AudioNervosa
Electro Stimulation Ward => Signals and Noise => Topic started by: jimbones on October 06, 2015, 07:50:03 AM
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Stereophile declaring "winners" at the RMAF such in the case of a $4100 power cord. Well duh, it better sound good for that much (I know there's no guarantee that it sounds good). Tell me something really interesting like giant killers or new companies and products that think outside the box and offer great products at "modest" prices.
It's almost a given that the reviewers walk around these shows and declare winners by price rather than performance. I've been to shows where some of the priciest equipment sounded like crap. :x
Rant over. :thumb:
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i have to agree, the audio market is based on a new business model that has alot to do with appealing to the well heeled among us. To give in to the insecurities amongst people and try to sell products at ridiculous prices. They get your money, you get bragging rights to your audiophile friends. they have to be audiophiles because ordinary people would think them nuts or stupid. I think PT Barnum influenced the new business model!
not sour grapes here....just that it doesn't cost anywhere, and I mean anywhere near $4100 to make a power cord, why we pay that price I don't know, but because we do, the price just keeps going up,until we stop.
So in reality we are to blame for the crazy prices, and while 4100 may seem crazy high for a power cord, there are some out there that cost lots more!
Also if a $200 power cord was better than the 4100 dollar cord, that would be bad for business :duh so yes the more expensive the better it has to be..................so there
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I am on a similar, but not quite the same, page as you gentlemen.
1. Regardless of price, how do you evaluate a power cord (or any piece in the audio chain, save perhaps speakers) unless you are very familiar with every other item in the chain or get to hear the system with a different power cord?
2. Many of the people who buy uber expensive audio are not doing it out of insecurity but out of indifference. If you have the money, its not that big a deal, much like buying expensive furniture or tailored suits. Its supposed to be the best, so you plunk down the credit card and move on.
If anyone is to blame, I believe it is the Press. Rather than naming names and calling out the BS, they prefer to be industry cheerleaders. Their short sighted preference for being "positive" is like refusing to weed your garden. Eventually all the plants, including, the good ones, shrivel for lack of nourishment.
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I used the cable as an example. Same goes for all other equipment. Like giving awards to 150K speaker systems.Yea we know it's supposed to be good. But I really like seeking out the gems that are in the sweet spot of $$$.
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I believe the audio biz sees the writing on the wall....it's dying along with the last generation that actually gave a crap about sound quality so they are trying to make as much money as possible before they have to shut the doors.
Just read the reports from any audio show. "Last Hoorah Audio" has a new speaker! Transparency, soundstage, blah, blah blah. Ok, now I'm interested! Price? Just 25K :shock:
I think I'm doing pretty good financially at this point in my life and if I really wanted to spend 25K on a speaker I could but would I? Not a chance and I don't think anyone in the audiophile community that I know would either.
It's over for me. I'm off this bandwagon. It was fun some 20 years ago waiting eagerly for the next Stereophile or Absolute Sound to arrive. Not anymore.
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I agree with Emil completely. Value has disappeared and been replaced with fleecing of your money. Prices have gotten so out of control that the fun is gone from the hobby. If you go out to dinner with your wife and spend $200 bucks on a great meal...then fine, but if the bill was $2000 you know you are being robbed.
I too am off this bandwagon, it takes some time and distance from the hobby to see the insanity of it all. Trust me I was into it up to my neck, but in hindsight see it all as a big waste of time and money, it was fun, and I met some great people, but it was totally unproductive.
Music is a big part of my life, always has been, but the idea of sitting in a chair for hours listening to music seems like a waste these days, too much to do, and so much I want to do. Maybe I am getting old?
my audio hobby has been replaced by hiking and yoga. spending the time away made me realize how much more I want to do with my life.
So the audio business may wither and die, but music is always....whether played on a 100k$ rig or your car radio, I am glad the audionervosa has left me...........
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Its regoddamndiculous ;)
Im reading good things about Elac. I believe its the same designer who did the Pioneer bookshelf and did those fancy German speakers.. you know the ones lol
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I returned to the hobby after a 12 year hiatus and came back with my eyes wide open. I feel i have been able to put together a very nice sounding system for a modest amount of money. I buy used and DIY where I can and am quite happy with my system. There are some really good sounding value priced equipment out there that I believe deserves more headlines.
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If anyone is to blame, I believe it is the Press. Rather than naming names and calling out the BS, they prefer to be industry cheerleaders. Their short sighted preference for being "positive" is like refusing to weed your garden. Eventually all the plants, including, the good ones, shrivel for lack of nourishment.
This is also in a big part the result of changes in the publishing industry in general. TAS and Stereophlie we founded by people who had a deep love and respect for the hobby and published the magazines more as a calling than for the purpose of making a profit. Both of them went through periods of hard times that probably would have cause most businessmen to throw in the towel and call it quits but the persevered because of their feeling of purpose. Unfortunately, as it always does, time marched on and eventually the editorial staffs of both magazines got up in age and sold the publications to corporate entities that look at them as nothing more than cash machine and evaluate them not on the basis of what the contribute to the hobby, but rather how much profit they return to their owners as compared to the investment they made to buy them. So journalistic integrity and concern got the hobby is out the window as they focus solely on maximizing profits. Of course they are not going to endorse the maker of a $200 power cord over a $41000 power cord because guess which one of them has more money to buy advertising space?
The same thing has occurred in the newspaper business. Newspapers used to be run by “newspaper men” who considered reporting the news a noble cause. Now they are owned by conglomerates who wouldn’t care less if the converted the whole operation to a bunch of hot dog carts, so long as the carts returned and equal or greater profit. I have a friend who is an editor at a major metropolitan newspaper that was sold a by the original owners a few years ago and he was telling me recently that I would believe the number of times in the past year that he was forced to cancel a story because it would upset someone who bought a lot of ad space from them. Sad, but it is increasingly the way of the world.
(And in IMO, it all started when corporate executives began to have large parts of their compensation paid out in stock instead of cash, which caused more and more decisions to be made on the basis of what they would do to the stock price instead of how they would affect the company or its customers. But that is a discussion for another time, and probably a different forum.)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8BGHt18JTI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8BGHt18JTI)
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Tom's post in a single sentence (in my opinion):
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time
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HA! I have to agree completely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have gotten old and cheap, but very very much wiser.
Much happier now.
"Stereopile" is irrelevant and so are many of the other rags and
Review sites.
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HA! I have to agree completely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have gotten old and cheap, but very very much wiser.
Much happier now.
"Stereopile" is irrelevant and so are many of the other rags and
Review sites.
I am beginning to find that the best places now to get good info and reviews is some of the online audio mags. They are not big businesses yet and as such are largely staffed by hardcore audiophiles who are doing it not for the money , but rather out of love for the hobby, just like Stereophile and TAS did in the old days. Maybe not as polished and professional from a journalistic point of view, but a good source of honest unbiased opinions.
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There are loots of inexpensive components worth their weight in gold.
Vinnie Rossi integrated for one. Schitt Bitfrost DAC another. Vista MM phonostage, Marantz CDP, PSB speakers and more.
The big issue is knowing what tonality and harmonics are all about. meaning live instruments playing.
If one knows what live music sounds like all it then takes is doing your homework. One must audition everything in their room with their existing system as a benchmark.
Most do not have a dedicated space as required to achieve optimal sonics. Most are behind the eight ball from the start.
If one has only a living room which serves as a family room as well needs NOT to get separate components and the like. Instead find an intergrated and fine speakers . Your done enjoy the music.
Many complain about price. Should Ham be $6 a pound. No but it is. Thats life. No one is pulling your leg to buy. It personal choice. With that goes what is good for one is not good for another.
Anyway listen to more live music and better train yourself to buy properly, not the hot component of the day.
charles
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agree with many of the equipment selections you made, very fine indeed.
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actually ham is more like 8 to 10 dollars a pound retail.
now if ham was 80 to 100 dollars a pound then we know we are being ripped off.
Audio prices are in no way even closely related to audio prices, food is a commodity and tied to a free market, based on competition(to a degree).
Audio is tied to no market except psychological, sort of like the diamond market, completley made up, and not tied to anything. Women like shiny rocks, the marketing guys jacked up the prices and the women see it as a status symbol. We guys like women so we spend the money to get the real prize!!
How many 50,000$ amps get sold used for massive, massive discounts, why because there was no real market value assigned to it in the first place.
Yes some people will spend the big bucks on some high end gear, but make no mistake in no way is it tied to any real value.
Look at the Marten speakers for $550,000 dollars, you know it doesn't cost anywhere near that to make.
You could buy a house, a yacht, a business, a plane and a shit load more for that much money....
just sayin.........
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i agree on the ham.
i see the audio a bit differently.
the diamond business is a monopoly run by debeers. they make a lot of money. high end audio is the opposite. there are many, many players and only a few make a really good living. i have always advocated that the best thing that could happen for both producers and consumers of audio is if 80% of the producers went out of business. i don't by any means want to keep out small, new innovative companies. i just want the companies big or small, old or new, that sell inferior goods at their pricepoint to exit the market.
the high prices of highend audio is due largely to their low volumes. very few of those high priced units are being sold. and yes, those few companies that do sell a decent amount (still incredibly low by any manufacturing standard) are the lucky beneficiaries of that high price umbrella set by the 80% that are barely surviving.
If 80% of the companies were driven out, the good producers would see their sales rise 5x -- with that they would have more money for r&d and the ability to source their material at lower costs.
consumers would also benefit. it is easier to decide what to buy with fewer and better options to audition. i also believe that prices would come down because consumers could bargain with more knowledge and some of the savings from economies of scale would trickle to consumers.
one more point about too much choice needs to be said again and somewhat differently. even if you are willing to spend up for the high end stuff, its very hard to know what to buy if you are looking to buy one piece in the audio chain. the sound you get is the interaction of the whole system. and even a whole system will sound differently in your room than the store. so in home demos are the way to go. but that's not easily accomplished with bulky gear costing in the 5 and 6 figures, not to mention doing it 5-10 times.
i'll say it again. central to this process is a critical, informed press. only they have the ability to sample many products without buying them and the voice to get the word out. even then you would also have to figure out which reviewers to trust and have your taste. honestly, its kind of hopeless.
BUT in the end prices would not come down that much. audio seems, and is in many ways, grossly overpriced because we see it as a manufactured good, and audio companies are constantly hyping their technology. in our lifetimes we have seen the price of manufactured goods and technology decline tremendously in real and even absolute terms.
but high end audio is not priced like a mass market manufactured good and never will be. high end audio has more in common with the furniture business than technology. you can buy a chair for $5-50 bucks at the mall. or you can go to roche-bobois and spend $500-5000.
(indeed, in audio the "box" often costs more than the electronics inside of it).
all of which is to say, that the pricing in high end audio is not that irrational. its the nature of any small batch luxury goods market plus an audio industry that is in a sad way with many, many small players with a crappy cost structure going after a small, declining and dying market.
the last thing i will say, for now, is that the really expensive stuff gets a disproportionate amount of press and attention from us relative to sales. so we are worked up into a state of frenzy beyond what the problem really merits.
if the truth was told more often and more loudly about how some of the mid-priced gear (still expensive but not insane) gets you 98% of what you want, then we could more calmly see the uber gear with dispassion as largely irrelevant museum pieces.
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i agree on the ham.
i see the audio a bit differently.
the diamond business is a monopoly run by debeers. they make a lot of money. high end audio is the opposite. there are many, many players and only a few make a really good living. i have always advocated that the best thing that could happen for both producers and consumers of audio is if 80% of the producers went out of business. i don't by any means want to keep out small, new innovative companies. i just want the companies big or small, old or new, that sell inferior goods at their pricepoint to exit the market.
the high prices of highend audio is due largely to their low volumes. very few of those high priced units are being sold. and yes, those few companies that do sell a decent amount (still incredibly low by any manufacturing standard) are the lucky beneficiaries of that high price umbrella set by the 80% that are barely surviving.
If 80% of the companies were driven out, the good producers would see their sales rise 5x -- with that they would have more money for r&d and the ability to source their material at lower costs.
consumers would also benefit. it is easier to decide what to buy with fewer and better options to audition. i also believe that prices would come down because consumers could bargain with more knowledge and some of the savings from economies of scale would trickle to consumers.
one more point about too much choice needs to be said again and somewhat differently. even if you are willing to spend up for the high end stuff, its very hard to know what to buy if you are looking to buy one piece in the audio chain. the sound you get is the interaction of the whole system. and even a whole system will sound differently in your room than the store. so in home demos are the way to go. but that's not easily accomplished with bulky gear costing in the 5 and 6 figures, not to mention doing it 5-10 times.
i'll say it again. central to this process is a critical, informed press. only they have the ability to sample many products without buying them and the voice to get the word out. even then you would also have to figure out which reviewers to trust and have your taste. honestly, its kind of hopeless.
BUT in the end prices would not come down that much. audio seems, and is in many ways, grossly overpriced because we see it as a manufactured good, and audio companies are constantly hyping their technology. in our lifetimes we have seen the price of manufactured goods and technology decline tremendously in real and even absolute terms.
but high end audio is not priced like a mass market manufactured good and never will be. high end audio has more in common with the furniture business than technology. you can buy a chair for $5-50 bucks at the mall. or you can go to roche-bobois and spend $500-5000.
(indeed, in audio the "box" often costs more than the electronics inside of it).
all of which is to say, that the pricing in high end audio is not that irrational. its the nature of any small batch luxury goods market plus an audio industry that is in a sad way with many, many small players with a crappy cost structure going after a small, declining and dying market.
the last thing i will say, for now, is that the really expensive stuff gets a disproportionate amount of press and attention from us relative to sales. so we are worked up into a state of frenzy beyond what the problem really merits.
if the truth was told more often and more loudly about how some of the mid-priced gear (still expensive but not insane) gets you 98% of what you want, then we could more calmly see the uber gear with dispassion as largely irrelevant museum pieces.
Well said... I agree!!!
Cheers,
Pete
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honestly I don't see how a business model approaching a monopoly would lower prices. If people are presented with less choice, then the need to lower prices is removed.
I think we all know what the problems are in this hobby, probably similar problems exist in other hobbies as well.
Of course we all have the choice to not buy crazy priced gear for lack of funds or because of a set of priorities that makes us choose not to.
The real problem is the lack of new audiophiles, at least audiophiles in the sense we know it, the ones that buy lots of gear.
New technologies will change the face of audio as we know it, and along with it the sensibilities of those that choose to embrace the hobby.
So yes , perhaps the reason some gear is so stratospherically priced is because of low volumes, and they need to have high prices to make up for small sales numbers, but I think in the future most of THOSE companies will be gone, leaving larger companies to have the market to themselves, and that might drive prices down.
So maybe you are right, less choice will bring prices down.
it is all speculation right now, but if poor show attendance numbers are an indication of anything , it might be that we are seeing the shift right now in front of us.
I believe in balance, things tend to go out of balance in one direction, then come back to center out of necessity, eventually.
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we are not in any danger of approaching a monopoly, nor was i advocating one. the economic conditions for a monopoly are just not present in the audio industry. and in my dream scenario there would still be lots of companies.
right now we are in a situation where manufacturers not only do not compete on price, it is actually seen as normal to raise your prices with every new product.
i can't wait for the day when a widely respected manufacturer joins the 20th century, let alone the 21st, and comes out and says that their new and improved product is less expensive than the last one. when that becomes the norm we can begin to say that the industry has broken its current fever.
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i agree
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You are starting to see it happening already. Most companies in high end audio were founded and run by people who were basically hobbyists to begin with and run them as a noble pursuit, kind of like the old newspaper men. However as the high end approaches 40 years old, many of the "founding fathers" are beginning to leave the industry, whether via retirement or simply passing away. And as they do we are starting to see a trend where some of the bigger and more successful companies are being bought out by larger corporate interests. For example, Classe' was bought out by the B&W Group and Audio Research was bought out by the Fine Sounds group with also owns McIntosh, Wadia and Sonus Faber.
Therse larger groups wil allow costs to be lowered by sharing all of the common corporate overheads among all of the companies of the group and will bring more of a corporate mindset to the running of the companies (hopefully only forma financial and not an engineering perspective.)
And while at least in the short term, I am sure the groups will try to ride the high prices and margins as long as they can, when market forces start to push prices downward at least these groups will have the scale and scope efficiencies in place to be able operate in that new environment, whereas smaller firms that carry the high fixed costs associated with small batch production wll be forced out of business if prices start to shrink.
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it is all speculation right now, but if poor show attendance numbers are an indication of anything , it might be that we are seeing the shift right now in front of us.
I believe in balance, things tend to go out of balance in one direction, then come back to center out of necessity, eventually.
Mike - The REAL reason show attendance is down (at some shows) is that there's TOO MANY SHOWS!
RMAF is down because regional audiophiles (say the Midwest) are now attending AXPONA (which attendance is up) and West Coast people are attending The Show-Newport (attendance is up)... I even know a couple of audiophiles who chose to go the upcoming NYAS '15 in Westchester instead of RMAF... I think there are plenty of audiophiles and even more Headphone Enthusiasts (younger people) that may become audiophiles one day... Look at the resurgence of vinyl... that's the young hipsters driving it!
My $0.02,
Pete
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perhaps too many shows, but the shows are so far apart regionally, that maybe that us not a factor.
California, chicago, colorado, ny, maryland, while it seems like a lot they are pretty far apart in miles. Is the california audiophile coming to NY and vice versa?
also that headphones are huge speaks volumes as well I believe.
laptop, amplifier and headphones certainly simplifies things and cuts out a lot of products. If headphones are the trend then there will be a lot less product offerings in the future, the market will not warrant the investment.
Let;s be honest , we are kidding ourselves if we think the hobby is growing. It is definitely changing. Vinyl will lose favor in a few years, as the trend fades.
And re:hipsters, they are trend followers, when the trend turns, so will they...lockstep
Also economics has a lot to do with it as well, with the recent problems with the economy I think many are gun shy to spend significant money on audio gear. That coupled with the fact that cheaper gear is coming out that sounds good will result in a shift.
Most of us own modestly priced gear, I only know one person with crazy expensive very high end gear, the rest of us have made do quite well I believe with semi normal priced gear.
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perhaps too many shows, but the shows are so far apart regionally, that maybe that us not a factor.
California, chicago, colorado, ny, maryland, while it seems like a lot they are pretty far apart in miles. Is the california audiophile coming to NY and vice versa?
I don't think that the issue is that too many show drive the attendance down directory. I agree that a consumer in CA is unlikey tio not go to a CA show because there are other shows around the country. However; what having all these shows does do is spread the manufacturers too thin. These show are expensive to display in and as a result companies musty pick which ones they will go to. This in turn lowers the number of manufacturers at each show and the lack of big name companies will drive down attendance.
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I agree...another good point
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"Video killed the radio star," so why buy new radios?
TV has replaced the stereo in the home. Young people aren't willing to invest in today's shitty pop music by buying a nice stereo system, or even midfi as they did in the past when pop music was rewarding. Today's pop music is not compaible with hifi, resolution and low distortion makes it sound worse. Kids know pop music is bad news and they have abandoned it. Pop is for deviants. The only pop that sells is wholesome songs like countryrock and Taylor Swift, but that's not enough to overcome TV. There is no Beatles or Commodores or even Justin Bieber anymore. Kids make their own fun with interactive media - video games and phone life.
The never-ending recession has dealt with much of the excessive pricing of hifi glory days. There will always be wealth in the world that demands ultra-fi, and I believe it benefits everyone. The newest budget gear applies the R&D from ultra-fi and offers excellent value in response to the lack of demand, and the poor economy. There is apparently enough meat on the bones in the budget categories for them to continue developing new products. But I don't think it will last unless kids start listening to music again, until pop music is worth listening to again. It happened in 2011, so it's not out of the question.
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The never-ending recession has dealt with much of the excessive pricing of hifi glory days. There will always be wealth in the world that demands ultra-fi, and I believe it benefits everyone.
