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?
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".... |
@devinplombier wrote:
Well put.
Sure, but I’m not that surprised anymore when it happens. In fact it’s rather the other way ’round; when I hear good sound it’s more like a "Cool, now what is this about?!"-feeling. Btw. I heard the Sabrina’s at a friend’s place earlier this year: very detail-oriented (slightly hot, even - to my taste), fairly resolved and they threw a good soundstage, but coming down to it they sounded like speakers and didn’t make the music flow in an organic, coherent, tonally accurate and effortless fashion. To make matters worse they’re simply too small as floor standing speakers and struggle to fill a moderately large listening space at elevated SPL’s (and no, I’m not thinking crazy levels here). "But there’s only an 8" woofer per cab," they say - yes, but at that price? Where I find the price and sound quality relationship to be turned on its head in a sense, certainly compared to the high-end arena in hi-fi, is with speakers and power amps in particular. Here I go pro segment and want physics in speakers to be accommodated, actively configured and through great designs. I’ve found studio amps from a british manufacturer that are among the best I’ve heard - all at a fraction of the price compared to "high-end" offerings. Getting the amp to speaker interface, physics (incl. high sensitivity), design prowess and overall integration with acoustics in place is the major part - all with the intention to significantly minimize the bottleneck here. Where price is more of a factor, to a point, is with the DAC, streamer and preamp (if such is used as a separate device). If you have a highly resolving and transparent amp-speaker combo and good implementation, obviously this will be more apparent, and with the amp-to-speaker approach outlined above the basis for that to happen has favorable conditions. |
I used to frequent Stereo Exchange, Lyric Hi-Fi, Innovative Audio and Sound by Singer, Harvey Electronics (I’m dating myself here as some of these are long gone). I made various purchases from some of these stores. |
