Moderately priced audio

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.

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