I agree and look forward to the technology trickle down. However, even the demand for ultra-hi (I like that term :D) has dropped significantly from what it was in the glory days. And while the ecomony has something to do with it, I think the biggest driver for that decline has been the rise of home theater. 30 years ago an over the top high end system was a big status symbol. And in many cases size mattered. infinity IRS Vs and Wilson WHAMs where the status speakers of choice and many people bought them as showpieces, not because of twhat they could do sound wise. In the mid eighties I bought an amp from a guy who lived in one of the wealthiest sections of Long Island. He had just upgraded to IRSs and Audio Research tube amps and was selling off some Hafler stuff. When I picked up the hafler he proudly took me into ths living room and proclaimed "Aren't those the most amizong things you have ever seen?". Never mentioned about how they sounded or offered to play them for me, but just loved how the looked in his room. Now if you made your money legally and want to spend it on speakers as artwork, I have no problem with that (hey, I benefited by getting his hand me downs. :D) But my point is that back then there were a good number of pweople buying ultra-fi equipment for reasons totaly unrelated to sound. But that has all changed in recent years as the stautus eletronics has shifted from 2 channel stereo to fancy home theater equipment. The people who bought purely for the sake of saying they owned it have shifted there focus from who has the biggest speakers, to who has the gibbest flat screan or the fanciest home theater room. And again if that it how they want to spend their money, so be it. But reuducing the pool of potential ultrs fi customers to only those people who were actually intreested in sound quality lead to a sharp decline in ultra fi sales.
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BTW this is a great topic.
It acknowledges that we know something is wrong with the hobby, or is heading in the wrong direction.
Sort of like our country, whether left or right, in our heart of hearts we know something is very wrong.
Rich is 100 percent right, why buy a system for todays music, it is of course shit, but also poorly recorded and made using computers for sound instead of real instruments. Packaged products and franchises.
This is a great topic to discuss over a few beers :thumb:
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Looking at the future of the hobby first necessitates an examination of the past. In order for an idea to spread there must be exposure to it. As a child I was first exposed to listening to music via something better than a RCA console TV by my father, who had a Sears Silvertone tube tuner and tube integrated amp, along with Sears Silvertone drivers; woofers,tweeters and squawkers.
Back in the sixties and seventies we were exposed to high quality stereos by a neighbor we knew or someone in the dorm we lived in. In those days the common goals for a male might have been to acquire their first car, a first girlfriend, gas money and most probably a badass stereo. Not necessarily in that order.
Along with the first two examples were the many regional retail chains that sold stereo components from the major Japanese manufacturers as well as domestic producers. Those chains are mostly gone and with them the chance to browse the stereo store while your wife shops elsewhere in mall. The independent dealers are also mostly defunct.
With most of the opportunities to encounter the sound of a good stereo gone, at least 1 generation of American youth and maybe 2, have never listened to a badass home stereo system. We won't see these people joining our hobby when they have never heard of it. I also don't see dedicated headphone listeners switching to a completely different mode of listening to music that also requires a potentially much larger financial investment in addition a certain amount of dedicated space in the home that may not be available.
I think it is possible that advances in materials science and electronics devoted to the reproduction of media in the home theater maybe the best hope for the youth of the future to hear high quality sound. Without using headphones.
The are wide variety forces acting on our hobby to change it and diminish aspects of it that we are currently familiar with. It exists because of the desires of a generation to have superior sounding music reproduction in the home. If it survives the passing of most of the baby boomer generation and the economic power that they bring to bear on the marketplace, it will probably not be in a form that would be recognizable to us today.
Scotty
Scotty
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You guys don't like the prices. It is the economy not anything else. We live in a 1% or billionaire economy. Why would they sell $200 cord when they can sell a $5K cord to somebody in the 1%. It isn't just for audio but anything luxury. You don't like the advertisng and pandering to the 1% then change the econmy. There is a reason they are focus advertising on that economic tier. Its because they have all the money. While we sit in debt ad are basically broke in the 99%.
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There's also that thought of will I have a job tomorrow so can I afford to be putting money on my beloved hobby. I along with a lot of people don't have a clue where upper management will turn and bam, I'm outa work with a great stereo. Our new world if fueled by fear and those 1 per-centers love it.
Don
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It doesn't help that from 2000 to 2015 inflation has eroded our buying power to to the point that it takes 1.38 times more money to have the same buying power one dollar had in the year 2000. This factor alone, if not offset by an equal increase in wages, will make affording any stereo equipment a lot more difficult.
I don't think we live in a billionaire economy, per se, but the recession combined with the effects of inflation has negatively impacted the middle class. Increasing globalization has taken away jobs that Americans had before the recession and the "recovery" has not resulted in their return. The average member of middle class has a lot of demands on their money and their discretionary income is lower than it has been in the past.
Here is a link to The Bureau Labor and Statistics data, tracking
Five Decades of Middle Class Wages: August 2015 Update
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Employment-Wages-and-Hours-since-1964.php
The data shows how the average hours worked and the gross wages earned are about 12% lower than the best year in the 1970s.
It's worth checking out the data for the insight into how the middle class has fared over the last 50years.
I thought it was worse than it is, but an overall loss in total take home pay over time does not bode well for the future. Made in America will be critical to turning this trend around.
It all too easy to allow the media to define this as a class struggle between the 1% and everyone else, this takes the focus off the complex nature of the problem and yields a simplistic view that can be readily reduced to a soundbite.
News Light, easy to swallow, and it's less informative!
Scotty
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We live in a Billionaire driven economy. The people who hold more than a billion in net wort, their entire value is more (than of value) half of everyone on the planet. Looking at middle class earning power means nothing. Because there is no middle class. The ones that are left are making the wages on the graphs but there are barely any left. So who who cares what they make. Those jobs are not there.
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As administrator I request that discussion of financial classes and percenters and billionaires be muted now, and the topic return to whatever tangent it was on before, or a different tangent which follows The Rules. (http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=2860.msg32474#msg32474)
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yes us billionaires take offense!
While I think most of us are on the same page regarding the economy and politics, it will not end well.
so lets stick to what grinds our gears
You know what really grinds my gears?
My wife likes to drive a manual transmission car, we bought a new car (yes we are billionaires!) a new Subaru with manual, which is not easy to get.
In the passenger seat I watch her drive up to a stop light in 3rd gear, put her foot on the clutch and wait for the green light.
When the green light comes she almost stalls because she is still in 3rd gear. She has been driving a manual tranny for almost her entire driving life and yet she still cannot remember to put it in 1st gear.
No gears were ground during this procedure, but it sure grinds my gears!
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Sure, we all feel betrayed by the industry after we've supported it for many, many years and now feel we're on the outside looking in but are we part of the reason?
With the growth of sites such as Audiogon and ebay, never has it been so easy to purchase used gear and I'm sure many here have put together systems with a few if not all from gear purchased used and I'm sure this hasn't gone unnoticed by manufactures. Why pay 2k for a new speaker when I can purchase a much better used speaker for the same money So it seems fully justified and understandable that they are catering to the market that purchases new.
Just a thought....
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I believe all this technology is just bringing us new buzz words that can be used as sales tactics... A lot of it is what tone is in vogue ( warm, high detail, neutral). We are being sold words, each year replaced by new desirable words.
Short term things are forgotten, then comes a revival. Rinse. Repeat.
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I want to say one thing about the billionaire comments, not from a political or class standpoint but from a purely scientific economic point of view (and Rich, if you think this is over the line feel free to delete it, I will not be offended at all.)
I hear all kinds of people talking about "the billionaires" and the "one percenters" in us vs them types of comments. One common thread that binds virtually all of these billionaire types is that they did not make their money by earning a large salary, they made it through equity ownership and appreciation (or inherited it from family who did). Either they founded companies that went onto huge success, like Microsoft or WalMart or they are executives that are paid mainly through stock grants and options.
However, with the disappearance over the past two decades of old fashioned annuity type pensions the vast majority of Americans are now depending on retirement savings plans , like IRAs and 401Ks to provide them with income in their golden years. (The last statistic I was was that the percentage of American workers current covered by annuity pension plans is in the area of only 25%)
Well these IRAs and 401Ks are all pretty closely tied to the stock market, So anything that is done to reign in the wealth of the one percenters (whose wealth is mostly driven by stocks) will also have an adverse effect on the retirement savings of the other 99%.
While can I understand how many people find that amount of wealth controlled by the few to be distasteful, people need to be very careful about what they propose we do about it, because this easily end up being a case people shooting themselves in the foot by getting exactly what the asked for.
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Kill Kill Kill the 1 percenters! Take their homes their yachts. their fashionable vinyl underpants!
So the 1 percenters have a contingency plan eh. We kill them, no retirement 4 you!!!!!
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Sheesh. Who started this thread 8-[
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Lets get back on track...
https://youtu.be/sgpa7wEAz7I (https://youtu.be/sgpa7wEAz7I)
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Sure, we all feel betrayed by the industry after we've supported it for many, many years and now feel we're on the outside looking in but are we part of the reason?
With the growth of sites such as Audiogon and ebay, never has it been so easy to purchase used gear and I'm sure many here have put together systems with a few if not all from gear purchased used and I'm sure this hasn't gone unnoticed by manufactures. Why pay 2k for a new speaker when I can purchase a much better used speaker for the same money So it seems fully justified and understandable that they are catering to the market that purchases new.
Just a thought....
I don't think it is really a matter of betrayal as much as simple (and I might say predictable) economics. The high end has been a boutique industry and a house of cards from the very beginning. High R&D, manufacturing setup costs and fixed operating expenses spread over very small production runs. Over time technological innovations and societal changes have introduced other thing that now compete with audio for leisure time and discretionary dollars, like smartphones, video games, home theater, and the internet to name a few. Even among audiophiles, the time and money once used exclusively for audio is now being at least partially allocated to other things that did not even exist during the infancy of the high end. This leads to less money allocated to audio, which leads to lower demand which forces companies to raise prices as they spread fixed costs across lower sales volumes, the higher prices again lead to even lower demand and the circle goes round and round.
So in reality, it is not so much the industry that id betraying you, but rather your fellow (ex) audiophile that are spending their stereo money on other thing. The industry is simply doing what it can to survive given the market forces that are presented to it.
As for Audiogon, that is really a case of a technological innovation from outside of the industry that has a had a profound effect on the industry. In the past used equipment was pretty much available only to people who lived in proximity to a dealer that handled it and was purchased on a drive and find basis. But with the proliferation of the internet and sites like Audiogon that broker the transactions, anyone, anywhere can have access to all kinds of used gear and often find what the want in less time than it used to take to drive to the store. So while outside technology has caused the total market for high end gear to shrink , it has also grown the used market by making used gear available to people who never really had a good opportunity to buy it be and making is quicker and easier to do so for everybody. But of course this will be a limited phenomenon unless new gear sales continue at a pace that keeps feeding more gear into the used market. If not as older gear wears out, breaks down or just dies of old age the used market will get smaller and smaller.
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Sheesh. Who started this thread 8-[
Some Bozo. #-o
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What grinds my gears are the people who complain about price. either they are jealous or feel deprived.
My advice learn more about real sound in a real space and put together a system within your budget.
There are many inexpensive or reasonably priced components that provide great tonality and harmonic structure. Finding them and putting the system together is where experience counts.
Most audiophiles are not confident in their own decisions. Why do we need a buddy to "hear" the system and make usel better about the system.
Can a inexpensive system give emotional impact like a expensive system. Yes,yes and yes.
Then there are those you need bragging rights. Well I have "blah,Blah, blah speakers you know. Good for you but the system sounds Hi Fi, go figure.
The most forgotten piece of the puzzle is the room not the gear. Really why would someone put top line gear in a tiny room with a fireplace behind it ? Or glass walls ?
OK most have a shared space or living room. They cannot get the desired basic parts of the room correct. There are exceptions but very few in my experience. One exception is Scottys' apartment. Zero issues.
So do not piss in the wind realize your starting point and build the system accordingly.
chew on that awhile
charles :-P
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What grinds my gears are the people who complain about price. either they are jealous or feel deprived.
So do not piss in the wind realize your starting point and build the system accordingly.
chew on that awhile
charles :-P
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/17/6b/80/176b80fc43705ffcd1f75813139dd90d.gif)
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I don't think people here are complaining about their rooms or the sound of their system. I think most people are pretty much content with their systems, people are complaining at how high the prices of audio gear have become. We all know the room has a lot to do with it, that is pretty much audio 101, and most people here are past that point. I just don't think that was the point of what people are commenting about.
and with that you know if you want an expensive piece of gear you have lots of wiggle room with price, since we all know lots of profit is built into the prices of these expensive pieces. I am sure people approach dealers and distributors directly making offers at big discounts.
Some may stand on the price but ultimatley they have to mover units, they have to get the cars off the lot.
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Hey Charles, I thought I lived in a condo building!!! :shock: Stop harshing my buzz man. 8)
You are also being overly kind, which I appreciate but we have both heard better in many areas at the most recent CAF.
The problems I still have are just well compensated for.
As far as the cost of gear is concerned, when it costs as much as car and when a system can cost as much as house we are into the territory of exotic cars which also have prices that I can not afford to pay. If I am not angry about being unable to afford a Lambo or a Ferrari. Why should I be angry about being unable to afford a similarly priced audio system or a pair of speakers that cost as much as a good car?
Good sounding speakers that might be considered affordable are a little harder to find but they are out there. I heard a SVS UltraTowerMain speaker system at the 2014 CAF that I thought was pretty good sounding for the money at $2000 for the pair. 28 Hz-32 kHz (+/-3 dB) In the large room they were in, they sounded like the claimed bass extension was real and you could shave in the reflection off the piano gloss finish. Unreal cosmetics for the price point.
(http://www.svsound.com/UltraTowerMain.jpg)
That one example of a good sounding,IMO YMMV, affordable loudspeaker and there have to be more. While the cabinet does not have an all aluminum monocoque construction neither does my pickup truck. :)
Scotty
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I am not against high prices themselves. I just don't see any value in audio publications gushing over expensive gear as if it is a revelation. I like the value oriented companies that build good sounding equipment. Charles pointed out some fine stuff that I totally agree with. i know that PS Audio, Audioquest, Rega, Vanatoo, TWL and MWI make some very good equipment for a fair price. If I started a magazine I would grade equipment on a Performance-Price ratio. Value =Performance/Price.
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Topround I do not mean to pick on your gig but is Bologna worth $5 a LB ? The profit margin is insane % wise.
I buy organic homemade Bologna for $4 a lb from an organic Butcher who makes his own. No union salary , no trucking costs , no big overhead. They make a fine quality product for less. Just like many audio manf's. I sought out the organic butcher got a quality product and saved money. One must do the same in audio. They are out there.
Take shoes. ever try on ECCO shoes ? Yup $500to $750 a pair. Fit like no other shoe I ever tried on. Worth it ? To me yes to others no way Jose.
There are luxury goods all about. Some make luxury gear eye candy [ Dan Dagastino anyone ]. Dan could make the same circuit in a black box however chooses not to. His prerogative.
There is always NAD, Rotel, Marantz which offer great sound then there is Vinnie Rossi integrated.
Profit is part of business. My bet there is more mark up on the common products we buy than audio gear.
Scotty a very nice Condo, yup those open baffle subs are quite something eh ?
Hey how about we start a list of great gear and classic combos for not much mulla. Hey Richidoo.
charles
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I think the frustration here is back when a lot of us started in this hobby you could get a top notch audio system for the price of a Z28 Camaro and now something that sits in about the relative spot along the audio quality spectrum costs the same as a Ferarri.
In 1988 I bought a pair of Thiels 3.5s, which were at the time their top of the line model for $2500 .If I index that price for inflation it would be $ 5036 in 2015 dollars. But Thiels current replacement for that model is the 3.7, which retails for $14k. So while inflation has upped the 1988 price by 101%, Thiels price for the speaker that occupies the same place in there model line up toady had increased by 460%. So the frustration we see here is that those of us that have been in this hobby for a long time know what we could get for a given amount of money back then and what we would need to pay to replicate that relative level of quality today and even when adjusted for inflation, today's gear is many multiples more expensive that it was back in the good old days. And it is frustrating for those of us in a hobby that was all about continuously improving you system to see that we cannot even afford to replace our gear with items of similar quality, never mind higher quality.
I understand where the higher prices are coming from from a business ad economics perspective, but that doesn't mean it still doesn't frustrates me as a consumer. ](*,)
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Charles you're full of baloney :rofl:
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Those speakers look sweet Scotty. I like the splayed sides and opposing woofers, kinda like Devore Silverback, but a lot cheaper.
But $2000 is too low for really good speakers. There must be something wrong with them for that low price. :rofl:
Today I was reading about the new classD amps from Crown XLS. $300 for brand new stereo amp, with built in DSP, and people are saying they sound pretty good. This is not Behringer junk, this is 3 year transferrable warranty from Harman Intl.
There is plenty of value out there among new, recently introduced products. There is even more value at higher prices. The best value is usually at the highest prices because that's where the best is. The best will always have a market, and there's nothing like owning the best. It is unwise to believe that lower price is always better. Real value is often intangible.
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It is unwise to believe that lower price is always better. Real value is often intangible.
And this is a hobby that is about personal enjoyment. So while lower prices could mean better "Value" from a pure price perspective, if the peice does not float your boat, it is not really doing it's job, no matter how little, oe for that matter how much you paid for it. (because we all know that a higher price does not guarantee anything about pure performance, nor musical enjoyment.)
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Charles,
the price of food is pegged to the commodities market, when the price of the raw material goes up, then the price goes up for everyone.
Just like gasoline, it is a commodity, when the price goes up we all pay it.
So bologna is $5 a pound, turkey is now around $10 a pound, because of a shortage. cannot get around the laws of supply and demand, especially with commodities.
When a power cord costs $4100, well then....supply and demand is not the law in effect, it is not the raw material price that is in effect, copper $3, silver $14, so the reason for the big price jump has to be something else.
What makes a power cord $4100, and amplifier $55K, speakers $200k, speaker cables 12K$ AND SO AN SO ON.
What it is...is what this thread is about...
Profit levels for the uber priced gear have increased tremendously, and while no one on this site owns or would buy any of that gear, the pricing of that gear has had an effect on the standard audio market that we frequent.
It has driven the midlevel stuff( the stuff we buy) into higher and higher prices. Also most of the chassis and speaker cabinets are made in China as well, why, to save money and increase profit.
Now we all love profit, profit is good, but what we have been experiencing is a squeezing of the regular audiophile out of the market, and the hobby has seen a decline in interest in the hobby, and we wonder why?
The answer is right in front of us.
If I were an audio manufacturer I would charge a lot too...because there are so few of us out there that I need to make my profit when I can, and in big lumps, because the amount of sales I have is low.
Where we used to be able to buy used gear in the 3 figures , we know have to buy used gear in the 4 figures, and any new gear we look at approaches or is in the 5 figures.
The economy sucks for most of us, and our hobby is getting more and more expensive, pushing us out...that is why so many of us are in this thread.
Also even the new start ups have to charge more for their gear, so they charge a lot and they have no resale value, so we lose again.
Every piece of gear I bought(with the exception of a few) was bought with resale value in mind, not that I wanted to sell it right away or flip it, but if I wanted to sell it would I lose my shirt, giving it away to a guy who knew no one else would make an offer.
I think we have agreement here as to what grinds most people gears, if you do not understand the angst or the message than you should reread the posts.
I am sure most of the gear you have in your home was bought used or got on some sort of deal, so you should understand better than most why people are upset at the high prices, because you are one of us in actuality.
I am not trying to offend you, honestly, but trying to come off telling people to deal with the high prices is a bit dishonest,as you probably never paid full price for anything either. So give the high horse a rest, unless you want to stir the pot to keep the thread going, which I am in full favor of, in that case, keep it coming....good stuff
let's make some bandwidth :thumb:
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I am a little unclear as to what constitutes too high a price for any given piece of gear. There seem to be products of all kinds at almost any price point imaginable. There are $50 power cords and $5000 and up power cords, to name one product category. For another example, there are DACs from Schiit Audio from the $99 Modi 2 to the unpronounceable Yggdrasil at $2299.
When does one decide that they are being pushed out of the hobby. It seems that this metric may be based on an individual and very personal value judgement.
I am probably the odd man out here. In my nearly 40years in this hobby I have purchased only three pieces of used gear, my Maplenoll Ariadne TT, a 20 year old Superphon DM 220 power amp for rebuilding, $250 on eBay and my Fisher FM 100 tuner which also had to be completely rebuilt.
