Wilson Sophia

I listened again today to a pair of the latest WPs, and I must say they do sound great. I've listened to the Sophias at the same shop, and I like them as well.

The last several posts brought up the issue of cost, especially as related to other system components. Now I would be the first to argue that you should spend your money on speakers, where the electrical signal is transduced back to an acoustic signal. And you could always add higher quality components as you can afford them.

But the distinction between the ability to pay for something and afford it seems lost. In my mind, afford relates to the other areas in your life. Will the purchase of expensive speakers have little or no impact on other financial planning, particularly planning for retirement? I read these posts about having incredibly expensive systems and I wonder if you're all very wealthy. I certainly could pay $12K or even $25K for a pair of speakers, but I doubt that I can afford to do so. In retrospect I probably couldn't afford the Ferraris I bought either. I sure did enjoy them, but not nearly as much as I'm enjoying retirement, and getting my kicks with a Porsche Boxster S.

db

It is interesting that my wife's first reaction also was that the Sophias and WPs look like trash cans, and I must admit that they do somewhat resemble the cans we see on the street. But she was impressed by the sound of WP-7s.

What I was aiming at in a clumsy way in a previous post was that the enjoyment of an expensive component needs to be balanced against the joy of reaching financial independance a year or so earlier. So often on other web sites I read of folks approaching their 60s who bemoan that they have insufficient savings. Too many on this site talk only about the ability to pay for some component, seemingly with no concern about longer term consequences.

db