ribbon tweeters firing front and back
(4) 15" Krell metal cone subwoofers in sealed enclosures (from the Krell Master Subwoofer)
Silk-covered rubber strand grilles borrowed from Krell
Cabinets built using high-density fiberboard
Finished in Rosewood
Integrated aluminum amplifier stand to act as a counterweight


Surround Speakers:
(6) 8" ScanSpeak Revelator bass drivers
(6) ScanSpeak Revelator tweeters


Amplification:
Front channels tri-amped using:
-Three Krell FPB 600s driving mid-bass and midrange drivers
-One Krell EVO 403 driving tweeters
-One Crest Audio amplifier driving the subwoofers
Rear Channels bi-amped using (4) Krell FPB 300s
(5) Krell KBX active crossovers


Preamps:
Krell Evolution 707 surround processor
Krell Evolution 202 preamplifier
Aesthetix Rhea phono preamplifier


Custom turntable - the "Frankentable"
Vacuum platter from Sota augmented with lead ballast
Three VPI motors
Custom plinth filled with lead shot and epoxy resin, finished by Krell to match their components
Kuzma tonearms (two linear tracking and one single-point)
Various cartridges (saw an Air Tight)
Custom Minus K negative-stiffness vibration isolator
Custom stand


Other:
8 Gauge silver speaker cables (sourced from Luminous Audio)
Unknown balanced interconnects
Tivo DVR
Oppo Ultra-HD Blu-ray player
Bricasti M1 DAC
APC UPSes and power conditioners
PS Audio P10 AC regenerator
Crestron control system
Unknown projector and automatic retractable screen

 

I can listen to every genre of music but I just can’t get into Techno or Disco. The closest to techno I get is Electronic music like The Chemical Brothers which I love their first two albums.

 

When people claim they have a world class audio system, we all take that statement with a grain of salt. Any audiophile will most certainly appreciate this documentary. I have seen many audiophile systems, very impressive systems, but how many systems have we seen where the owner builds his own 50' plus room before starting on his finest world class audio system.

Many people have viewed this video, but I just believe it personifies not only the worlds best audio system, but the best room possible to extract the music from that system. Here is a man who devoted a literal lifetime to building a system most of us simply can't imagine. He built the majority of what you see in this video, or had products modified to his specific specifications. Mr. Fritz is truly inspirational. If you have not viewed this video, you really should.

Now in the twilight of his life, he has acquired ALS, what a story this is! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

 

5400 Hours of Fun – PS Audio

 

Thanks for posting. Truly inspirational, the man's vision and drive. And his positive attitude in spite of it all coming to an end.