I have also never purchased a piece of gear with any thought of its resale value on the used market.
If I had an audiophile membership card it would probably be revoked.
Scotty
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give the high horse a rest
No shut downs! People say what they want here.
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ok, lets keep it going!
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I think there was an audio publication around years ago that addressed modestly priced audio equipment. Forget the name.
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Keepitsexy.com
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Is anyone forcing anyone to buy the high priced gear ? The market will take care of high prices. Too high no sales.
I cannot rationalize buying a $4000 power cord. However if I had the money to play with and the $4000 cord made my system sound better, it would be mine. That simple.
If one feels leftout of the premiere gear by price just like cars that is life. Earn more money.
A manufacturer will price products according to market trends. So if high priced gear is what is selling than expect a high price for those Manf's.
Me personally have spent plenty retail money on audio. Now that I am in the business accommodations are made just like any other business to business transaction. My business is setup to discount when an item is not fair traded as most know and will attest to. I feel your pain.
A real manf like audio Research, CJ, Bryston all have salaries, overhead, marketing and Adv. budgets and so on. It cost lots of money just to put the key in the door. For dealers 40% markup is to cover shelf life, overhead, services offered and rent.
Most still discount to sell. I'm lusting for the Lamm reference preamp at 40K. Why ? It is the most well executed preamp I ever heard. Cannot afford it right now but when I can SOLD.
Not looking to stir up the pot just offering my opinion which differs from yours. High horse ? C'mon Man.
Lastly everytime you called me for a price I gave you basically my cost. To date you have not bought a thing. :shock:
PS Market determines prices they will come down or up accordingly.
charles
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Fortunately I do not need a thing, when it comes to audio.
A ferrari is expensive because you know what goes into making one?
Hand made,exotic materials, state of the art engineering, and world class motors. There is no smoke and mirrors. just some of the best that is available at the time.
In audio, that really ain't thetruth. lots of smoke and mirrors are hidden inside some of those boxes, just look at the high priced class D amps, we all know they aint expensive to make at all.
It is the lack of value that grinds peoples gears!
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Mike, I thought all of your extra "baloney" was going to this thread until I read this today.
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2015/10/bears_killed_parks_closed_amid_encounters_with_hikers_officials_say.html (http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2015/10/bears_killed_parks_closed_amid_encounters_with_hikers_officials_say.html)
(http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/width380/img/bergen_impact/photo/bear-cfa2e331dca8325d.jpg)
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Lots of the furry fellas up my way.
Why shoot the bears ?? They were there first.
Shoot the hikers in the ass with #8 bird shot for messing with their territory !! Especially Topround !!
My dog chased this one up a tree in our yard.
Greg
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PS Market determines prices they will come down or up accordingly.
Correct!
Mike you sound like a socialist! You and bernie and fauxcahontas can start a high end audio power cord company for the poor... government subsidied, of course.
Price discovery between informed buyers and sellers is very efficient. We know what to buy and how much to spend, and how much to charge and what to sell. We are so good at it, we can afford this luxurious hobby of high end audio and music listening. Have a little faith in your fellow audiophiles. You don't need to worry 'bout us. ;)
There's no inherent problem with free markets other than many people don't know how to use it to get everything they want. Ignorant of the truth about markets, they are susceptible to believing the socialist scammers' big promises. Capitalists know socialism can never deliver on the promises, but the market always delivers.
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What may be not obvious about many pieces of audio gear is that frequently a manufacturer has to order a part built to their specifications because an off the shelf part does not exist.
This is a common occurrence when a unique approach to circuit design used. You can't get there from here without the right part. Said part will always be subject to a minimum order quantity before someone will make it up. It doesn't take very many of these minimum order quantities to fill your warehouse full of enough parts for several years of production. If you are a small company building boutique audio gear it also ties up a lot capital in parts. Damn few things you put into your custom built chassis will be readily available off the shelf. If you build a me too product, like a lot of the Japanese receivers back in the 70s a very large number of the parts might be available off the shelf. Frequently the company itself manufactured almost everything in the box, Panasonic anyone. Mass production, the use of readily available off the shelf parts and having many of the same parts common to the entire model line will help control costs.
The economy of large scale production doesn't exist for small manufacturers. Mind you I am not saying these factors account entirely for the prices of expensive audio components but they are part of the equation.
Scotty
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"As administrator I request that discussion of financial classes and percenters and billionaires be muted now, and the topic return to whatever tangent it was on before, or a different tangent which follows The Rules."
"Mike you sound like a socialist! You and bernie and fauxcahontas can start a high end audio power cord company for the poor... government subsidied, of course."
"There's no inherent problem with free markets other than many people don't know how to use it to get everything they want. Ignorant of the truth about markets, they are susceptible to believing the socialist scammers' big promises. Capitalists know socialism can never deliver on the promises, but the market always delivers."
Yes, we get it. You are a hard core Republican. But someone needs to follow their own admonitions! :roll:
I visit this forum to escape the ignorance and ideology that results when most people talk about economics and politics. It's hard enough keeping them out of audio.
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Charles got on a high horse???? I want to know how the hell he got up there? And worse yet, how the hell's he getting off? :rofl:
Leave them high horses alone Charles, you're too old for that shite. Ditto for myself. aa
Cheers,
Robin
Vermont's Bernie Sanders (a Brooklyn boy) :thumb:
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Perhaps we need a power cord for the masses. a volkspower.
It would be green in color to represent that we are a green company, and our company would be a non profit of course,/. And any profits that were made by accident of course, would be donated to help the black bears and their efforts to reclaim their lost lands, that were stolen by us.
Also all materials used would be purchased from comapnies that are unionized, and have a strong moral ethic, were the workers were allowed to mill about free range style.
and yes of course we would need to be govt subsidized because all of those things cost money.
So I would design a green power cord that has a very small carbon foot print that not only makes your system sound good it makes YOU feel good as well.
Perhaps we could make enough accidental profit that we could fund a whole state just for the black bears and give them free health care of course, while we wait for them to develop some casinos for us to help get rid of some profit.
Power to the people power power cord soon available! Price to be determined...........
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Those damn pesky black bears gotta go, they do not pay taxes hence have no representation if you ask me.
Us hikers walk around mile after mile minding our own business, we leave footprints that have no or very little carbon in them, trying to enjoy nature.
These bears have gotten smart and formed "gangs" usually one main thug with his crew, terrorizing the woods, chasing us hikers, like we need extra cardio workouts!
Its time to arm the hikers and rid us of the scourge that runs rampant in our woods.
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I think there was an audio publication around years ago that addressed modestly priced audio equipment. Forget the name.
The Sensible Sound?
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Maybe that was it.
I don't have a problem with the high prices. It's just that when a very expensive piece of equipment is reviewed I am not interested in reading the review because they gush over it. I expect that the very expensive stuff should sound good so I feel like its a waste of my time. "Oh, this $20K cartridge sounds amazing!" yawwnnnn. It better sound good. Now lets get to that $600 cartridge.
I believe that technology has brought better performance and lower prices. For example the PS Audio Sprout.
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I will be voting for Bernie. No republican has a chance btw. Beyond that... hopefully more manufacturers will hear the cry and provide more affordable gear for the poor folk.
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Good one Mike!
I don't have a problem with the high prices. It's just that when a very expensive piece of equipment is reviewed I am not interested in reading the review because they gush over it. I expect that the very expensive stuff should sound good so I feel like its a waste of my time. "Oh, this $20K cartridge sounds amazing!" yawwnnnn. It better sound good. Now lets get to that $600 cartridge.
I believe that technology has brought better performance and lower prices. For example the PS Audio Sprout.
Good points!
At the beginning of my audio quest, back in 2005, I auditioned Paradigm 100s at a dealer with Integra receiver. It was OK, but nothing like the high end speakers I had auditioned like Legacy Focus, Wilson WP7. Then I read a glowing review of it from John Atkinson. I was perturbed to read that he auditioned these $3000 speakers with his flagship Levinson electronics, costing 20x the speakers. I emailed him about it, and he replied something like giving them the best opportunity to show their best, blablabla. That didn't make sense to me, but I appreciated his quick and genuine response. He always replies to email questions with real answers, kudos to that.
Now 10 years later, as a fully jaded audiophile, I understand his view: do whatever you can to make it sound good. But I feel it is deceptive not to ALSO test it with electronics priced proportionally to the speakers, something that would be in a real system using those speakers. Back then, when $3000 speakers was a big deal to me, using 40k of electronics on the test seemed a immoral deception, I did not get it. I ended up buying $5400 speakers and a used $1800 amp and $250 wires, and $300 source. haha It was a good starting place, but I went to the other extreme in not feeding my speakers well enough. Obviously I was/am biased against expensive electronics!
But I felt that I was a potential customer of the Paradigms, so this review was aimed at me, and I felt that his review did not match my audition experience at all. It felt like a con job. Like he was cheating, because typical buyers of Paradigm like me would never use Levison flagship electronics. And now I know electronics do make a huge difference, and indeed it was a con job. But it's common.
Another time I sat next to Robert Harley at some show while he auditioned some rebuilt Apogees, powered by the chameleon AR flagship tube electronics. I was excited to hear the amps as they were the only AR at the show. I didn't care about the speakers as I knew it didn't matter, it was gonna sound great just because of the amps. Harley gave the vendor best of show award. Sure the overall sound was good, but the guy was a speaker seller, not even a AR dealer. Of course Harley didn't even mention the electronics. Readers were misled to think the speakers did the magic, some maybe, but not all of it.
In 2011 I got tricked into buying used Polk LSiM707 "flagship" speakers after hearing them at a show using $30k Audio Research flagship electronics and reading fanboy reviews on Polk forum. On the plus side, they had nice paint, and they are a heroic all-time engineering triumph in extreme cost cutting. I mean you simply can't believe what they did to cheapen it, and that's what it sounded like it with my amps.
Deceptive reviews and especially deceptive demos grind my gears!
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Rich, I am not sure I understand what you want. The best speakers in the world will be dependent on what they are fed and the room they are in for the resulting sound. Likewise a more moderately priced speaker, if linear, will still tell you about what is up stream of it.
The GIGO rule always applies.
Perhaps John Atkinson erred when he didn't say they sounded great but they weren't as good as Wilson Sophia's or Focal Grand Utopia BEs. One could say that the review needed to put the speaker's performance into perspective relative to much better performing loudspeakers.
From your comments about the Polk's it sounds like you were unable to hear them or something from the line that was similar before you committed to buy the used pair. The lack of stores to allow you to audition something before you buy it has struck again.
I agree about the deceptive nature of reviews. One certainly needs to learn to read between the lines and have the salt handy. In an ad driven environment this is going to be the order of the day. No one can tell it like it really is without buying outright every piece of gear they review and even then they would probably be sued for something.
Scotty
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give the high horse a rest
No shut downs! People say what they want here.
boogie woogie woogie. Gooby booby. Boogie oogie oogie woogie. Gooby Gooby. :rofl:
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Werd, What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Scotty
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Free audio gear for all it is our right. :roll: :roll: Free everything oh my !!!
It sounds like sour grapes to me. Read ALL reviews with a grain of salt. did not Momma teach y'all to not believe everything you read. Hands on experience is the tell all not a review. But but I cannot afford to hear it so I am screwed by those wealthy people who can and I'm so upset. :duh :duh :rofl:
What grinds my gears are people who do not get it . Keep spending money and go sideways. It is all about tonality and harmonics however most do not know what say a "D" note on a piano sounds like. Train ones ears with live unamplified music and it becomes easier to buy the right gear at the right price.
The other is when some always think that Manf's are devious or criminal with their pricing. There is no agenda to rip people off. They put a price tag on the product and hope to make sales. If not they lower the price as the market demands. If people are buying a Tara cable for $18K why change. If it worth it to buyer who is anyone to question that.
Time to move on thanks Sarafat.
charles
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give the high horse a rest
No shut downs! People say what they want here.
boogie woogie woogie. Gooby booby. Boogie oogie oogie woogie. Gooby Gooby. :rofl:
You tell em Werd. :rofl:
charles
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Everything needs to be free! Because if its not free its held in some kind of evil bondage! Free the Wilson speakers and deliver them unto me!!!
And free threshold delivery for all!!!! It is our human right!
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boogie woogie woogie. Gooby booby. Boogie oogie oogie woogie. Gooby Gooby. :rofl:
(http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/61359918.jpg)
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Everything needs to be free! Because if its not free its held in some kind of evil bondage! Free the Wilson speakers and deliver them unto me!!!
And free threshold delivery for all!!!! It is our human right!
"Free is when you don't have to pay for nothing or do nothing I want to be free. Free as the wind"
FZ
http://youtu.be/KTHjyHB0SPk
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You guys remember when I got restricted from AC by JohnR cuz I was using FZ quotes reaponding to JohnR on a FZ appreciation thread? :rofl: that was awesome.
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You guys remember when I got restricted from AC by JohnR cuz I was using FZ quotes reaponding to JohnR on a FZ appreciation thread? :rofl: that was awesome.
I have never been an AC user, but I do find it somewhat amusing that so many people consider getting restricted or banned from AC as a badge of honor. :roll:
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You guys remember when I got restricted from AC by JohnR cuz I was using FZ quotes reaponding to JohnR on a FZ appreciation thread? :rofl: that was awesome.
I have never been an AC user, but I do find it somewhat amusing that so many people consider getting restricted or banned from AC as a badge of honor. :roll:
haha you were on there. He binned the thread once he realized it was an FZ thread and what was going on?
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Werd, this type of thread would have NO chance of being allowed on audiocircle.
I still put forward that the $4100 power cord exists because of our insecurities.
Even if you are wealthy you must know that you are being ripped off.
Not being wealthy I guess I do not understand the mindset of a rich person, do they feel that since they have the money they can just waste it? Do they not know they are being ripped off, or because they have money it OK?
Why do we mortals see that the price is ludicrous and the rich sees it as fair?
Reality for one cannot be different for another? NO?
Does the fact that one can afford to buy that 4100 power cord make it OK?
These questions seem to go over Rollo's head, being sort of philosophical I know they go outside the norm, but what we are talking about is what grinds peoples gears....and while it may be difficult to explain, reducing it to class warfare or jealousy sort of misses the point by a large degree if you ask me.
Like an onion there are layers to this question.
I believe everyone here is beyond audio 101, they have been around the block and have amassed a level of experience that allows them to understand a little deeper. We all know that it is complicated, and that synergy is required to make it all work, regardless of price.
We all know what a piano sounds like and we all know that we are listening to recordings that were recorded in studios, microphones, and mixers and amps and processing and wires all thrown in to make it even less live than we care for, not live music.
I consider everyone here advanced audiophiles, no one here needs any schooling as to what is the right way or the wrong way, or how to hear or listen. We have all bought and sold gear, played with cables and tubes and tweaks.
But something about this hobby is grinding our gears, and not just one or two of us, but if anything can be discerned from the comments in this thread is that there IS something wrong. More than likely several things are wrong, pricing just being one of them.
Like when the govt tells us unemployment is down! Hurray we all cheer, but in reality we know that is not the whole truth.
so I ask you not to chew on anything, but to dwell on it and think about it.
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Werd,
Those Nolas are great speakers. yummy alnico
heard the metros last year with alnico at the NY show, best of show for me.
Big open and delicious, I want a pair :drool:
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Posts about politics and class deleted.
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Werd,
Those Nolas are great speakers. yummy alnico
heard the metros last year with alnico at the NY show, best of show for me.
Big open and delicious, I want a pair :drool:
Thanks! Yah I know they are that. Outboard mid and tweet Xovers too.
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No, it exists because enough people out there think it is worth $4100, for whatever reason.[/color]
Even if you are wealthy you must know that you are being ripped off.
If they thought they were being ripped off they wouldn't buy it. The fact that there are other people who don't think it is worth it doesn't invalidate the purchase decision of someone who does.
Why do we mortals see that the price is ludicrous and the rich sees it as fair?
Reality for one cannot be different for another? NO?
It is simple economics. We each make purchase decisions based on the amount of disposable income that we have and what other alternative uses we have for those funds. People making minimum wage at WalMart think that we are out of out minds spending $50 for a Pangea power cord when a unit comes with a "perfectly good" $3 IEC cord. Why is it so difficult to understand that someone with a multi million dollar income could consider $4100 not to be a large sum of money. People with access to large amounts of money do not think any differently than you and I, it just may look that way because the amount they have in their audio "war chest" allows them to play in a different strata than most of us, but the thought process is exactly the same. The price is only ludicrous if you don't have the money or have other things you would rather spend the money on.
Now that I think about it I think that one of the big differences between the way wealthy people think vs how middle class people think is that with a limited amount of disposable income most of us need to make or decisions (like this year do I buy that $4100 power cord or take my family ion vacations) whereas wealthy people, because of there financial situation can decide to to either interdependently (this year I think I will buy that power cord, and a new car, and take the family on vacation .) And as long as they came by their money legally there is nothing wrong with that.
Does the fact that one can afford to buy that 4100 power cord make it OK?
The bottom line is yes, it does. If there is one thing I have learned about this hobby is that it is all about personal pleasure. And if somebody out there feels, for whatever reason, that spending $4100 on a power cord will give him more pleasure than spending $4100 on something else, then who am I to argue with him?
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That sort of validates what I just said, you sort of proved my point.
So the price of the power cord was determined by the amount of money the buyer has. It was priced accordingly, since it was targeted to the person who has enough disposable income that the purchase makes sense, yet the manufacturer knows the less affluent cannot afford it.
We are talking power cords here, not Gulfstreams. Gulfstream knows NO middle class guy is buying their planes because they cost too much to make. The middle class guy is not even in the equation for that product.
So then the 4100 power cord is designed to be sold for the rich guy who has deep enough pockets.
Do you see my point, this may require a little deeper thought on your part to understand, but it is pretty simple.
The argument is not that the power cord costs 4100$, but why it costs that much! So, if the PC was designed to be priced at a point for wealthy consumers, because they have enough money to not care about spending that much, then it must follow that the cord may not really be worth (or cost) 4100 in the first place. They could make two identical cords charge 200 for one and 4100 for the other right?
Also if the pc manufacturer makes a whole line of pc's at different price points, he may be selling lots of standard priced cords to the masses, and every once in a while sell a crazy priced one. The bulk of his business model is standard audiophiles, he is making enough money to pay the bills and make some money. every once in a while some guy buys his PC at a huge multiple, this is pure gravy at this point as he is not relying on the sale of the crazy priced one to keep the lights on.
Sounds like a good business model.
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Also when the guy who works at Walmart making minimun wage thinks we are crazy for spending 4100 on a PC, is he not right.?
Why do we look down our noses at him because he doesn't understand?
Is it because we think he is stupid and poor?
Those his lowly position(according to us) make his opinion any less valid.
If he made lots of money as an exec at Walmart would his opinion carry more weight.
Being devils advocate, because like an onion there are many layers here, the knee jerk first reactions usually carry no real mental weight. Dig deeper because there is a lot to this issue and it relates to alot of the insecurities of man.
Why does a person go out and buy a Bentley?
One could say that he wants the best, he loves the car, the way it looks and the way it drives. He can afford it so he buys it.
You know also that he buys the car to show it off, to let people know he is a success. There is nothing wrong with this, it is human nature, and human nature is not perfect. Dwell on this, because this reveals the true nature of our conversation here.
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...it is human nature, and human nature is not perfect.
Very profound statement for an (ex-?)audiophile, Mike. ;) Love it!
SN
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Getting banned from AC is a total badge of honor. Mike is awesome. And when I say Mike I mean both of us ;)
Frank Zappa rules!
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$4k plus Power cords ? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Hell I would not buy $40 ones...don't like em don't use em.
Good 'ol OEM works fine.
So many more effective ways to address the overall sound of a system.
This is the key to any system. Once you go down a road, say a power cord that produces a specific sound, everything that comes after is a direct result of the system interaction with that cord.
This can lead to a slippery and expensive slope.
Better to back up and think...what may be causing the the sound one feels the need to address by a cord or whatever perceived fix.
I will keep any further feeling on the subject for another post.
Change of subject you audio nuts.
