$80K? You can have excellent sound for 1/10 that! Or less!
What Does 80 Grand Get You Nowadays?
A system was playing in a shop. I sat down and pretty soon I thought gosh, I’m glad my system sounds better than this.
That system - just preamp, amp, and speakers - cost about $80,000 new.
I didn’t make the speakers at first, because Sabrinas look far better than the usual Wilson house look. They were driven by one of those new high-end Marantz amps, and I don’t think that was a match made in heaven. The Marantz was driven by a Dan D’Agostino pre that looked like a Minion had been crushed in a hydraulic press. Audiophile music was streaming, but I did not catch whence issued those dulcet ones and zeroes.
I suppose that system constitutes high-end for some. Now, it certainly sounded competent, but it also sounded boring. I thought, this is the Audi SUV of audio: competent and boring.
Conversely, I was impressed and pleased to no end that the end sound of my modest system from the last century could play in the same league as an almost-six figure modern system, and do so in a more engaging and fun fashion - to my ears, at least.
I’m biased, of course; and I am certain many high-priced systems out there leave mine in the dust. Still, I would have thought $80,000 guaranteed a better baseline sound.
How about you, have you heard a lot of gear whose sound was way out of whack with its price?
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for you @ozzy62 with zero sense of sarcasm of course it does. A serious portion of the people here have puzzlingly little abstraction and reading skills. |
I totally agree. Isn’t it interesting how a person can, with time and care and research, put together a very good system that produces an end sound that pleases them for a fraction of what it would have cost them had they walked into a Naim or Linn or Burmester shop, handed their Visa over after a cursory audition, and walked out with a fully formed equivalent system, all matching and branded alike? It suddenly occurs that high-end audio may be the only retail category where custom is cheaper than off-the-rack.
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Yes, most definitely. I was going to say it should, but it's silly to stick a dollar figure on a goal or aspiration. On the other hand, you'd think that even the lowest common denominator of what $80,000 buys in today's market would guarantee the buyer a minimum quality threshold that would put it in at least the upper range of mid-level. In other words, delivering a sound quality that's somewhat commensurate with monies spent. Apparently that's not necessarily the case. But we all have different tastes and I can only speak for myself.
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