Most overrated audio manufacturers?

I think I agree that Wilson is a candidate. That company hasn't really seemed to make any sort of attempt at innovation since they began and look to me like they intend to get by on pretty much pedigree alone. Maybe the worst actor to me is PS Audio. They've always strived to be a second-rate company. They spend all their efforts looking at what the competition is currently up to and then try to design an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink model or version that they think will trump everything in the market. But, what usually happens is that somebody else somewhere brings to market shortly afterward a new twist, improvement or innovation to it that Macgowan's ee's didn't foresee. Then they have to start over with an all new version that surely this time can't be beat. But, it's the other companies they seem to be stealing ideas from that apparently drive PS Audio forward. Their Perfect Wave DAC and transport were well enough received for a while, but in the digital arena no foothold lasts for long it seems. About the only other thing they did that audiophiles took to were the Power Plants...very good for their day (apart from the wattage limitations), but other companies have since outdone those designs as well. But (and I'm venting here), the really distasteful part for my money was seeing the focus of PSA newsletters slowly change, first, from informative updates on products, then to trips overseas to foreign production facility tours and finally to an absolutely insane level of Paul's and his family's indulgences on such extended vacations. One month it's wine-making in France, the next climbing peaks in Tibet or hunting tigers in India...or something equally ridiculous. I mean, I remember back in the day when he didn't seem like he could afford a life like that. So, how are we to assume he has since come across that kind of capital?? I've had to work pretty dang hard for my audio dollars. Are those activities the kinds of things I'm being asked fund?? But, if anything, he seems, via the newsletters, to be marketing all that back to us. "Hey, don't you want to buy your gear from somebody as successful as this guy? If you do, then you can feel like somebody, too!" Really, seriously?? I think I'll pass... Anybody who has amassed a bankroll like That is probably not on the "leading edge" of value. I know that'll probably offend somebody somewhere, but I'm just calling it like I see it.

The "crazy profit margins" are still very much relative within the audio industry. Some companies continue to offer top-drawer products and services at realistic prices and some are preoccupied with the stratosphere. And you could lay as much blame at the feet of those enthusiasts who want to be elitists, buy into the whole "excess" thing and pretty much brag about how much money they've spent as much as you could blame the companies who have found a way to cater to them. But, this is still the land of the free and that's really ok to me in that as long as there are those companies indulging in excess (in terms of both image AND profits), then I'm betting that will continue to create plenty of room for the companies that can competently cater to the rest of us...for just as long as we ourselves continue to buy.

Hi Chriswil, you make some excellent points. How we do we truthfully determine, each for ourselves, which makers are overrated?...when the truth of the matter is that because of what you say (rightfully) about manufacturing, material and development costs making up such a small portion of the final cost to customer, that the answer to that question, all things considered, might well be "just about any of them" - and as you consider that to be the lay of the land to begin with, then "just about none of them" might serve just as well...it all tends to end up pretty relative, since for any one maker you could think of as being overrated, by the same yardstick, you could probably name another and yet another, ad infinitum...until the original distinction becomes lost.