Ya know what grinds my gears ??
LIARS !!!
Long story short, I ordered my firewood from a new guy this year, he gave me a good deal, but that good deal left me with some splinters you know where !!
Anyway...No natural gas up here, so oil is the norm.
I try not to turn on my oil boiler till it gets really cold out. Too expensive !!!
My wood stove does a great job, cozy warm and smells sooo good.
I make a deal on the phone for this guy to deliver 3 cords.
I was assured after much questioning on my part that the wood was dry, properly sized and clean.
I could not be here when he dropped it on my driveway...left him the $525 under a rock.
Well I come home to a pile of crap !!
Wet wood, waay too large cuts that will not fit in my stove and dirty like it had been buried in a mud pile.
I have since found out I was sold Sandy wood..as in "Hurricane Sandy"
I call this shyster back and he gives me the tried and true response of used car salesman who just sold you a clunker.
Well... maybe you left it out in the rain...No..I covered it the day you delivered it.
Well...its the cover, it keeps moisture in.
REALLY !!
At this point I know I have been duped.
He refuses to take it back.
Being the vindictive SOB I know I am
I call consumer affairs, not much action
Weights and measures...Bingo !!
Seems he shorted me..big no-no as far as weights and measures, besides being not what I ordered...and another no-no...he didn't leave me a receipt..a $500 fine to him !!
I tried to contact him with this new found leverage to get him to relent.
Now use he refuses to answer my calls.
So it looks like I am filing an official complaint with NJ weights and measures.
The head dude there was very happy to help me, he says this is a big problem and he loves to sink his teeth into guys like this. He tells me these guys scam trusting little ol ladies and men all the time !!
Anyway the inspector is coming over next week to validate my claim, he says he will get a hefty fine and have to pay me restitution..doubt I will see a penny of that.
But if he does not, my other hole card it to narc on him to the IRS.
You know this guy is running a cash in pocket business, and is not reporting his fare share of income to our illustrious empire.
So a few lesson learned...
Trust is earned not a given.
Saving a bit of money in the guise of a good deal, usually ends up costing more in the long run.
So much for a short story...Sorry !
Greg
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Getting banned from AC is a total badge of honor. Mike is awesome. And when I say Mike I mean both of us ;)
Frank Zappa rules!
I got banned for a month..does that count ??
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Getting banned from AC is a total badge of honor. Mike is awesome. And when I say Mike I mean both of us ;)
Frank Zappa rules!
I got banned for a month..does that count ??
Yes Yes it does! You are a true mensch! (manly man) grow a beard... run naked in the woods, foster sightings of the Sasquatch. Cuz you can... be one with the AC rebel within
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Getting banned from AC is a total badge of honor. Mike is awesome. And when I say Mike I mean both of us ;)
Frank Zappa rules!
I got banned for a month..does that count ??
Only once?. That's like being a beaver in the company of fully badged audio boys scouts. No Girl guides though :rofl:
I've been IP restricted at least 3 times and a couple just regular restrictions but I keep getting back. I think Johnr has crush on me. Must be :wtf:
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No Mike what the market will bare. Not how much money someone has.
Why does there have to be a special reason to buy a Bentley ? Maybe the Guy just wants one. His Ego, His decision is nobodies business but His. Who are we to determine the reason. I do judge my fellow Man and neither should you or anyone else.
Now if you want to get into a discussion on Human Nature that is another issue.
I do not have to ponder or realize a dam thing. There is high end audio and there is audio. High end audio coined by Harry Pearson, rest his soul was designed around the concept of retail stores catering to the affluent and well heeled individuals. Period.
Even a VG receiver is $4K these days. I will agree that some will use the high end to price their products higher and abuse the industry. They do not last long thank goodness.
Audio 101 may still in play. take the guy who changes components like socks. He just does not get it. The proof of the pudding to me is what does his or Her system sound like.
To date I have been to many homes and the sound just sucks To bright to lean no tone but loud and boomy bass oh my !
Greg are becoming Frank Van Alstine ? Power cords make no difference ? I wonder why when you brought your speakers to my home your comment was always " why don't they sound like this at my home ? Why do you think that was ? We had great sound at CAF with TWL products. Are you saying now use generic as they are just as good ?
Mike what grinds your gears is personal to you and I will NOT debate that. You can shop at Gucci or Khols there products and pricing for all.
Mike do you design Web Sites for free ? I want a free one. :duh Nothing is free.
PS Banned at AC for a year I got a silver medal, going for the gold soon.
charles
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We can put together a great site for your biz for $899
nearly free. squint and its free er er cuz its blurry.
http://www.mentalpixel.com/web-design-marketing-services-for-your-business/ (http://www.mentalpixel.com/web-design-marketing-services-for-your-business/)
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Also when the guy who works at Walmart making minimun wage thinks we are crazy for spending 4100 on a PC, is he not right.?
Why do we look down our noses at him because he doesn't understand?
Mike you are missing my point entirely. I am not saying at all that we should look down on the guy from WalMart or that he doesn't understand. Quite the opposite. A rich guy may think that $4100 is not a big deal to pay for a power cord if he thinks it will improve his enjoyment of the system in some way, We as middle class folks may see the improvements that can be made by a cord, but are much more critical of the cost/benifit analysis because we have to alocate limited dicresionary dollars and the mimum wage worker thinks we are all nuts becuase with his low income he is just happy to have a music system, period.
And my point is that none of them are "wrong" each group makes decisions that are right for them givven their own personal circumstances. And just because their decisions don't agree with or even make sense to someone from one of the other gruops, tht doesn't make them any less reasonable to the person who made them.
And not surprisingly there are businesses out there that will try to make money by offering products that cater to the wants and needs of people in each group. That is why in this country you can by a ring at Tiffany's or the jewlery counter at Sears. And people can walk out of both sotores with a smile on their face just as happy with there purchase.
Now that said, I fully understand why you would think that paying $4100 for PC is a rediculous idea, because I wouldn't do it either. But that doesn't mean that someone who wants and can afford one should be able to buy it ot that somebody who thinks thay can turn a buck buy making them shouldn't be able to give it a try.
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Screw $4100, I want the one that is 12 Grand and is about 10% better than the $1200 dollar one that I can't afford.
You have to have your priorities straight.
Scotty
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$4100 for a power cord, that's cheap! A mere bag of shells, Norton! :rofl:
PranaWire - Avatar II $16,950.00 ( 1 meter long)
Crystal Cable - CrystalPower Absolute Dream $10,000.00
High Fidelity Cables CT-1 Ultimate Reference Rhodium Plus $12,900.00
Elrod Power Systems Diamond $10,000.00
Purist Audio Design 25th Anniversary-Luminist $9,900.00
Siltech Cables Ruby Double Crown $10,800.00
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Greg are becoming Frank Van Alstine ? Power cords make no difference ? I wonder why when you brought your speakers to my home your comment was always " why don't they sound like this at my home ? Why do you think that was ? We had great sound at CAF with TWL products. Are you saying now use generic as they are just as good ?
Mike what grinds your gears is personal to you and I will NOT debate that. You can shop at Gucci or Khols there products and pricing for all.
Mike do you design Web Sites for free ? I want a free one. :duh Nothing is free.
PS Banned at AC for a year I got a silver medal, going for the gold soon.
charles
Charles,
I didn't say Pc's don't make a difference, they most certainly do.
I didn't elaborate my opinion, but since you challenged my statement I will.
Every power cord makes a change in the system. I dont care what Frank VanAlstine thinks. I have come to this conclusion through my own in depth listening and trying to comprehend to whats really happening.
Lets face it, there are many feet of copper between the breaker box and the wall socket. How can a few feet of PC be anything but a filter?
This is ok..the whole audio chain is a filter , weather its your cherished Deulands or spikes, vibration dampers, or Voodo rituals we engage in before a listening sessions.
It all makes a difference...I am not saying good or bad just different. The trick is to be able to sort out these differences and move in the direction we are looking to go.
Music playback is not a quest to come one specific correct answer like a math problem. Only make an enjoyable experience for us. This is done by whats called suspension of disbelief.
You don't watch a disaster flick and even on the widest and largest HT setup are you fooled into thinking its real, but you enjoy it just the same.
Maybe someday there will be a Holo deck like on Star Trek where ones perceptions will be difficult to separate reality from fantasy.
But for now, I am not fooled in the least, so the only thing we can do is enjoy what we got.
My experience with experimentation on the issue has led to the opinion, I don't like how PC's slow the dynamics and slightly blur the transients of the music.
So to me, investing a sizable amount of money into them is the wrong path on my road to audio happiness.
I feel there are too many out there that would believe just because someone says its so, and place their trust in these opinion this PC will be your answer to what you have been looking for. Especially if its very expensive. I applaud guys like Pete from TWL who make the search for audio nirvana a more sane and reasonable process.
When I had my speakers over your place,I did hear things I liked, but there were others I did not. I was not trying to BS you, as a matter of fact you may recall I wanted you to remove the power cords before Kadir came over for the audition, I liked the sound better without them, but its your system and I did not want to press the issue.
Every power cord I try I find a subtle to not subtle reduction in dynamics and speed and contrast, ditto for power conditioners.
Many if not most times I hear a more pleasant sound, but at penalty in sound somewhere else in the musical presentation.
Another reason for my statement about your system was the time and money invested in your setup was much more than my simple and inexpensive system at the time.
I was never an audiophile, I came to this hobby from a different mindset, to me the speaker could remedy all, and like Julian Hirsch
I was of the opinion the rest of the chain was less important.
WRONG!!!
After learning that lesson, I was fortunate to run into a guy who makes gear I find fantastic. His new current offerings are out of my price range, but well worth it if I could afford it. But luckily I was able to grab some great deals on some of his older amps, cables, interconnects etc.
To be honest I didn't buy his PC's either. I thought his did the least amount of damage than any others I have heard.
I find his gear mates very well with my speakers , sans his cords, so why spend the money ?
Greg
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10,800? It's Siltech Ruby Double
Crown Down :rofl:
I bet JPS Kaptovator is better than all of them for $1700!
But then, what is "Better?" Rhymes with Reality and Truth.
If I like Rubies more than Diamonds then maybe I'll pick the Siltech over Elrod? I could have Triode Labs cord for the difference between them, a mere pittance!
It's like naming a stripper Candy, or Felicity. You know offstage she is like any other young woman, pros and cons, but you want to believe she is something more, and the label allows you to. Want is valuable to a seller. It hurts to want. People pay to get their itch scratched. There is more money in selling feelings than parts and machines. Those who have mastered the art of marketing give you much more for your money than just the thing. Value is intangible.
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I applaud guys like Pete from TWL who make the search for audio nirvana a more sane and reasonable process.
Greg
+ 1 Gazillion :thumb:
SN
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People get banned from Audio Circle because they lied or told the truth
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Expensive life style products were designed and marketed by professionals, trying to design a product that people want to buy.
The people at Bentley had focus groups help determine what people want and like in their cars, in a way the car was designed to be desired by wealthy people even before it was built. this is what advertising people do, they make you desire a product, even if you didn't think you desired it.
Much money is invested in advertising and product placement to sell these high end products, of course no focus groups probably had a hand in designing audio gear, but the mentality is very similar.
Rich says value is intangible and he is right. how many products had there price tag decided before they even knew how much it cost to make.
Look at wine, how many 200 300 500 dollar bottles of wine actually cost that much to make. probably none, but a status symbol gets involved and a artificial value is inserted into it. I,ve had expensive wine that was great and expensive wine that was just OK, yet the perceived value is still connected no matter the quality, and that perceived quality was carefully tailored by the ad people.
I once had the opportunity to buy cables, pretty much any cable this dealer carried at 50 points off, some were 60 points and one cable was 70 points off, those were significant savings on new cables, and yet there was still room for profit.
Of course everyone has the right to buy whatever they want at any price they want, I am not saying they shouldn't, but when someone says a PC for 10,500 is worth it...well that should be qualified, because it ain't worth it, just that the buyer has enough money to not care.
Someone said that wealthy people buy expensive gear because they have a lot of money and are indifferent, perhaps, but I know several wealthy audiophiles that would never spend that much on a PC, and they could easily buy it.
So in some ways this wealthy audiophile is very like the lowly Walmart employee, who sees the expensive PC as a rip off, they both seem to share a similar common sense, despite their vast financial differences.
which makes me believe it has to do with insecurities.
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Greg are becoming Frank Van Alstine ? Power cords make no difference ? I wonder why when you brought your speakers to my home your comment was always " why don't they sound like this at my home ? Why do you think that was ? We had great sound at CAF with TWL products. Are you saying now use generic as they are just as good ?
Mike what grinds your gears is personal to you and I will NOT debate that. You can shop at Gucci or Khols there products and pricing for all.
Mike do you design Web Sites for free ? I want a free one. :duh Nothing is free.
PS Banned at AC for a year I got a silver medal, going for the gold soon.
charles
Charles,
I didn't say Pc's don't make a difference, they most certainly do.
I didn't elaborate my opinion, but since you challenged my statement I will.
Every power cord makes a change in the system. I dont care what Frank VanAlstine thinks. I have come to this conclusion through my own in depth listening and trying to comprehend to whats really happening.
Lets face it, there are many feet of copper between the breaker box and the wall socket. How can a few feet of PC be anything but a filter?
This is ok..the whole audio chain is a filter , weather its your cherished Deulands or spikes, vibration dampers, or Voodo rituals we engage in before a listening sessions.
It all makes a difference...I am not saying good or bad just different. The trick is to be able to sort out these differences and move in the direction we are looking to go.
Music playback is not a quest to come one specific correct answer like a math problem. Only make an enjoyable experience for us. This is done by whats called suspension of disbelief.
You don't watch a disaster flick and even on the widest and largest HT setup are you fooled into thinking its real, but you enjoy it just the same.
Maybe someday there will be a Holo deck like on Star Trek where ones perceptions will be difficult to separate reality from fantasy.
But for now, I am not fooled in the least, so the only thing we can do is enjoy what we got.
My experience with experimentation on the issue has led to the opinion, I don't like how PC's slow the dynamics and slightly blur the transients of the music.
So to me, investing a sizable amount of money into them is the wrong path on my road to audio happiness.
I feel there are too many out there that would believe just because someone says its so, and place their trust in these opinion this PC will be your answer to what you have been looking for. Especially if its very expensive. I applaud guys like Pete from TWL who make the search for audio nirvana a more sane and reasonable process.
When I had my speakers over your place,I did hear things I liked, but there were others I did not. I was not trying to BS you, as a matter of fact you may recall I wanted you to remove the power cords before Kadir came over for the audition, I liked the sound better without them, but its your system and I did not want to press the issue.
Every power cord I try I find a subtle to not subtle reduction in dynamics and speed and contrast, ditto for power conditioners.
Many if not most times I hear a more pleasant sound, but at penalty in sound somewhere else in the musical presentation.
Another reason for my statement about your system was the time and money invested in your setup was much more than my simple and inexpensive system at the time.
I was never an audiophile, I came to this hobby from a different mindset, to me the speaker could remedy all, and like Julian Hirsch
I was of the opinion the rest of the chain was less important.
WRONG!!!
After learning that lesson, I was fortunate to run into a guy who makes gear I find fantastic. His new current offerings are out of my price range, but well worth it if I could afford it. But luckily I was able to grab some great deals on some of his older amps, cables, interconnects etc.
To be honest I didn't buy his PC's either. I thought his did the least amount of damage than any others I have heard.
I find his gear mates very well with my speakers , sans his cords, so why spend the money ?
Greg
Good PCs lower your outlet impedance. All gear when working see the local transformer through Power cables first then outlets then fuse boxes before the local transformer. The whole "I can't see how a few feet of copper compared to the length of wire from the outlet to the local transformer" doesn't make sense electrically. The amp (for eg) here uses a 60 hertz cycle. Those are stops and starts. 60 times a second the amp will see the local transformer and current will flow. It can be thought of as not continuous. That is what baffles people. Your amp is under a set out time 60hz as to how often will work. That power cable makes it easier for the amp to see the local transformer. They are so important because your amps starts the cycle not the neighbourhood transformer. That is why lower impedance is important and the difference between generic and decent PCs.
That is all in my imo btw and how I look at electricity delivery into the house. But it sounds like you are bias towards power cables.
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Audio 101 may still in play. take the guy who changes components like socks. He just does not get it. The proof of the pudding to me is what does his or Her system sound like.
To date I have been to many homes and the sound just sucks To bright to lean no tone but loud and boomy bass oh my !
PS Banned at AC for a year I got a silver medal, going for the gold soon.
charles
Charles you would love what I got cooking here.
I got beats cooking off every layer and beats in the air... Lol.
This system layers so good and all instruments layer as they come and go with a beat. It's not meshed at all. Even the air I got has beats. It fricken glorious.
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Greg are becoming Frank Van Alstine ? Power cords make no difference ? I wonder why when you brought your speakers to my home your comment was always " why don't they sound like this at my home ? Why do you think that was ? We had great sound at CAF with TWL products. Are you saying now use generic as they are just as good ?
Mike what grinds your gears is personal to you and I will NOT debate that. You can shop at Gucci or Khols there products and pricing for all.
Mike do you design Web Sites for free ? I want a free one. :duh Nothing is free.
PS Banned at AC for a year I got a silver medal, going for the gold soon.
charles
Charles,
I didn't say Pc's don't make a difference, they most certainly do.
I didn't elaborate my opinion, but since you challenged my statement I will.
Every power cord makes a change in the system. I dont care what Frank VanAlstine thinks. I have come to this conclusion through my own in depth listening and trying to comprehend to whats really happening.
Lets face it, there are many feet of copper between the breaker box and the wall socket. How can a few feet of PC be anything but a filter?
This is ok..the whole audio chain is a filter , weather its your cherished Deulands or spikes, vibration dampers, or Voodo rituals we engage in before a listening sessions.
It all makes a difference...I am not saying good or bad just different. The trick is to be able to sort out these differences and move in the direction we are looking to go.
Music playback is not a quest to come one specific correct answer like a math problem. Only make an enjoyable experience for us. This is done by whats called suspension of disbelief.
You don't watch a disaster flick and even on the widest and largest HT setup are you fooled into thinking its real, but you enjoy it just the same.
Maybe someday there will be a Holo deck like on Star Trek where ones perceptions will be difficult to separate reality from fantasy.
But for now, I am not fooled in the least, so the only thing we can do is enjoy what we got.
My experience with experimentation on the issue has led to the opinion, I don't like how PC's slow the dynamics and slightly blur the transients of the music.
So to me, investing a sizable amount of money into them is the wrong path on my road to audio happiness.
I feel there are too many out there that would believe just because someone says its so, and place their trust in these opinion this PC will be your answer to what you have been looking for. Especially if its very expensive. I applaud guys like Pete from TWL who make the search for audio nirvana a more sane and reasonable process.
When I had my speakers over your place,I did hear things I liked, but there were others I did not. I was not trying to BS you, as a matter of fact you may recall I wanted you to remove the power cords before Kadir came over for the audition, I liked the sound better without them, but its your system and I did not want to press the issue.
Every power cord I try I find a subtle to not subtle reduction in dynamics and speed and contrast, ditto for power conditioners.
Many if not most times I hear a more pleasant sound, but at penalty in sound somewhere else in the musical presentation.
Another reason for my statement about your system was the time and money invested in your setup was much more than my simple and inexpensive system at the time.
I was never an audiophile, I came to this hobby from a different mindset, to me the speaker could remedy all, and like Julian Hirsch
I was of the opinion the rest of the chain was less important.
WRONG!!!
After learning that lesson, I was fortunate to run into a guy who makes gear I find fantastic. His new current offerings are out of my price range, but well worth it if I could afford it. But luckily I was able to grab some great deals on some of his older amps, cables, interconnects etc.
To be honest I didn't buy his PC's either. I thought his did the least amount of damage than any others I have heard.
I find his gear mates very well with my speakers , sans his cords, so why spend the money ?
