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Moderately priced audio

So I have been a audiophile for 40 years and in that time I have seen and owned a huge amount of equipment. Lately I have been reading Sterephile magazine and attended the last 2 years of Axpona. My question is what about the people that love the craft and get tremendous joy out of their audio systems that are in the $2-5K price range. Are they to be ignored? I know this hobby holds a lot of enthusiasm by people that have great sounding systems of new and vintage gear that they are proud of and enjoy listening to. While I appreciate the sound and the technology of the systems that cost more than a house I think there is a slice of enthusiast that are silent. Back in the 70s I worked at a stereo store that your average person came in and spent $600-$1000 and got a good sounding system. And we sold a lot of them. Seems a lot less interest today. Could it be the price of what you see in magazines and shows? I am curious to see if you people are out there that love the music and get great joy out of listening to your moderately priced audio equipment. Feel free to share what you have. I know you are out there. 
schmitty1
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,587 posts
 
Today there are a ton of fantastic products and systems that are very affordable and excellent sounding.

We recently discovered one of the best and most featured electronics pairings ever:

NAD C 658 integrated preamp/dac/streamer $1,500.00
Nuprime STA 9 amplifier 120 watts stereo 290 watt mono $ 700.00 each

The NAD C658 has Blue OS built in so it is an excellent streamer and a great app comes with it, the C 658 also has Dirac room correcton built in, which can really help make a bad room sound way better.

The Nuprime STA 9 is a hybrid Class A/D amplifier with a deliberatly tubey sound, Nuprime used FET’s in the front end and the little amp is both punchy with great dynamics and bass but also has a rich engaging sound.

Also with true separates the consumer can upgrade by adding a second Nuprime amp and bridging to mono which sounds even better for an additional $700.00

Upgrade to an even better preamp and use the C 658 as a Dac/streamer

Upgrade to an even better Dac and use the C 658 as just a streamer.

Upgrade by moving to an even more exotic and expensive amplifier

so with this modular approach a person can continue to build as their budget and knowledge increase.

For loudspeakrs the New Dali Oberons are wonderful at $1,500.00 a pair

Other speakers we would recommend the Quad S4 at $1,800.00 pair with an amazing ribbon tweeter.

So other than cabling you can get a system for
$2,200.00 electronics
$1,500.00 speakers

$3,700.00

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,412 posts
 

J. Gordon Holt was always on the lookout for high-value products, and reviewed them regularly. For instance the Dynaco A25 loudspeaker, which he put into his Recommended Components list.

Harry Pearson with The Absolute Sound was on a different mission. The name of the game was no longer high value and bang-for-the-buck, but State Of The Art and bragging rights (not "mine is bigger than yours", but "mine cost more than yours"). He even introduced the elitist, snobby term "High End" into hi-fi reviewing. In that mag, only products that were the "best", or that had pretensions of advancing the state of the art, were deemed worthy of attention. Cost be damned; if it took a price increase of 25% to reap a sonic dividend of 5%, so be it. The Law Of Diminishing returns became an irrelevant, boring concept. Enter Mark Levinson and his ilk. Harry and his writers also established in the minds of serious and knowledgeable music lovers the image of audiophiles as people who put the sound quality of recordings before and above their musical qualities.

The High End Audio "Salons" (that a hi-fi shop would even refer to itself as such is SO unintentionally funny to me) that sprung up to sell the products of the new companies started to cater to the readers of TAS themselves displayed the elistist, snobby attitude of the mag. Lyric Audio or Sound By Singer, anyone? When businessmen saw the fortune to be made in High End, the race was on. And things have gotten completely out of control.

I say BRAVO! Schitt Audio, and anyone brave and talented enough to follow their lead. Finding a way to deliver high quality sound at as low a price as is practically possible is the Art of hi-fi engineering.

schmitty1 OP
46 posts
 
Great conversation. Great sounding systems at moderate price points was never in question. I was saying where are they in magazines and shows. Maybe millercarbon is correct the people are home enjoying their music. Anyway I’d like to here more. 
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,527 posts
 
In one word the quality of sound is less related to the price paid for a system than to the method used to lower the noise floor...Best kept audio secret...And indeed I enjoy my music so much that I dont think to buy anything ….
michaelgreenaudio's avatar
michaelgreenaudio
1,019 posts
 

Ego, arrogance and guilt! Want to get a guy to buy something, one of those 3 will usually work. The HEA magazines knew how to play their audience and that's what they did to a very gullible crowd. The shows followed suit because the magazines were the only kids on the block talking at that time, and a lot of these reviewers were not really great listeners of the sport, but they were convincing and gifted writers.

Have you guys never stopped to ponder why the mom & pop shops mass exited? Did you never ask yourselves how HEA started calling quality by price amounts and not sound?

The ego trips in HEA are enormous. Now that HEA is getting called out, you'll see the moderate priced products getting more praise. The wild part will be watching these guys who have spent truck loads and those pushing truck loads adapt and adopt reality.

Social media is the great equalizer.

Michael Green

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