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!
