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.
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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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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not that generalizing is good but... I go to my local shop twice a month. 4 rooms, about 150 speaker pairs. Whenever the expensive ones (above 20K) are hooked up, it's always a younger dude in his 20s or 30s. With obviously some windfall money. He listens to one or two pairs. Same for amps. In and out in an hour, usually the sales guys goes with him right away to set it up.. It's luxury category, another world. The sales people know how to treat them, they are not into fine details. They are into many zeros. Regulars and audiophiles shop differently. I am not a huge fan of cheapaudioman but he had a spot on episode about luxury audio. The Insane World of High End Audio! Is it All a Scam? Now, |
It's difficult to determine what's sarcasm and what isn't with all the removed posts in a thread. Sometimes the thread "loses it's thread".... |
back to throwing mud at the communist....- 184 posts total