Greg
Good PCs lower your outlet impedance. All gear when working see the local transformer through Power cables first then outlets then fuse boxes before the local transformer. The whole "I can't see how a few feet of copper compared to the length of wire from the outlet to the local transformer" doesn't make sense electrically. The amp (for eg) here uses a 60 hertz cycle. Those are stops and starts. 60 times a second the amp will see the local transformer and current will flow. It can be thought of as not continuous. That is what baffles people. Your amp is under a set out time 60hz as to how often will work. That power cable makes it easier for the amp to see the local transformer. They are so important because your amps starts the cycle not the neighbourhood transformer. That is why lower impedance is important and the difference between generic and decent PCs.
That is all in my imo btw and how I look at electricity delivery into the house. But it sounds like you are bias towards power cables.
Werd,
I am not biased against aftermarket PC's or any other high end component. I am willing to try anything in my system and evaluate it with complete fairness., even a Tice clock if you happen to have one. It would be counterproductive to be biased towards anything that may make an improvement in my system.
Its just that every cord I have tried did not totally improve the sound of my system. It gave me something I liked but took something away.
In other words it was no better just different. So why shell out big bucks for something that to my ears didn't make a definite improvement. Who knows, maybe I just have not found the right cord yet.
I appreciate the technical explanation, but I see no correlation between
what is technical and what is perceived by our senses.
I don't care how my amp sees my transformer on the pole. I only care the vibes hitting my ears and body and being transformed into electro chemical candy my brain likes.
Maybe what makes you happy when you listen to your system is that you are secure in the fact your power cords are in intimate contact with your wall outlets for the lowest impedance. And somehow this makes your listening experience more enjoyable.
So Be it !!
Different strokes for different folks, just as long as we are enjoying it.
Greg
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Charles,
If you or anyone else for that matter, wants to do a little experiment regarding the issue of debate.
I invite you over, armed with your best selection of PC's in hand, to compare against my lowly OEM plain Jane black toss away cords.
PLEASE...Prove me wrong, there is always room for improvement in any system and mine is no exception.
Greg
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Upgrade PC benefit are most noticeable when used on power amplifiers with relatively small power transformers, like tube amps.
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Upgrade PC benefit are most noticeable when used on power amplifiers with relatively small power transformers, like tube amps.
Then bring 2, I have mono blocks
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Charles,
If you or anyone else for that matter, wants to do a little experiment regarding the issue of debate.
I invite you over, armed with your best selection of PC's in hand, to compare against my lowly OEM plain Jane black toss away cords.
PLEASE...Prove me wrong, there is always room for improvement in any system and mine is no exception.
Greg
Greg that is the perfect attitude. Just give it a try and see what happens.
The way I evaluate any system change is this. First listen to the new piece. If I don't like the way it sounds , game over. If I do like it the next step is to decide how much of a change does it make and is that amount of change worth the money I would need to lay out to keep that piece in my system in terms of a) the absolute amount (If I can't afford the price, it is a nice experiment, but I can't buy it anyway ow matter how good it sounds) and b) what else could I do with that amount of money else where in the system that would give me that much, or more improvement. If I the piece under study puts a bigger smile on my face than anything else I could do for the money I buy it, if not I don't . Plain and simple.
BTW - I was thinking, you say that don't like how PC's slow the dynamics and slightly blur the transients of the music. I think a lot of that may have to do with your speakers. You have planar drivers that really excel at reproducing transients and dynamics. So perhaps you are able to hear things that those of us that are using different speakers don't. If that is the case those of us who have systems that don't reproduce transients like yours do would hear the same benefits that you hear with the PCs but would not hear the dynamic slowing because they never had the kind of speed that you are not willing to give up in the first place Like every thing else, uit is not what is the best, but what works the best with the rest of your system, in your room, (given your musical preferences.)
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This may not make any sense, but I call them as I see them. I have had the biggest changes and improvements from switching power cords on front end components. The magnitude of the improvement has been much greater than that heard by putting a different power cord on an amp. This was the reason why I put Waveform Fidelity power cords on the entire front end. One on the Dac was big and subsequent additions to the pre-amp and power filter feeding the front end were additive if not multiplicative in nature.
I would be trying different cords on the front end first and then the power amps.
Scotty
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Expensive life style products were designed and marketed by professionals, trying to design a product that people want to buy.
The people at Bentley had focus groups help determine what people want and like in their cars, in a way the car was designed to be desired by wealthy people even before it was built. this is what advertising people do, they make you desire a product, even if you didn't think you desired it.
Much money is invested in advertising and product placement to sell these high end products, of course no focus groups probably had a hand in designing audio gear, but the mentality is very similar.
Rich says value is intangible and he is right. how many products had there price tag decided before they even knew how much it cost to make.
Look at wine, how many 200 300 500 dollar bottles of wine actually cost that much to make. probably none, but a status symbol gets involved and a artificial value is inserted into it. I,ve had expensive wine that was great and expensive wine that was just OK, yet the perceived value is still connected no matter the quality, and that perceived quality was carefully tailored by the ad people.
I once had the opportunity to buy cables, pretty much any cable this dealer carried at 50 points off, some were 60 points and one cable was 70 points off, those were significant savings on new cables, and yet there was still room for profit.
Of course everyone has the right to buy whatever they want at any price they want, I am not saying they shouldn't, but when someone says a PC for 10,500 is worth it...well that should be qualified, because it ain't worth it, just that the buyer has enough money to not care.
Someone said that wealthy people buy expensive gear because they have a lot of money and are indifferent, perhaps, but I know several wealthy audiophiles that would never spend that much on a PC, and they could easily buy it.
So in some ways this wealthy audiophile is very like the lowly Walmart employee, who sees the expensive PC as a rip off, they both seem to share a similar common sense, despite their vast financial differences.
which makes me believe it has to do with insecurities.
Mike, you are complaining about products that are designed to appeal to a certain group of people in an effort to make them want something and cite Bently as an example. Well that is not exclusive to products targeted at the wealthy, but applies to products across the board. Is a $250 pair of Air Jordans really that much functionally different from pair of $20 sneakers from Payless shoes? And yet what percentage of Air Jordans are sold to people living at or blow the poverty line? Selling you stuff you never thought you needed is the entire basis of the fashion and cosmetics industries. My grandmother bought a dress fifty years ago and she wore it until it fell apart. Now Madision Ave tell women that they need to buy a whole new wardrobe every time the seasons change. God forbid you should ever wear something from last years lines.
What you are complaining about is the very basis of a free market economy. Businesses exist for the sole purpose of selling you there product so they can make money. Period. And the design products to sell to particular groups of people and price them at a point that gives them the highest profit that the market will allow them to get away with. The exist for their own benefit, not for the benefit of their customers or the greater good of society That's just the way it is. You can't fight city hall.
And BTW, there is a name of an economic system where firms and industries exist no for themselves, but rather to serve the greater good, it's called Socialism. And look around at the rest of the world and recent history because while it may sound like a good and noble idea on paper, it never seems to work out to well in practice. And please do not take any offense, I am in no way trying to make a political statement nor accuse you of being a socialist, I am just talking about economic systems from a theoretical and practical point of view)
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This may not make any sense, but I call them as I see them. I have had the biggest changes and improvements from switching power cords on front end components. The magnitude of the improvement has been much greater than that heard by putting a different power cord on an amp. This was the reason why I put Waveform Fidelity power cords on the entire front end. One on the Dac was big and subsequent additions to the pre-amp and power filter feeding the front end were additive if not multiplicative in nature.
I would be trying different cords on the front end first and then the power amps.
Scotty
I agree, you get the right front end with the right PC and its a go. I am using a Harmonix X-DC into my BDA2 and it's a marriage made in heaven. I would like to try TWL digital baby.
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Charles,
If you or anyone else for that matter, wants to do a little experiment regarding the issue of debate.
I invite you over, armed with your best selection of PC's in hand, to compare against my lowly OEM plain Jane black toss away cords.
PLEASE...Prove me wrong, there is always room for improvement in any system and mine is no exception.
Greg
Greg that is the perfect attitude. Just give it a try and see what happens.
The way I evaluate any system change is this. First listen to the new piece. If I don't like the way it sounds , game over. If I do like it the next step is to decide how much of a change does it make and is that amount of change worth the money I would need to lay out to keep that piece in my system in terms of a) the absolute amount (If I can't afford the price, it is a nice experiment, but I can't buy it anyway ow matter how good it sounds) and b) what else could I do with that amount of money else where in the system that would give me that much, or more improvement. If I the piece under study puts a bigger smile on my face than anything else I could do for the money I buy it, if not I don't . Plain and simple.
BTW - I was thinking, you say that don't like how PC's slow the dynamics and slightly blur the transients of the music. I think a lot of that may have to do with your speakers. You have planar drivers that really excel at reproducing transients and dynamics. So perhaps you are able to hear things that those of us that are using different speakers don't. If that is the case those of us who have systems that don't reproduce transients like yours do would hear the same benefits that you hear with the PCs but would not hear the dynamic slowing because they never had the kind of speed that you are not willing to give up in the first place Like every thing else, uit is not what is the best, but what works the best with the rest of your system, in your room, (given your musical preferences.)
Im with you on your philosophy tmazz,
I also find you really have to live with a piece for a while. The brain is very easy to fool. At first blush it may sound just wonderful, but after living with it awhile the warts come out. I have noticed this on my quest for a PC
Who knows maybe its me ? We all have priorities in audio, some place soundstage above else, some could care less.
Maybe I have a thing for dynamics and speed. I did design my speaker to excel at this.
I think your on to something.
Greg
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I think your on to something.
Greg
My mother killed all the dumb ones. :rofl:
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I think your on to something.
Greg
My mother killed all the dumb ones. :rofl:
I think that's evolution's job.
Though from the state of the world, I think mother nature has been slacking.
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This may not make any sense, but I call them as I see them. I have had the biggest changes and improvements from switching power cords on front end components. The magnitude of the improvement has been much greater than that heard by putting a different power cord on an amp. This was the reason why I put Waveform Fidelity power cords on the entire front end. One on the Dac was big and subsequent additions to the pre-amp and power filter feeding the front end were additive if not multiplicative in nature.
I would be trying different cords on the front end first and then the power amps.
Scotty
I have to agree with this as well. Since designing preamps for almost 20 years, I have found that power cords do make the most difference here. Preamps and other front end components are the most sensitive pieces in a system. Especially digital front end pieces. Not to say you have to spend a boatload on a PC but the right PC can make the difference. I think when evaluating a new preamp or front end piece, at least give it the benefit of the doubt and use a decent PC. You owe it to the component and yourself to allow the piece to show you what it has to offer.
That's my 2 cents for the day.
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I am not complaining how the economic system works, I was just trying to explain why it is the way it is.
This all started with why a reference to a 4100 dollar power cord and sorted of started a complaining about lots of high prices for audio gear.
Socialist me?....no
Republican.....no
Democrat....no
Like an AA meeting it is good to talk about these things get them out in the open.
Socratic method works every time. Debate, debate, debate, from the debate will come the truth..
and we are page 9! Woo Hoo
Lets start something new to bitch about, how about we all bitch about how much of a trouble maker I am, and yes I too wear my ban from audio circle as a badge of honor.
Remember you only get banned from audiocircle if you tell the truth or lie.
or piss off one of the fan boys of their manufacturers that pay to be on the site. No negative press will be tolerated from their advertisers.
and if everything has purpose, then the purpose of audiocircle is to make money. But enough of that nonsense....dude where'd I park my Bentley?
9 pages!!!!!!!!!
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In reply to the general theme of the thread, sort of, maybe-
My brother has worked in audio for decades and has owned B&M stores for a long time. His take is that the industry itself has done a poor job marketing Quality - Of making the average joe feel that having quality music in their home is something desirable and something enviable. (Broader issues of poor musical education etc. are a separate discussion)
His example - He visits a home for a site survey. Two sweet Benzes in the driveway. Two doctors. These people would never even consider an Accord, Maxima etc.. Would be mortified to have their neighbors think that they drove anything less than a $50K plus euro sedan. No doubt BMW and Benz (insert Rolex etc. here) have done a great job in creating a sense of desirability for their product.
So why do these doctors think absolutely nothing about have an elegant dinner party and playing music through a $200 Sansui rack system?
How much more could the industry have done to create a sense of I Want That for the non-audiophile. Much like the economic discussions here, the middle class (meaning people who could be the bread and butter consumers of audio) isn't interested, forcing the mfrs to race for the stratosphere in an ever-shrinking market.
And with the trouble B&Ms are in the opportunities are less and less by the day I fear.
-Mike
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I think some of the problem is that a Porsche Carrera sitting in your driveway is self explanatory, an audio system that costs the same, not so much. In fact, only other audiophiles that may enter your home for dinner and drinks are even going to "get it".
It's only a status badge to people in the know and there are fewer of them everyday.
Scotty
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No one taking a bus or driving a beater will complain that a Porsche ain't worth it. But a clown with computer music through desktop speakers will claim that $10k for a source piece is a rip off. They read the garbage that has been handed to them and they don't stop to think. The biggest poison in this hobby comes from the audio manufacturers. Typically speakers (and I do not mean GT audio either) they like to bag out on other system gear. There is vicious amount of abuse amongst manufacturers towards other piece manufactures. Like speaker companies like to bag out on source gear and cabling. Amp manufacturers like to bag out on cabling. . Cabling is like the red headed step son of audio gear. Everyone takes them out back for a shit kicking.
It's all this "you are getting ripped off" negativity (by manufacturers) that has led audio into the state it is in.
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Worst I have seen is Salk and AvA. Those guys will derail the hobby to ensure an environment where they can up-sell. The idea is have the buyer move more of their audio budget into one piece...theirs. Cabling, source gear cuts into the person's speaker or amp budgets. That is all it is. Nothing more than up selling. "Hey forget the cabling and source. You can save money and buy these more expensive speakers, bits are bits and cabling doesn't do anything"
Then you got the brainless reader who trusts these idiots and away they go to tell every one they know cabling is a "rip off". I've already told Bryston's new digital guy "Chris" to put a lid on it about digital. But they want to clown up and can't stop. They just can't help themselves.
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...Like every thing else, it is not what is the best, but what works the best with the rest of your system, in your room, (given your musical preferences.)
You're forcing me to say the "S" word again, Tom.
SYNERGY
My 2˘
SN
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Like an AA meeting it is good to talk about these things get them out in the open.
Yeah, Audiophiles Anonymous. Same kind of 12 step program, except in this group with each step you get in deeper. :rofl:
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Worst I have seen is Salk and AvA. Those guys will derail the hobby to ensure an environment where they can up-sell. The idea is have the buyer move more of their audio budget into one piece...theirs. Cabling, source gear cuts into the person's speaker or amp budgets. That is all it is. Nothing more than up selling. "Hey forget the cabling and source. You can save money and buy these more expensive speakers, bits are bits and cabling doesn't do anything"
Then you got the brainless reader who trusts these idiots and away they go to tell every one they know cabling is a "rip off". I've already told Bryston's new digital guy "Chris" to put a lid on it about digital. But they want to clown up and can't stop. They just can't help themselves.
I had to consult the urban dictionary...Bagging out...Australian slang meaning 'make fun of' or 'insult'. Other variations: bag(s) out, bagged out.
I don't read the rags at all, or any forums, present company excluded, so I guess I am not up on whats being said out there regarding manufacturers bagging each other out.
I used to participate in AC, but the leadership there kinda put my nose outta joint.
But "bagging out" other manufacturers to take a bigger chunk of a customers budget makes little sense, but it doesn't surprise me.
Say a person, on the advice of a speaker manuf blows his entire budget on a set of speakers, its not going to take him long to realize his Sony receiver with included throw away rca interconnect and zip wire does not sound like he expected.
Upon hearing this the buyer is going to come to one of two possible conclusions.
One, He was lied to regarding ancillary equipment at which point you lost a customer for life and he will be sure to tell everyone about it.
Two...he is naive enough to believe the sellers BS and can only come to the conclusion the speakers are nowhere as good as advertised.
Either way the speaker manuf is out of the picture.
MAYBE THIS IS WHY THIS HOBBY IS IN THE STATE ITS IN.
Lincoln's quote "a house divided against itself cannot stand" comes to mind.
I get this question of what gear(mostly amps)will work with my speakers.
Unfortunately its a rarity someone comes to me with clean sheet of paper to build a system, usually they are hoping their amp they already own will work. If its a 20 watt tube amp, I say sure it will work, it may sound very nice, but 90 db and 4 ohms can only take you so far. You will not be using the speakers to their full potential. If you listen to baroque, folk or small jazz ensembles at lower levels fine, but if your an orchestral or rock music lover you will be disappointed.
I tell em what I have personally heard that I thought worked well.
Then my caveat to them is the speaker amp interface is very critical to ultimate system performance.
Beg borrow or steal what you can to audition for yourself.
Don't go off on the advice of a reviewer or peer and sink big bucks into an unheard piece
Its your money, have fun, tread carefully !!
Greg
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Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
Over on AC there are people (years we are talking) that are using speakers disproportionate to their remaining gear. There is no coming to the realization of it and they are happy to tell everyone. That is because they READ it daily about the negativity of other gear. None of them listen to their own gear. Largely because they have a pile of shit that sounds like garbage. But they have no problem online bagging - out about the non - neccessity (lack of quality) of audio gear. This all stems from the manufacturers (who crap on other gear) only to get a larger piece of the buyers purchasing budget.
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Greg you forgot Possible Conclusion #3 due to overestimating the common sense of the Fanboy (he he we get say Fanboy) mentality, where regardless of the resulting SQ, it simply cannot be admitted that speaker S or electronics A sound anything other "worth twice the price of any other component ever made" because well, everyone on the forum thinks so.
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I have to disagree with the bagging part of this conversation. What I mean by that is I don't feel its a way to upsell.
I have always found that being honest with customers about their system is the best way to keep customers coming back. Working WITH other manufacturers creates a path for consumers to get the best out of their system.
There have been many times when a customer has asked me if one of my products would be a good match in their system and there have been times when I would have to honestly tell them no. In this case, I would recommend another amplifier, preamp or whatever component(s) they were inquiring about. This startles people at first but then they come to realize there are still people in this industry that still have a passion for what they do.
There have also been several occasions when asked if "these components will work together" when I had to simply say......."I really don't know enough abut product X to give an honest opinion".
When you are honest with your customers and pass on a sale because you know its not right for them, they almost always return to you later when they DO have a need for one of your products.
Lying to a consumer just to move a product will come back to bite you in the ass. You do it enough times and consumers begin to not trust you.
I know my products don't fit the needs of everyone. No manufacturer has the one-size-fits-all product. I think manufacturers should work together to help consumers put together a system with the proper synergy to make beautiful music and keep them happy for years to come.
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Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
Over on AC there are people (years we are talking) that are using speakers disproportionate to their remaining gear. There is no coming to the realization of it and they are happy to tell everyone. That is because they READ it daily about the negativity of other gear. None of them listen to their own gear. Largely because they have a pile of shit that sounds like garbage. But they have no problem online bagging - out about the non - neccessity (lack of quality) of audio gear. This all stems from the manufacturers (who crap on other gear) only to get a larger piece of the buyers purchasing budget.
Your right I may have bagged , politely or not it was not my intention.
It was only in the context of the $4200 power cable discussion.
To express my belief that people are too happy to throw money at a problem in their system ie. an expensive power cable to remedy an issue they should be looking elsewhere to fix. Unfortunately there are plenty of folks out there that are glad to feed on their fears.
Of course no matter how I say it, as a competing manufacturer, it may be construed as bagging.
Maybe that issue is a speaker that no matter how much high end gear you put behind it cant resolve the signal the system provides to the fullest. So no matter how great those power cables or interconnects are... the speakers lack of coherency in the transition from bass to lower mid range is the result. I am a firm believer the speaker will yield the biggest change in any system.
I am not trying to blow my own horn, but I will not deny that I have had more than one customer use a highly regarded name brand speaker that when replaced with mine, we had to go back and start over with everything upstream, removing all the tweaks and mods and such, because the system had wavered so far off course trying to please the old speaker. Then his face lights up with the knowledge he is hearing things like never before. I am not saying these tweaks will not give an overall improvement, just if the speaker cant do it with the basics, it does not have much chance making things better with tweaks.
Greg
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Greg you forgot Possible Conclusion #3 due to overestimating the common sense of the Fanboy (he he we get say Fanboy) mentality, where regardless of the resulting SQ, it simply cannot be admitted that speaker S or electronics A sound anything other "worth twice the price of any other component ever made" because well, everyone on the forum thinks so.
