What is the MOST audiophile friendly city ???

I second Singapore. I know it's a little far from most of us, but when I lived there, I visited Adelphi building almost daily. The building is 5 or 6 stories tall and about 80% is filled with high-end authorized dealerships. I'm talking Krell, Canton, Levinson, Revel, Tannoy, Martin Logan, Totem, Lexicon, Triangle, and EVERYTHING ELSE.

I've traveled a lot and Singapore is by far the best place for an audiophile. Since all of these stores are so close together (any store to store walking distance is less than 5 minutes) it is perfect for audiotioning speakers. You can make a list of all the speakers you want to audiotion and then hear them yourself all in one day!

Many of the dealers I've talked to have a background in engineering and have a very good knowledge of their products and audio in general. If you have a chance to visit Singapore, do NOT miss the Adelphi building.

There are other high-end companies such as McIntosh and Thiel, who are located outside of the Adelphi building. But when the country is a tiny tiny little island, who cares? Everything is within 30 min drive away. As a bonus, the weather is fantastic (if you like sunny) all year round.

Berkeley,CA. My experience in Berkeley leads me to believe that a person could live a full audiophile experience with lots of validation. This is not to say there would not be those people who would be critical. Some might feel that stereo systems are just big old toys and that responsible people have more important concerns and better and more responsible ways to spend their money. But, even with this, I am betting that these same sort of people would be open minded enough to consider many audiophile considerations and discuss aspects of this to a very satisfying degree. Open minded enough, I think, to take such a discussion seriously. Over all I found berkeley a place where people were very respectful of peoples interests, regardless.

But isn't the sound from equipment purchased in Berkeley Louder on the Left channel than the right???? ;)

Funny! Perhaps. actually, I think you could find that too. I do not believe that is an absolute. anyhow, friendly does not neccessarily correlate with political correctness, and overall I found that I met a wide range of people and was exposed to a wide range of systems...its a wilderness!

Timf, thanks. I'm sure that the Governator doesn't spend too much time in Berkeley. LOL

Seriously, however, I get the feeling that many 'College' towns like Berkeley, etc. are very audiophile friendly - or it least it used to be that way. Back in the early 80's Auburn, Alabama had a high end dealer that was selling Linn and other quality gear. Now there is No Linn dealers in Alabama. :(