Glad you said it.
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I have to disagree with the bagging part of this conversation. What I mean by that is I don't feel its a way to upsell.
I have always found that being honest with customers about their system is the best way to keep customers coming back. Working WITH other manufacturers creates a path for consumers to get the best out of their system.
There have been many times when a customer has asked me if one of my products would be a good match in their system and there have been times when I would have to honestly tell them no. In this case, I would recommend another amplifier, preamp or whatever component(s) they were inquiring about. This startles people at first but then they come to realize there are still people in this industry that still have a passion for what they do.
There have also been several occasions when asked if "these components will work together" when I had to simply say......."I really don't know enough abut product X to give an honest opinion".
When you are honest with your customers and pass on a sale because you know its not right for them, they almost always return to you later when they DO have a need for one of your products.
Lying to a consumer just to move a product will come back to bite you in the ass. You do it enough times and consumers begin to not trust you.
I know my products don't fit the needs of everyone. No manufacturer has the one-size-fits-all product. I think manufacturers should work together to help consumers put together a system with the proper synergy to make beautiful music and keep them happy for years to come.
Highly agree.
No sense in lying, bites you in the ass every time.
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I have no problem with expensive gear. There has always been expensive gear and boutique names. But there used to be more affordable products that had trickle down technology so us humans could also get a taste of the good life.
But these days the magazines are making it sound normal to buy a $20,000 amplifier. And reviews of $5,000 CD players or phono cartridges say it is good "for the price". Everyone wants an up-sell win. Manufacturers are more than happy to make 5 sales at $100,000 rather than selling 500 units at $1000.
We all lose that way unfortunately because even 5 years later, when the used market is discounting that great piece of gear at half price or less, it is still out of our reach.
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Given that there are far fewer uber priced pieces gear manufactured and sold, there will also way less of these things in the used marketplace. I sure that there will more more of them traded in at the dealer for a more expensive new model than will be sold at a potentially higher loss on Agon.
Scotty
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I am not complaining how the economic system works, I was just trying to explain why it is the way it is.
This all started with why a reference to a 4100 dollar power cord and sorted of started a complaining about lots of high prices for audio gear.
Socialist me?....no
Republican.....no
Democrat....no
Like an AA meeting it is good to talk about these things get them out in the open.
Socratic method works every time. Debate, debate, debate, from the debate will come the truth..
and we are page 9! Woo Hoo
Lets start something new to bitch about, how about we all bitch about how much of a trouble maker I am, and yes I too wear my ban from audio circle as a badge of honor.
Remember you only get banned from audiocircle if you tell the truth or lie.
or piss off one of the fan boys of their manufacturers that pay to be on the site. No negative press will be tolerated from their advertisers.
and if everything has purpose, then the purpose of audiocircle is to make money. But enough of that nonsense....dude where'd I park my Bentley?
9 pages!!!!!!!!!
How about a technocrat, you a technocrat? A type of government where the profeession or the leaders in science run the different branches of government. They don't let idiots vote. There are some governments in Asia run like this. I think Taiwan is one
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy
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Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
Over on AC there are people (years we are talking) that are using speakers disproportionate to their remaining gear. There is no coming to the realization of it and they are happy to tell everyone. That is because they READ it daily about the negativity of other gear. None of them listen to their own gear. Largely because they have a pile of shit that sounds like garbage. But they have no problem online bagging - out about the non - neccessity (lack of quality) of audio gear. This all stems from the manufacturers (who crap on other gear) only to get a larger piece of the buyers purchasing budget.
Your right I may have bagged , politely or not it was not my intention.
It was only in the context of the $4200 power cable discussion.
To express my belief that people are too happy to throw money at a problem in their system ie. an expensive power cable to remedy an issue they should be looking elsewhere to fix. Unfortunately there are plenty of folks out there that are glad to feed on their fears.
Of course no matter how I say it, as a competing manufacturer, it may be construed as bagging.
Maybe that issue is a speaker that no matter how much high end gear you put behind it cant resolve the signal the system provides to the fullest. So no matter how great those power cables or interconnects are... the speakers lack of coherency in the transition from bass to lower mid range is the result. I am a firm believer the speaker will yield the biggest change in any system.
I am not trying to blow my own horn, but I will not deny that I have had more than one customer use a highly regarded name brand speaker that when replaced with mine, we had to go back and start over with everything upstream, removing all the tweaks and mods and such, because the system had wavered so far off course trying to please the old speaker. Then his face lights up with the knowledge he is hearing things like never before. I am not saying these tweaks will not give an overall improvement, just if the speaker cant do it with the basics, it does not have much chance making things better with tweaks.
Greg
I didn't see it as manipulation so I am not really pointing it at you. I actually don't think Salk and AvA are the worst, there is one worse. That is Harman. They tried to roll over Hi-Res anything. They used any method possible. BAS, publications, forums to sway the reading public. The reason they do it is their Big Business model. They build audio by the thousands. They will batch order 1000 receivers at a time or CD players. No doubt that campaign against Hi-Res was to unload their non Hi Res CD player inventory first, or their non Hi -Res Receiver inventory first. So they undergo a campaign to squash any movement they are not invested in. Screw the hobby it's about money only.
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Werd, you lost me on the last one. What is a Hi-Rez Receiver and a Hi-Rez CD player?
Scotty
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Werd, you lost me on the last one. What is a Hi-Rez Receiver and a Hi-Rez CD player?
Scotty
Receivers that can play 24 bit music files. My Yamha does through it's USB into the Yamaha Receiver internal dac. I didn't say Hi Res CD player but non Hi-Res CD player. Or a just a redbook CD player.
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Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
I disagree completely. Greg did not call out a specific manufacturer nor model. He simply stated an opinion that in his system he has found that he likes the stock PCs better and gave a reason why in sonic terms. That is not talking down about anyone's products that is making a a statement of his personal experience with his own system. Just because he happens to be a manufacturer that doesn't mean that he cannot have an opinion as an audiophile.
-
Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
I disagree completely. Greg did not call out a specific manufacturer nor model. He simply stated an opinion that in his system he has found that he likes the stock PCs better and gave a reason why in sonic terms. That is not talking down about anyone's products that is making a a statement of his personal experience with his own system. Just because he happens to be a manufacturer that doesn't mean that he cannot have an opinion as an audiophile.
This is the danger a manufacturer faces when he speaks his mind. The assumption by others that he is doing it to gain favor or put someone else down in some way. This reasoning by a potential customer is understandable, when a possible sale is on the line.
Consider a rear wheel drive car manufacturer addressing a possible customers question with a front wheel drive cars.
The customer is considering FWD but asks the manuf. what he thinks. The manuf. may be knowledgeable and a driving enthusiast and reply I don't like them and give good reasons why. Like they torque steer and understeer in corners. all true.
But the customer may think, is he being honest or just trying to sell me one of his RWD cars ?
Should the manuf. just shut up and agree FWD is good ?? As he well knows there are plenty of FWD racing series competitions.
Its just the manufs opinion. Is too much info being honest hurting his chances of a sale ?
You may notice some manufacturers will walk a very carefully worded line, as not to give an impression that can be interpreted in a negative manner or come back to bite them. "Neutered conversation"
I tend to say what I think, much to the dismay of my wife who thinks I should not "say too much".
That's what got me in trouble on AC speaking my mind.
As they say "opinions are like A holes...everyones got one and most of them stink !!
Greg
-
If anything... this had been the best topic in a while on this site.
:)
Ind I have yet to add anything meaningful to this discussion, except this word
butts.
ty :)
oh and butts synergy.
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Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
I disagree completely. Greg did not call out a specific manufacturer nor model. He simply stated an opinion that in his system he has found that he likes the stock PCs better and gave a reason why in sonic terms. That is not talking down about anyone's products that is making a a statement of his personal experience with his own system. Just because he happens to be a manufacturer that doesn't mean that he cannot have an opinion as an audiophile.
Calling out a specific manufacturer is not being bias to a component type. it is when they make sweeping negative remarks about a particular device like cables void of any manufacturer.
-
Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
Over on AC there are people (years we are talking) that are using speakers disproportionate to their remaining gear. There is no coming to the realization of it and they are happy to tell everyone. That is because they READ it daily about the negativity of other gear. None of them listen to their own gear. Largely because they have a pile of shit that sounds like garbage. But they have no problem online bagging - out about the non - necessity (lack of quality) of audio gear. This all stems from the manufacturers (who crap on other gear) only to get a larger piece of the buyers purchasing budget.
Your right I may have bagged , politely or not it was not my intention.
It was only in the context of the $4200 power cable discussion.
To express my belief that people are too happy to throw money at a problem in their system ie. an expensive power cable to remedy an issue they should be looking elsewhere to fix. Unfortunately there are plenty of folks out there that are glad to feed on their fears.
Of course no matter how I say it, as a competing manufacturer, it may be construed as bagging.
Maybe that issue is a speaker that no matter how much high end gear you put behind it cant resolve the signal the system provides to the fullest. So no matter how great those power cables or interconnects are... the speakers lack of coherency in the transition from bass to lower mid range is the result. I am a firm believer the speaker will yield the biggest change in any system.
I am not trying to blow my own horn, but I will not deny that I have had more than one customer use a highly regarded name brand speaker that when replaced with mine, we had to go back and start over with everything upstream, removing all the tweaks and mods and such, because the system had wavered so far off course trying to please the old speaker. Then his face lights up with the knowledge he is hearing things like never before. I am not saying these tweaks will not give an overall improvement, just if the speaker cant do it with the basics, it does not have much chance making things better with tweaks.
Greg
When one puts a different speaker in an existing system that was tweaked to get a particular character of sound of course things need to be changed. Cables should be neutral in character allowing the components and speaker to show their true tonality.
Now if we put in a revealing yet bright speaker then the existing synergy is gone. Need to change something upstream.
Greg I remember the Bryston and your earlier design. Dynamics were outstanding but the tonality was bright and lean. So a tubed preamp was introduced which helped but did not cure the sound. Maybe a simple tube change or yes a colored [ rich ] IC or speaker cable might help out.
A revealing speaker such as yours needs upstream components that compliment your speakers character. Just like any other system.
Using cables and tweaks can change the sound good or bad. It would be grand if most were aware of what LCR was best suited for their amp/speaker combo. Meaning maybe a cable that has low capacitance or impedance may work best engineering wise.
So once one has the system together tonality and harmonic wise that is the time to tweak. One can ruin the sound or better the sound. Not all tweaks are equal in all systems. Besides it is fun trying to get every bit one can.
There is always give and take. It is a rare thing for a system where a tweak has an affect, good or bad.
Greg your speaker has presence and dynamics which others lust for. The bested my Pipdreams in those areas but not tonality. In direct comparison yours were lean and bright but dynamic as hell. Does that mean that one is better than another, NO. It means different gear is required. Me personally besides the Arions a CJ amp would be just killer. Or Parasound or Plinius. IMO not a SS or no hybrid class "D" amp.
This is not about your speaker it is about all speakers. any speaker needs the right amp to get its best sound. They do not amplify themselves.
Consider this, someone holds a speaker shootout with Maggie 3.7, GTA, Martin Logan and BG radia. The winner by all accounts goes to one. Is it the speaker or the system synergy. IMO it is the synergy not the particular speaker.
I have access to three cable looms of IC's and speaker cable. JPS SC series, TWL, Denon [ Japan] and Gronenberg. Each loom presents a different character. Only one is right for my system. Does that mean JPS is ripping me off if a less expensive cable has the synergy I am looking for ? No, it means they are not right in that system. Finding the right fit is laborious and a royal PITA. However worth every minute until one is found.
How many times have we been impressed by a cable or tweak we bring it over to our buddies system with different results.
So back to the original topic of what grinds your gears. So from my high horse I would say lack of knowledge and experience in putting systems together. The other is a customer that takes all my free advise and then goes to Audiogon to find it cheaper.
Lastly it is my opinion that a system should be configured around a speaker. Actually the source and speaker are the two most important pieces to consider.
Some interesting products to hear lately are Vinnie Rossi's integrated amp, Schitt DAC's [ all ], PSB mini monitors, OB Dipole subs, PIAudio Digibuss, Hals music server and last but not least Herbie's footers and decoulpers [ brilliant ].
charles
-
Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
I disagree completely. Greg did not call out a specific manufacturer nor model. He simply stated an opinion that in his system he has found that he likes the stock PCs better and gave a reason why in sonic terms. That is not talking down about anyone's products that is making a a statement of his personal experience with his own system. Just because he happens to be a manufacturer that doesn't mean that he cannot have an opinion as an audiophile.
This is the danger a manufacturer faces when he speaks his mind. The assumption by others that he is doing it to gain favor or put someone else down in some way. This reasoning by a potential customer is understandable, when a possible sale is on the line.
Consider a rear wheel drive car manufacturer addressing a possible customers question with a front wheel drive cars.
The customer is considering FWD but asks the manuf. what he thinks. The manuf. may be knowledgeable and a driving enthusiast and reply I don't like them and give good reasons why. Like they torque steer and understeer in corners. all true.
But the customer may think, is he being honest or just trying to sell me one of his RWD cars ?
Should the manuf. just shut up and agree FWD is good ?? As he well knows there are plenty of FWD racing series competitions.
Its just the manufs opinion. Is too much info being honest hurting his chances of a sale ?
You may notice some manufacturers will walk a very carefully worded line, as not to give an impression that can be interpreted in a negative manner or come back to bite them. "Neutered conversation"
I tend to say what I think, much to the dismay of my wife who thinks I should not "say too much".
That's what got me in trouble on AC speaking my mind.
As they say "opinions are like A holes...everyones got one and most of them stink !!
Greg
EXACTLY. Being in the business is a completely different experience for sure. First off most think we are making millions off them or ripping them off. Then if we mention a product of course we are pumping it up to make sales. NOT.
We no longer can be Audiophiles as we are perceived as having an agenda.
For me personally my business was set up with products that first impressed me in my system as an Audiophile. The QOL being a prime example. Do we all remember the flack and insults I took here. I was really excited over that product and THEN decided to be a dealer. Same for the other products I sell. QOL is out of business after they screwed their dealers and went direct. To date I cannot remove the QOL from my system. Everything just collapses when removed.
What I learned in ANY business is do not bite the hand that feeds you. meaning be nice about other manufactures products. If a Manf. does not like anothers product MUM should be the word.
AVA learned an important lesson when they refused to offer IEC connector. Sales were way down. Not because of the sonics but their attitude towards power cords. They have an IEC now.
A fine line we must walk which really sucks for us.
charles
-
Calling out a specific manufacturer is not being bias to a component type. it is when they make sweeping negative remarks about a particular device like cables void of any manufacturer.
That's just ignorance or deceit and easily filtered by any intelligent reader. Eventually we all saw Van Alstine admit that he heard a difference with loaned upgrade speaker wires, but he said he would never spend money for that. BAM!
-
Bagging out is a part of an audio manufacturers business model. You just politely did it, bagging out on powerpower cables. :rofl:.
Over on AC there are people (years we are talking) that are using speakers disproportionate to their remaining gear. There is no coming to the realization of it and they are happy to tell everyone. That is because they READ it daily about the negativity of other gear. None of them listen to their own gear. Largely because they have a pile of shit that sounds like garbage. But they have no problem online bagging - out about the non - necessity (lack of quality) of audio gear. This all stems from the manufacturers (who crap on other gear) only to get a larger piece of the buyers purchasing budget.
Your right I may have bagged , politely or not it was not my intention.
It was only in the context of the $4200 power cable discussion.
To express my belief that people are too happy to throw money at a problem in their system ie. an expensive power cable to remedy an issue they should be looking elsewhere to fix. Unfortunately there are plenty of folks out there that are glad to feed on their fears.
Of course no matter how I say it, as a competing manufacturer, it may be construed as bagging.
Maybe that issue is a speaker that no matter how much high end gear you put behind it cant resolve the signal the system provides to the fullest. So no matter how great those power cables or interconnects are... the speakers lack of coherency in the transition from bass to lower mid range is the result. I am a firm believer the speaker will yield the biggest change in any system.
I am not trying to blow my own horn, but I will not deny that I have had more than one customer use a highly regarded name brand speaker that when replaced with mine, we had to go back and start over with everything upstream, removing all the tweaks and mods and such, because the system had wavered so far off course trying to please the old speaker. Then his face lights up with the knowledge he is hearing things like never before. I am not saying these tweaks will not give an overall improvement, just if the speaker cant do it with the basics, it does not have much chance making things better with tweaks.
Greg
When one puts a different speaker in an existing system that was tweaked to get a particular character of sound of course things need to be changed. Cables should be neutral in character allowing the components and speaker to show their true tonality.
Now if we put in a revealing yet bright speaker then the existing synergy is gone. Need to change something upstream.
Greg I remember the Bryston and your earlier design. Dynamics were outstanding but the tonality was bright and lean. So a tubed preamp was introduced which helped but did not cure the sound. Maybe a simple tube change or yes a colored [ rich ] IC or speaker cable might help out.
A revealing speaker such as yours needs upstream components that compliment your speakers character. Just like any other system.
Using cables and tweaks can change the sound good or bad. It would be grand if most were aware of what LCR was best suited for their amp/speaker combo. Meaning maybe a cable that has low capacitance or impedance may work best engineering wise.
So once one has the system together tonality and harmonic wise that is the time to tweak. One can ruin the sound or better the sound. Not all tweaks are equal in all systems. Besides it is fun trying to get every bit one can.
There is always give and take. It is a rare thing for a system where a tweak has an affect, good or bad.
Greg your speaker has presence and dynamics which others lust for. The bested my Pipdreams in those areas but not tonality. In direct comparison yours were lean and bright but dynamic as hell. Does that mean that one is better than another, NO. It means different gear is required. Me personally besides the Arions a CJ amp would be just killer. Or Parasound or Plinius. IMO not a SS or no hybrid class "D" amp.
This is not about your speaker it is about all speakers. any speaker needs the right amp to get its best sound. They do not amplify themselves.
Consider this, someone holds a speaker shootout with Maggie 3.7, GTA, Martin Logan and BG radia. The winner by all accounts goes to one. Is it the speaker or the system synergy. IMO it is the synergy not the particular speaker.
I have access to three cable looms of IC's and speaker cable. JPS SC series, TWL, Denon [ Japan] and Gronenberg. Each loom presents a different character. Only one is right for my system. Does that mean JPS is ripping me off if a less expensive cable has the synergy I am looking for ? No, it means they are not right in that system. Finding the right fit is laborious and a royal PITA. However worth every minute until one is found.
How many times have we been impressed by a cable or tweak we bring it over to our buddies system with different results.
So back to the original topic of what grinds your gears. So from my high horse I would say lack of knowledge and experience in putting systems together. The other is a customer that takes all my free advise and then goes to Audiogon to find it cheaper.
Lastly it is my opinion that a system should be configured around a speaker. Actually the source and speaker are the two most important pieces to consider.
Some interesting products to hear lately are Vinnie Rossi's integrated amp, Schitt DAC's [ all ], PSB mini monitors, OB Dipole subs, PIAudio Digibuss, Hals music server and last but not least Herbie's footers and decoulpers [ brilliant ].
charles
I agree on all points Charles. My 15 year old Bryston 4B was a workhorse I used for a long time. I got to a point of speaker development that I could go no further with the 4b. Unfortunately my wallet said I needed to keep it.
Hearing my speakers on your system was an enigma to me. I heard so much more smoothness and detail than my system, on particular tracks I heard wonderful trailing off of room reverb,and bloom of voice I credited to your well set up highly resolving system. But to me the lower mids and upper bass was lacking giving rise to the brightness we heard, of course this was not heard with your Pipes in the chain. When I got home and listened to my system, I reveled in the lower spectrum heft that gave the speaker the warmth it lacked at your place, but the magic and smoothness was gone. I knew I had to find a new reference amp and source. I kept my PrimaLuna preamp assuming it was not the cause of my dismay. And that was the case.
I made another change in the design scrapping the bass amps you heard for amps costing 4 X the price. I immediately heard a increase in smoothness of sound even with the Bryston. I lay the blame at the feet of the previous bass amps, they were passing grunge even though they crossed over at 100hz the grit that was riding along contaminating the music was evident. The current Hypex units are silent, they do their job cleanly and effectively without influencing any other part of the spectrum.
The last part of the puzzle was fate....A potential customer came to my home to demo my speakers. He brought these unassuming SS monos, so small and light I assumed they were class D. They were class AB. We listened to my Bryston and then the Nuprime ST10, which bested the Bryston in just about every way. Sorry Bryston fans, my opinion. So I am thinking its cant get much better. Even though Robert liked what he heard but felt there was more to offer and we hooked up his Paradox amps. Like manna from heaven, the forces of nature aligned, it was all there, resolution, smoothness transparency, harmonic bloom, bass, slam, dynamic contrast...you get the picture.
As luck would have it Robert also brought a CD player modded by Paradox, in an instant it killed my Bryston BCD1. By the time we were done we had replaced cables, interconnects too and man o man I didn't want to let this guy out of my home with this gear.
It seems Robert had more Paradox gear at home and was willing to make a trade. So we settled on a worth of the gear and I built him a pair of speakers with his gear as partial payment.
Since then I have been very happy with my system.
I doubt I will change it anytime soon, I would rather fiddle with speakers than gear.
BTW...
Terence Robinson of Paradox is like a lot of small audio companies, talented, genuinely nice guy and like so many...never heard of by mainstream audiophiles. too bad.
Greg
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Yes Sir being in the Biz s a Manf. is not an inexpensive start up. the first thing besides talent and design the Manf. needs a neutral system to evaluate their creations. besides measurements one must listen. The system is not cheap. For years on end Maggie voiced their speakers using Audio Research tubed gear. That is the exact reason I bought Maggie 3A and used an AR DR250 Mk2 servo amp with 240W of triode bliss.
Then buying testing equip, and parts upon parts until one gets the final product. R&D is not cheap. Granted no overhead for space used or a corporation it is still expensive for a start up.
When I had my Architectural firm it cost me with salaries a pretty pennie just to put the key in the door. my employees had to generate 2.5 times their salary for me to make a profit.
What grinds my gears is a Manf. with little overhead and pricing like the ones who do.
The days of a Manf. charging 5x cost as retail is long long gone. There was a distributor then dealers. It all adds up. When there are no dealers and distributor they should be much lower priced. Some are . Some are not.
IMO independent direct sales manufactures should charge 30% less not more.No overhead basically.
Not picking on you that was a general statement. In your case the cost of the rare earth magnets are very expensive these days. Hence the rise in cost of your speaker. I'm sure there is more that raised the price so please tell us.
charles
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Interesting the turns this thread takes.
Being a manufacturer is far from easy these days. The audio industry is tricky at best. Even for manufacturers that don't have large facilities with huge overhead expenses, running any company like this is expensive.
Overhead is still high. Running a business in New York is getting worse.
Speaker manufacturers have it the hardest as they need a ton of space.
I quickly outgrew a 800 sq. ft shop and went into a 2600 sq. ft shop. After loosing it in 2011, the cost of building a new place is not cheap either.
It simply is not cheap to run a business.
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Calling out a specific manufacturer is not being bias to a component type. it is when they make sweeping negative remarks about a particular device like cables void of any manufacturer.
That's just ignorance or deceit and easily filtered by any intelligent reader. Eventually we all saw Van Alstine admit that he heard a difference with loaned upgrade speaker wires, but he said he would never spend money for that. BAM!
There you just proved my point. Or Frank did, he heard a difference but would not spend money on it. But tries to sell you an amp. See they bag out to simplify their sales and move more money into their product.
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Does anyone remember the good ole days of the rave?
The rave was the best thing to happen to this hobby other than audio shows.
Great, gracious people opening their homes up, entertaining people for the pure joy of enjoying our hobby and each others company.
Sure we drank a lot and ate a lot but we had fun and we were all friends.
Then one day a few of us decided to get into the audio business and it all fell apart from there.
I know these words annoy the people reading it, but it is true, we were all in it for the hobby, to learn and experience, profit was not part of it.
Once you are in the business it all changes, you have to support your products, objectivity gets wiped away, the fun disappears, and we all can no longer gather to gain knowledge and experience. At least the way it used to be free and open. Now we have to be careful not to offend anyones products. True friends are able to call each other assholes, and say their system sucks and still eat their food and drink their wine.
I remember the first day it hit me was when we where at Barry's house for a mini rave, I thought it was a mini rave but really it was designed to introduce the new Merill amps to the club offering deep discounts to us.
That day changed it all for me, I knew it was over.
It was so much fun..........but alas those days are over except when we gather in small groups privately with no dealers, but the large scale fun is gone.
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Calling out a specific manufacturer is not being bias to a component type. it is when they make sweeping negative remarks about a particular device like cables void of any manufacturer.
That's just ignorance or deceit and easily filtered by any intelligent reader. Eventually we all saw Van Alstine admit that he heard a difference with loaned upgrade speaker wires, but he said he would never spend money for that. BAM!
There you just proved my point. Or Frank did, he heard a difference but would not spend money on it.
Yes we are saying the same thing, there.
But tries to sell you an amp. See they bag out to simplify their sales and move more money into their product.
I don't follow that, but that's OK.
-
Not picking on you that was a general statement. In your case the cost of the rare earth magnets are very expensive these days. Hence the rise in cost of your speaker.
I'm sure there is more that raised the price so please tell us.
charles
Well Charlie, if you must know...its the super rare eel farts sprinkled with magic dust that allow it to compete against more expensive planars for $26,000 less.
Greg
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Calling out a specific manufacturer is not being bias to a component type. it is when they make sweeping negative remarks about a particular device like cables void of any manufacturer.
.
That's just ignorance or deceit and easily filtered by any intelligent reader. Eventually we all saw Van Alstine admit that he heard a difference with loaned upgrade speaker wires, but he said he would never spend money for that. BAM!
There you just proved my point. Or Frank did, he heard a difference but would not spend money on it.
Yes we are saying the same thing, there.
But tries to sell you an amp. See they bag out to simplify their sales and move more money into their product.
I don't follow that, but that's OK.
He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp.
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He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp.
I see. Well, that could be. Of course, we don't know what he was thinking. Probably just trying to have fun with some frieends on AudioCircle, but finding it impossible because all the knowi it all smarky gotcha assholes waiting to prove him wrong about fucking hookup wires. When he was there in the beginning of HiFi people used his beloved zip wire and the music still worked. Hifi was born and grew to maturity and beyond on vinyl coated map cord, and 2 prong captive power cords. So in a way he's right, the wire thing is unnecessary, but time marches on, now we know it matters. And he's not using 1971 transistors in his amps either.
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its the super rare eel farts
!! Endangered Species Act violation !!
You must switch to vegetarian super rare eel farts at once!
-
its the super rare eel farts
!! Endangered Species Act violation !!
You must switch to vegetarian super rare eel farts at once!
No worries...farm raised, not wild caught.
-
He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp.
I see. Well, that could be. Of course, we don't know what he was thinking. Probably just trying to have fun with some frieends on AudioCircle, but finding it impossible because all the knowi it all smarky gotcha assholes waiting to prove him wrong about fucking hookup wires. When he was there in the beginning of HiFi people used his beloved zip wire and the music still worked. Hifi was born and grew to maturity and beyond on vinyl coated map cord, and 2 prong captive power cords. So in a way he's right, the wire thing is unnecessary, but time marches on, now we know it matters. And he's not using 1971 transistors in his amps either.
The ironc thng is if I bougt one of his amps I would get him to hardwire what ever cable he had there so long as it was copper or gold plated
Copper and not that garbage nickel plated stuff I see all the time on generic stuff. :rofl:
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He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp.
We may not agree with his conclusion, but he does have a logical point from an evaluation point of view. For a long time cables were considered an accesory that you needed to purchase to complete your system and if you spent a little extra on them it would produce sonic improvements. Well that held true while even high quality cables were priced in the hundreds of dollars. But now that cables can cost several thousand dollars one needs to evaluate how much improvement the make relative to what else you can do with the money. When you were talking about upgrading a $2,000 amp with $200 worth of cable it was a pretty good bet that the combo could sound better than a $2200 amp. But now tha the cost of the speaker cables and ICs can easily exceed the price of that amp it is not such an easy call to say that a $2k amp plus premium cables will sound better than a $4k amp with lessor cables. Maybe yes, maybe no, but it is a decision that needs to be thought about and made. And I certainly don't mean to prejudge any cable based on price. We all know about certain purple cable that many think are pretty insanely price but many others consider a good investment based on what they do to their system vs what you wot
Ulsan have to spend in hardware upgrades to achieve the same performance upgrade. This sword can cut both ways. And the only waxy to know is to try things in your own system and see how you feel about them.
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While he might not be using transistors that date to 1971, he is using a replacement for the Hitachi lateral MOSFETs that were first producced in 1977 and subsequently used in the Hafler DH 200 which was produced between 1979 through 1982. When Hitachi stopped making these complementary pairs in 1993, he was lucky enough to find a British manufacturer who had decided to build replacements for these lateral MOSFET transistors. About the only thing that distinguishes these transistors is that they will not thermally runaway and they are fairly robust. They have a much higher RDS on value than a Vertical FET. Unless they are biased like crazy into pure class A as Monarchy did in their Class A amps, they will give you the old "mosfet mist" which characterizes all Class AB designs using the Hitachi lateral mosfets and their modern equivalents. Vertical power MOSFETs do not have the dreaded "MOSFET mist" when operated in Class AB.
To put not to fine a point on it, lateral MOSFETs circa approximately 40 years ago are not my cup of tea.
I agree with tmazz on the amplifier price vs. cabling price. Sooner or later it going to pay you to buy a better amplifier. You can seldom turn a sows ear into silk purse with externally applied tweaks and cables despite what purveyors of same tell you. Eventually someone will bring in a much better power amplifier (or fill in the blank with the component of your choice), with a modestly priced power cord on it and you will find out that your tricked out cheap amp was actually "broken" and you just didn't know it.
Personally, I hate it when this happens, it usually costs me money.
Scotty
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Not picking on you that was a general statement. In your case the cost of the rare earth magnets are very expensive these days. Hence the rise in cost of your speaker.
I'm sure there is more that raised the price so please tell us.
charles
Well Charlie, if you must know...its the super rare eel farts sprinkled with magic dust that allow it to compete against more expensive planars for $26,000 less.
Greg
Arghaaaa gotta love those eels. What planars for $26K less. What planars cost 35K ? The Analysis planars are 20K and 28K and discounted.
Maggies are 14K and 5K. Greg you have a great speaker and more should own a pair. At 9K it is getting harder to buy a pair. Those who are willing to put out 14K for MG 20 should demo your speaker and leave the Maggies in the store. There would be 6K left over to buy amps [ Arions of course] that was for Topround. :-P. BRILLIANT !!!
charles
Your biggest competition is Maggie at 14K which you best IMO
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Does anyone remember the good ole days of the rave?
The rave was the best thing to happen to this hobby other than audio shows.
Great, gracious people opening their homes up, entertaining people for the pure joy of enjoying our hobby and each others company.
Sure we drank a lot and ate a lot but we had fun and we were all friends.
Then one day a few of us decided to get into the audio business and it all fell apart from there.
I know these words annoy the people reading it, but it is true, we were all in it for the hobby, to learn and experience, profit was not part of it.
Once you are in the business it all changes, you have to support your products, objectivity gets wiped away, the fun disappears, and we all can no longer gather to gain knowledge and experience. At least the way it used to be free and open. Now we have to be careful not to offend anyones products. True friends are able to call each other assholes, and say their system sucks and still eat their food and drink their wine.
I remember the first day it hit me was when we where at Barry's house for a mini rave, I thought it was a mini rave but really it was designed to introduce the new Merill amps to the club offering deep discounts to us.
That day changed it all for me, I knew it was over.
It was so much fun..........but alas those days are over except when we gather in small groups privately with no dealers, but the large scale fun is gone.
Yes Mike the original Raves at Levi's were lots of fun. We had manf present if you recall. Vista anyone as an example.We demonstrated his amps at Levi's. Levi bought one if I recall at a HUGE discount. Paul was making power conditioners Felix anyone ?
What happened was political.You featured manf and dealers at your Raves several times. What was the difference.
It got political as to what cable manf. Paul or TWL. What amps Arion or Merrill. Remember ? Greg's GT A's with a horrible sounding amp which did an injustice to Greg. At the last minute I was told not to bring my amp. A mistake only that there was a good synergy together which would have good for GTA and their speaker. I felt so bad for Greg as the did not represent how good his speaker is. Politics strikes again.
IMO it was some manf. and dealers who got preference over others and then who was selected was the biggest issue I saw at your place.
The Raves went away when Levi and that crowd stopped. Barry tried with great effort to hold it all together but it was Humpty Dumpty already.
BTW did not the dealers and Manf offer a substantial discount for Ravers ?? I surely did 20% as a matter of fact. That is a good thing No ? To many drunk people as well :rofl: :rofl:
charles
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I agree with tmazz on the amplifier price vs. cabling price. Sooner or later it going to pay you to buy a better amplifier. You can seldom turn a sows ear into silk purse with externally applied tweaks and cables despite what purveyors of same tell you.
I agree in principia. No point having wires too dull for the amps, or vice-versey.
My whole system is a tad too resolving for me. This is where DIY fads inevitably take you, lower and lower distortion until it is too clear for the recording quality to bear. Pandora and 50s jazz bootlegs suffer. Some lesser SCs would balance it. I already use cheap ICs.
:idea: series resistor?
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So, if an unknown stranger (under surveillance from the socialist price setters) has Boulder or MBL amps and 3x that in his speakers ("properly" proportioned in price to the amps, of course,) then it's OK to have $20k speaker cables and $10k PCs as "mere accessories?"
EDIT:Oops, soory, I forgot, Boulder and MBL amps and proportionally priced speakers are "never" OK with the socialist price setters. Think of all the potatos we could import for that. /edit
But if you build your own speakers for $1000 and amps for $300 and they are better than most commercial products of 10x their heft, then using $3000 SCs is perverse?
I guess maybe it is because you could "should" have DIY'd the cables too, then they would be the "correct" $300. But no Alumiloy wire on Amazon!
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Not picking on you that was a general statement. In your case the cost of the rare earth magnets are very expensive these days. Hence the rise in cost of your speaker.
I'm sure there is more that raised the price so please tell us.
charles
Well Charlie, if you must know...its the super rare eel farts sprinkled with magic dust that allow it to compete against more expensive planars for $26,000 less.
Greg
Arghaaaa gotta love those eels. What planars for $26K less. What planars cost 35K ? The Analysis planars are 20K and 28K and discounted.
Maggies are 14K and 5K. Greg you have a great speaker and more should own a pair. At 9K it is getting harder to buy a pair. Those who are willing to put out 14K for MG 20 should demo your speaker and leave the Maggies in the store. There would be 6K left over to buy amps [ Arions of course] that was for Topround. :-P. BRILLIANT !!!
charles
Your biggest competition is Maggie at 14K which you best IMO
What planars cost $35k ?? At 9k getting harder to buy a pair ??
Charles,
Currently in production ? None I know of. Though I think you may have heard one that is no longer in production.
I have seen and heard $65k planars, so someone felt they had a product worth that money.
Maybe the market proves them wrong.
My feeling is that there is room in the market for a 9K speaker.
Especially one that competes against more expensive offerings.
You may feel that my current asking price is too high, from remembering my first effort that sold for around $3k which I exhibited at the NYC audio show in 2012.
My current offering is not that speaker, as a matter of fact the $3k asking price for that speaker was only about $500 over my parts cost.
I guess I was trying to make an impression.
This strategy may have backfired in allowing people to believe I have done nothing since, and am just sitting back and cranking up the price to its current level.
My first speaker was a completely different animal from my current offering.
I could not even buy the parts needed to build a GTA2.5 for $3k
How much do you think Maggie puts into their speakers compared to their asking price? Sure they have big overhead and dealers etc.
This is where my business model comes into play, low overhead so the customer gets more of what they paid for, and is not paying for a dealer markup and a manufacturers overhead.
Of course my business model don't mean squat if they dont sound any better than Maggies.
I would not be here if I didn't think they did.
The truth is I have blown tens of thousands of dollars on R&D since 2012. Its one thing to pull drivers off a shelf and call it a speaker..not an easy task..believe me I know.
Its even more difficult to design and build ones own drivers.
9k for a speaker, in the high end audio arena ?? Not ludicrous,
expensive, yes. But for a custom hand built product competing against whats out there, I think it fares well.
Greg
BTW Charles....I offer industry accommodation pricing of $6500
Also I am considering home dealers who do not expect to make more money selling my speaker, than I would get from the arrangement.
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But if you build your own speakers for $1000 and amps for $300 and they are better than most commercial products of 10x their heft, then using $3000 SCs is perverse?
Rich I think the process should be the same no matter what the price of the components. If putting a $3000 speaker cable between a $100 speaker and a $300 amp souinds better than any other combination of three other componebts that sells fro $4300 or less then abosolutely it makes perfect sense to buy the speaker cable, no matter how wacky is look on the face of it. (That is assumuing that the person buying a $1300 amp/speaker combo hass access to and is willing to add another $3000 to his equipment budget.) I personally would want to hear a $3k amp with with a $300 SC and maybe a $2500/800 amp cable combos before I was convinvced that the 3K cable/300 amp was the best combo, but if it was I would have not problem at all spending money in those proportions.
Beacause in the end this hobby not about the technology you use, or the amount of money you spend or how you allocated that moey among the different pieces of equipment you need, rather it's all about musical enjoyment, so whatever you do to increase that enjoyment is ultimately, the right thing for you to do.
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He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp.
We may not agree with his conclusion, but he does have a logical point from an evaluation point of view. For a long time cables were considered an accesory that you needed to purchase to complete your system and if you spent a little extra on them it would produce sonic improvements. Well that held true while even high quality cables were priced in the hundreds of dollars. But now that cables can cost several thousand dollars one needs to evaluate how much improvement the make relative to what else you can do with the money. When you were talking about upgrading a $2,000 amp with $200 worth of cable it was a pretty good bet that the combo could sound better than a $2200 amp. But now tha the cost of the speaker cables and ICs can easily exceed the price of that amp it is not such an easy call to say that a $2k amp plus premium cables will sound better than a $4k amp with lessor cables. Maybe yes, maybe no, but it is a decision that needs to be thought about and made. And I certainly don't mean to prejudge any cable based on price. We all know about certain purple cable that many think are pretty insanely price but many others consider a good investment based on what they do to their system vs what you wot
Ulsan have to spend in hardware upgrades to achieve the same performance upgrade. This sword can cut both ways. And the only waxy to know is to try things in your own system and see how you feel about them.
It does cut both ways. You ever see a generic cable these days? They are far worse now. I can't find a generic that isn't using garbage nickel plated copper. Show me a generic like they use to make them using copper.
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cmon one more page...lets make it to lucky 13!
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Going from 3rd to 1st gear with no clutch work. Just pushing it into gear.
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It doesn't even have to be nickel plated. How many people still think an "el cheapo" cable from China even meets ETP copper purity standards? All it takes to have bad sound is cables constructed from highly contaminated copper. Which at this point would virtually all of them. This is not the good old days when cheap stuff came from Japan and at least met some kind standards.
Scotty
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It does cut both ways. You ever see a generic cable these days? They are far worse now. I can't find a generic that isn't using garbage nickel plated copper. Show me a generic like they use to make them using copper.
You are absolutely correct, it does cut both ways, but if the stock cord does sound like cr@p, then it will be no problem at all for an upgraded cord to beat it. But that is what you need to find out for yourself. And who knows, maybe a given manufacturer got his hands on a whole bunch of 25 year old NOS stock cords in a warehouse sale that are made of decent copper and sound pretty good. My point is that you will never know unless you try and listen with an open mind. And remember that the cable and the component are not two separate items, but a system that must play well together.
And then simply follow your ears to wherever your wallet will allow them to go. :rofl:
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Going from 3rd to 1st gear with no clutch work. Just pushing it into gear.
I can remember in my college days nursing along a car with a bum clutch until I could scrape together the money to fix it. I got pretty good at upshifting through the gears by matching the out and in RPMs to the various gears, but downshiftung into 1st without a clutch.... OUCH. :duh
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I'm trying Mike... Come on 13. [-o<
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I'm trying Mike... Come on 13. [-o<
Should I pull an Evan and just keep putting up one word posts until I fill the screen? :rofl:
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Since none of the cable manufacturers actually manufacture wire they could be call "cable assemblers" just like pretty much all of us who have made DIY power cords and speaker cables etc.
I am sure the process is assemble...then listen.....assemble(a little different)then listen......assemble(a little different again) listen....until you find the right combo that works.....package sell.
The huge bulk of time testing building and listening to many many combos until you find something that works, it truly is the nose to the grindstone work the assemblers do,...and Kudos for that!
So who really knows what wire is in their cable?
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Since none of the cable manufacturers actually manufacture wire they could be call "cable assemblers" just like pretty much all of us who have made DIY power cords and speaker cables etc.
FYI, while this used to be the case there is now one exception (at least that I know of.) From what I read in one of the recent Audio Advisor catalogs, the company in Japan that made the Ohno Continuous Cast wire has decided to take it off the market. In response to this, George Cardis has begun to manufacture his own premium wire called Cardis Grade One Copper. In addition to his own Cardis cables this wire is being used , at least to some extent in the newest versions of some of the Pangea power cords. I do not know if any other cable companies have incorporated it into any of their own products as of yet.
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Expensive wires may have custom conductor alloys, custom braids, custom insulation, custom cable design that you can't do that at the kitchen table. Custom wire vendors can do almost anything. Then they build the final products as you describe.
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Expensive wires may have custom conductor alloys, custom braids, custom insulation, custom cable design that you can't do that at the kitchen table. Custom wire vendors can do almost anything. Then they build the final products as you describe.
Agreed, but I think with the exception of Cardis none of these companies actually make the wire themselves.
I don't think JPS actually makes the allumioy wire themselves. I wonder if they have it made OEM to their spec or just buy it as stock bulk wire from a wire house. :-k
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Beacause in the end this hobby not about the technology you use, or the amount of money you spend or how you allocated that moey among the different pieces of equipment you need, rather it's all about musical enjoyment, so whatever you do to increase that enjoyment is ultimately, the right thing for you to do.
Spelling errors not withstanding, this is BRILLIANT! Couldn't of said it better myself. And of course, it fits right in with my favorite audio word... synergy!
Four thumbs up! :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
SN
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Expensive wires may have custom conductor alloys, custom braids, custom insulation, custom cable design that you can't do that at the kitchen table. Custom wire vendors can do almost anything. Then they build the final products as you describe.
Agreed, but I think with the exception of Cardis none of these companies actually make the wire themselves.
I don't think JPS actually makes the allumioy wire themselves. I wonder if they have it made OEM to their spec or just buy it as stock bulk wire from a wire house. :-k
Yeah, that's what I meant by custom wire vendors. Wire and cable mfg equipment is a big investment. No hifi wire sellers mfg their own raw cable. But they do order custom spec stuff, Cardas too.
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Beacause in the end this hobby not about the technology you use, or the amount of money you spend or how you allocated that moey among the different pieces of equipment you need, rather it's all about musical enjoyment, so whatever you do to increase that enjoyment is ultimately, the right thing for you to do.
Spelling errors not withstanding, this is BRILLIANT! Couldn't of said it better myself. And of course, it fits right in with my favorite audio word... synergy!
Four thumbs up! :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
SN
I'm glad I won the endorsement of the grammar police. :thumb:
Hey, I'm the engineer, my wife's the English major. (But it will be a cold day in hell before she starts to proofread my audio posts. :rofl:)
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I think Jimbones should be banned from this site, he has caused much misery for many of us. I personally have lost at least 8 to 10 minutes worth of sleep over this mess he caused. He had to start a controversial thread..just had to.
Ban him
Ban him
where is my pitch fork?
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"The lady doth protest too much." - W. Shakespeare
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Jeez. I've managed to survive AC I should be ok here ha ha :rofl:
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Stereophile declaring "winners" at the RMAF such in the case of a $4100 power cord. Well duh, it better sound good for that much (I know there's no guarantee that it sounds good). Tell me something really interesting like giant killers or new companies and products that think outside the box and offer great products at "modest" prices.
It's almost a given that the reviewers walk around these shows and declare winners by price rather than performance. I've been to shows where some of the priciest equipment sounded like carp. :x
Rant over. :thumb:
Depends on the reviewer. If from Sterophile or the Absolute Sound yes and yes I agree 100%.
Our rooms got best of show and second best of show by on-line reviewers like Enjoy the Music .com, Scot Hull and more.
No 100K systems in our rooms. Our first show with GTA was a killer system and not expensive. The Lenehan speakers at our first showing were dynamite. Same amps different speakers.
Jim there are many creative less expensive products for us to choose from. Shiit, PSB speakers, Marantz CDP, Rotel, NAD, Vista, Emerald Physics, HSU, GR Research, Belkin, Crown , N-Core and many more.
Getting to demo them may be a long task but worth the time. What grinds my gears in a good way is to assemble a system with proper tonality and impact for little money. It can be done with hands on experience.
In general I believe that personal income or spending power is the biggest issue. Then there is plain old good sense. Sit putting a say $1500 IC and digital cable combo on a $400 DAC is well insane or is it ? We have experienced that a more expensive DAC was hard pressed to beat a $400 DAC with the better cables. The $1900 cable/DAC combo beat the more expensive DAC using generic cable. The kicker was the $1500 cables when used with the more expensive DAC sounded like crap. Why is that. Oh Billy boy it is that word again SYNERGY.
Over the years our experience has showed us that a digital cable connecting the DAC to a transport or computer is a critical link that can drive one nuts.
Greg I do not think your speaker is too expensive. Custom hand made is not inexpensive for any product. If my thinking was about price only than it would be Maggie 3.7i and $4500 left over for other stuff. But but your speaker kills the Maggie so my other thinking could be rationalized to buy the 9K speaker.
Back to personal income level. The EQUALIZER for all.
charles
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Speakers, wires, speakers... cmon page 14!!!
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Speakers, wires, speakers... cmon page 14!!!
New subject :duh
Oksy. how bout we pick just one to start with....wires or speakers?
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I have an interesting interconnect experience.
I use Paradox Pulse red interconnects..not cheap $1600 3ft pair retail...but very good.
Only way I could afford them is because Terence from Paradox who I did the CAF 2015 show with, gave me a fantastic deal on a set of cables and interconnects.
Since I use Jupiter wire in my speakers I decided to buy a few feet of their Silk covered Silver wire to make a couple interconnects to compare to Paradox.
The sound I got from my first interconnect was not bad at all, not as good as Paradox but pretty damned good, maybe a bit soft, lacking the killer resolution and sense of holographic stage presentation Terence's wire gave, but for $200 total investment including Eichmann Bullet RCA's not bad at all.
So I changed the ground conductor from silver to copper, better still, not so laid back, but still not as good as my reference wire.
Then I went from copper stranded to flat copper foil.
In an instant it went bad, bright , white and hard. WTF ??
My point is everything in this crazy hobby matters.
If changing the gnd. conductor can make such a difference, I can see how one can go nuts trying to chase down a specific sound, and replicate it for mass production.
Terence from Paradox asked me to send my cables back for an upgrade, I did and when they came back there was in improvement I heard. Not a big one but a definite sense of greater solidity of image and even better feel of the hit you get from large percussion instruments.
I asked him what did you do ?
He said he changed the way he terminated the connection at the rca.
Well if such a change can be brought about by such a seemingly simple action.
I really dont want to go down the road of building my own.
IF I want to pull my hair out, speakers R&D is enough for me.
Greg
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I have an interesting interconnect experience.
I use Paradox Pulse red interconnects..not cheap $1600 3ft pair retail...but very good.
Only way I could afford them is because Terence from Paradox who I did the CAF 2015 show with, gave me a fantastic deal on a set of cables and interconnects.
Since I use Jupiter wire in my speakers I decided to buy a few feet of their Silk covered Silver wire to make a couple interconnects to compare to Paradox.
The sound I got from my first interconnect was not bad at all, not as good as Paradox but pretty damned good, maybe a bit soft, lacking the killer resolution and sense of holographic stage presentation Terence's wire gave, but for $200 total investment including Eichmann Bullet RCA's not bad at all.
So I changed the ground conductor from silver to copper, better still, not so laid back, but still not as good as my reference wire.
Then I went from copper stranded to flat copper foil.
In an instant it went bad, bright , white and hard. WTF ??
My point is everything in this crazy hobby matters.
If changing the gnd. conductor can make such a difference, I can see how one can go nuts trying to chase down a specific sound, and replicate it for mass production.
Terence from Paradox asked me to send my cables back for an upgrade, I did and when they came back there was in improvement I heard. Not a big one but a definite sense of greater solidity of image and even better feel of the hit you get from large percussion instruments.
I asked him what did you do ?
He said he changed the way he terminated the connection at the rca.
Well if such a change can be brought about by such a seemingly simple action.
I really dont want to go down the road of building my own.
IF I want to pull my hair out, speakers R&D is enough for me.
Greg
Just another reason why cables cost well in excess of their incremental production costs. We as hobbyists spend hours upon hours playing with different combinations for find the right combinations of materials and design for a good sounding cable. But when you are running a company time equals money. and when you are manufacturing in small quantities R&D dollars must be spread pretty thickly.
Does not completely justify the high price of some cables, of course not. But it is something that seems to get forgotten when people complain that a cable costing $X contains only %Y worth of parts.
This is the kind of discussion we need to bring AN back to life. Perhaps it should be set up as the anchor of another thread to swap DIY cable experiences.......
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Something to consider. Very frequently the minimum run for a custom type of cable/wire is 10,000ft. At X amount dollars /ft.. If you are lucky. Frequently they require an even larger minimum amount of footage. You hope to hell the 10K feet of wire you just ordered isn't an epic fail. If it is crap, your sunk cost is real big and if you have the capital maybe you try again.
If you manage to find a cable geometry and a combination of dielectric/ and alloy type that seems to work you will tend to explore variations on this common theme in your cable line.
Cable manufacturers may get rich but it doesn't necessarily happen over night.
I am excluding those manufacturers who do no ordering of custom cable.
Scotty
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Congratulations Charlie on Best of Show!
Can you show me the link to that fact? would love to read about that!
Mike
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Something to consider. Very frequently the minimum run for a custom type of cable/wire is 10,000ft. At X amount dollars /ft.. If you are lucky. Frequently they require an even larger minimum amount of footage. You hope to hell the 10K feet of wire you just ordered isn't an epic fail. If it is crap, your sunk cost is real big and if you have the capital maybe you try again.
If you manage to find a cable geometry and a combination of dielectric/ and alloy type that seems to work you will tend to explore variations on this common theme in your cable line.
Cable manufacturers may get rich but it doesn't necessarily happen over night.
I am excluding those manufacturers who do no ordering of custom cable.
Scotty
..... or may not be getting rich because the cost of those failed cable orders has to be loaded into the price they get for the final product that the eventually do bring to market and they are not making the types of margins that people think they do.
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Something to consider. Very frequently the minimum run for a custom type of cable/wire is 10,000ft. At X amount dollars /ft.. If you are lucky. Frequently they require an even larger minimum amount of footage. You hope to hell the 10K feet of wire you just ordered isn't an epic fail. If it is crap, your sunk cost is real big and if you have the capital maybe you try again.
A little birdie told me that this is how the original Pangea PC was born. Scrap from a major wire maker. Better than old rope, but not what they wanted, so they sold it to highest bidder, who sold it for $30/yard retail.
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With all the conflict that has gone on on this thread over the last week I cannot believe nobody thought to post this smiley. :lmc:
Kinda sums up this tread. The Stooges beat on each other constantly (quite literally), but were always friends that stuck together in the end. :D
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Scammers on craigslist. How many bullshit texts do I have to endure ??
"Hi I am interested in your item...I will send you a money order with an extra $50 to hold it for me till my shipper can come get it."
Do these people really believe we are that stupid ?
Guess they must hook some suckers or they would not keep at it.
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With all the conflict that has gone on on this thread over the last week I cannot believe nobody thought to post this smiley. :lmc:
Kinda sums up this tread. The Stooges beat on each other constantly (quite literally), but were always friends that stuck together in the end. :D
I resemble that remark... nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. Thanks, I needed that!!
Love them Stooges 😀
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Not picking on you that was a general statement. In your case the cost of the rare earth magnets are very expensive these days. Hence the rise in cost of your speaker.
I'm sure there is more that raised the price so please tell us.
charles
Well Charlie, if you must know...its the super rare eel farts sprinkled with magic dust that allow it to compete against more expensive planars for $26,000 less.
Greg
Arghaaaa gotta love those eels. What planars for $26K less. What planars cost 35K ? The Analysis planars are 20K and 28K and discounted.
Maggies are 14K and 5K. Greg you have a great speaker and more should own a pair. At 9K it is getting harder to buy a pair. Those who are willing to put out 14K for MG 20 should demo your speaker and leave the Maggies in the store. There would be 6K left over to buy amps [ Arions of course] that was for Topround. :-P. BRILLIANT !!!
charles
Your biggest competition is Maggie at 14K which you best IMO
What planars cost $35k ?? At 9k getting harder to buy a pair ??
Charles,
Currently in production ? None I know of. Though I think you may have heard one that is no longer in production.
I have seen and heard $65k planars, so someone felt they had a product worth that money.
Maybe the market proves them wrong.
My feeling is that there is room in the market for a 9K speaker.
Especially one that competes against more expensive offerings.
You may feel that my current asking price is too high, from remembering my first effort that sold for around $3k which I exhibited at the NYC audio show in 2012.
My current offering is not that speaker, as a matter of fact the $3k asking price for that speaker was only about $500 over my parts cost.
I guess I was trying to make an impression.
This strategy may have backfired in allowing people to believe I have done nothing since, and am just sitting back and cranking up the price to its current level.
My first speaker was a completely different animal from my current offering.
I could not even buy the parts needed to build a GTA2.5 for $3k
How much do you think Maggie puts into their speakers compared to their asking price? Sure they have big overhead and dealers etc.
This is where my business model comes into play, low overhead so the customer gets more of what they paid for, and is not paying for a dealer markup and a manufacturers overhead.
Of course my business model don't mean squat if they dont sound any better than Maggies.
I would not be here if I didn't think they did.
The truth is I have blown tens of thousands of dollars on R&D since 2012. Its one thing to pull drivers off a shelf and call it a speaker..not an easy task..believe me I know.
Its even more difficult to design and build ones own drivers.
9k for a speaker, in the high end audio arena ?? Not ludicrous,
expensive, yes. But for a custom hand built product competing against whats out there, I think it fares well.
Greg
BTW Charles....I offer industry accommodation pricing of $6500
Also I am considering home dealers who do not expect to make more money selling my speaker, than I would get from the arrangement.
After hearing all the speakers at 2015 CAF under $15K, I placed an order with Greg for a pair of GTA 2.5s, deciding on wood choice now. I'll be driving them with a fresh pair of Odyssey Kismets upgraded with Odyssey Reference PS caps, should be a great match.
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With all the conflict that has gone on on this thread over the last week I cannot believe nobody thought to post this smiley. :lmc:
Kinda sums up this tread. The Stooges beat on each other constantly (quite literally), but were always friends that stuck together in the end. :D
I resemble that remark... nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. Thanks, I needed that!!
Love them Stooges 😀
Remind me to moy-der you later.......
(http://offscreen.com/images/the-three-stooges-hairpull_thumb.jpg)
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Kemper good choice. Enjoy !!!!
charles
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Congratulations Charlie on Best of Show!
Can you show me the link to that fact? would love to read about that!
Mike
Here it is www.gofuckyourself.com :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:Too long ago to matter. This year though we got best bass at show using Innersound OB subs. I believe it was enjoythemusic.com.
charles
charles
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Sorry but that link is no longer valid.
maybe the server melted
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Sorry but that link is no longer valid.
maybe the server melted
Melted away, oh well. Actually what melted us at CAF was a visit from Lyn Stanley.
Lyn asked us to put on Her CD. She began singing to the music and we could not tell the difference between live and the CD.
Several reviewers were present including Kemper Holt from enjoythemusic and some others.
Lyn after she stopped singing paused and made this statement. "I have sang in the so called highly touted rooms like VPI ,MBL today and your room is the ONLY one where I sound like me"
Cannot get a better endorsement then that. The Truth with no agenda or audio politics. Goosebumps baby.
Back to topic. I'll add audio politics.
charles
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Goosebumps baby.
:thumb:
Equipment doesn't matter.
Technology doesn't matter.
Setup doesn't matter.
The only two things that matter are music and goosebumps.
The rest are just tools to get us there. 8)
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Goosebumps baby.
:thumb:
Equipment doesn't matter.
Technology doesn't matter.
Setup doesn't matter.
The only two things that matter are music and goosebumps.
The rest are just tools to get us there. 8)
It all matters to get the goosebumps. I would agree that Technology does not matter it is the person setting it up that matters the most to get ones goosebumps.
charles
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Goosebumps baby.
:thumb:
Equipment doesn't matter.
Technology doesn't matter.
Setup doesn't matter.
The only two things that matter are music and goosebumps.
The rest are just tools to get us there. 8)
It all matters to get the goosebumps. I would agree that Technology does not matter it is the person setting it up that matters the most to get ones goosebumps.
charles
I guess what I was trying to say is that there is no "right" way. It doesn't matter what kind of technology, equipment or setup you use, goosebumps is goosebumps, no matter how you get there. And in the end, the result is way more important than the tools.
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This thread may require hip waders
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This thread may require hip waders
Make sure yo get the right fit I recommend Dick's. :)
charles
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This thread may require hip waders
Make sure yo get the right fit I recommend Dick's. :)
charles
But if you look up there web site be sure to remember that it is
http://www.dickssportinggoods.com
If you look up www. dicks. com you will be in for a big surprise. :shock: :shock: :shock:
(Did that by mistake ay work one day while looking for camping supplies. HUGE mistake. :duh )
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shovels too, got to get a good shovel for this thread
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(http://)
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that would make a good avator
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that would make a good avator
I agree you should use it. Your grinding my gears as always. No worry I just take it from where it comes. Nowhere.
BTW it was not an error about Dick's thought you might feel at home mi Amigo. :rofl:
charles
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Feel the Bern!
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Sorry but that link is no longer valid.
maybe the server melted
Melted away, oh well. Actually what melted us at CAF was a visit from Lyn Stanley.
Lyn asked us to put on Her CD. She began singing to the music and we could not tell the difference between live and the CD.
Several reviewers were present including Kemper Holt from enjoythemusic and some others.
Lyn after she stopped singing paused and made this statement. "I have sang in the so called highly touted rooms like VPI ,MBL today and your room is the ONLY one where I sound like me"
Cannot get a better endorsement then that. The Truth with no agenda or audio politics. Goosebumps baby.
Back to topic. I'll add audio politics.
charles
I think Lyn was singing to her take on Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love", and the CD playback sounded remarkedly like her live sing along. Lyn took a long time explaining how much care was taken in the recording/mixing chain to get it right, attention to details for a great result. Sitting through both solos on the Sheffield Drum disc, and enjoying the experience, confirmed how sensational the Sound Insight OB triple woofers sounded. Steve and Charlie played a number of bass spectaculars, as well as my compilation CAF CD, and from 100 hz down, not a room at CAF had better bass. Dynamics, speed, impact, no bloat or boom, the perfect compliment to a planar ( Maggie & Quad owners take note), or really any speaker that needs help down low.
Because it's Halloween, a Frankensteinish idea popped into my head. Recalling the HQD speaker mashup from Mark Levinson (Hartley 24" woofer, 2 pairs of Quad 57s stacked in a custom rack, and a Decca ribbon tucked in between the Quads), "Imagine if you will", the same rack, 2 pairs of Kent McCollum's rebuilt 57s, Enigma Acoustics Sopranino electrostatic tweeter, and a pair of Sound Insight S-300 OB Woofers, I would love to hear that contraption.
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Thank you for the verification.
charles