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I'm sorry, but this is not a fact. Where it is true that a lower priced component will have a lower parts budget that does mean that that it has an inferior design and will always lead to inferior performance. While I don't disagree that more often than not this is the case, that does not mean that a good engineer couldn't come up with an outstanding design that synergistically matches less expensive parts to and results in a component that performs way better than it has a right to based on its price. We all know people that carefully put together systems that in totality sound much better than we would expect given the units the put into, why is it not possible for a designer to do the same thing with an individual componentI don't think anybody would agree that you can get only so far with a given parts budget and that better parts can lead to a better sounding design, but the point that I believe Jerome is trying to make is that a high price tag in and of itself does not mean that you will get a better sounding unit.(He never said there are no $4500 phono stages that are better than the iFi, jusrt that he had experience with one particular unit that he felt was not better.) A higher priced unit can sound better, it may do so quite often, but it is not always a slam dunk.And beyond that"better sound" at some point may not lead to greater musical enjoyment. If you are simply a gearhead and the only thing you use music for is as a test signal to evaluate electronics you may never get to that point and if that is what makes you happy there is nothing wrong with that. But if you are in this hobby for the joy of musical pleasure there comes a point where the sound is good enough to get you involved with the music and any improvement beyond that will not enhance that musical enjoyment to any great extent. Now that point is understandably a personal opinion and will vary from person to person. But I think one of the underlying themes of the original post is the idea of when is "good" good enough. And that seems to have gotten lost
This is just another agenda driven thread. An anvil used to show contempt with the hobby. There are tons of examples where price tracks quality improvement. Go on to any decentt brand and as the quality goes up so does price. Bryston starts their amps at low wattage and moves up in price with wattage. Definete improvement with each model. You guys who buy into this crybaby all gear sounds the same so there fore price is not an indicator are in some weird perverted version of this hobby. Why bother? Take your hobby naysay garbage and shove it.
This is just another agenda driven thread.
Damn, someone is onto me. I was really hoping to convince the high rollers here that they bought a bunch of overpriced junk and want to ship it all to me in exchange for a transistor radio. Yeah, that's it.--Jerome
you want me to reveal your motive? Disect through your agenda.. Tell you what I think. I guarantee you will not like it.
decentt Definete there fore Take your hobby naysay garbage and shove it.
This has all been very interesting (and in a few cases even entertaining) but I need to get to some music listening.
Nobody said that that all gear sounds the same, nor did they say that quality cannot go up with price. You are absolutely correct that there are tons of examples where it does. The point that was made is that quality does not always go up with price. It makes perfect sense that within a given product line, higher priced models should sound better. If they are from the same company one would assume that they follow the same design philosophies and in most cases given the small size of most high end firms, they are even designed by the same engineer. Given that it is most likely that the higher rice will allow the engineer to work with a bigger parts budget which will allow him to either buy better parts, use more complex circuitry or both, which should lead to a better sounding product.However, that same logic will not necessarily hold when comparing products from two different companies. The companies can have very different design philosophies and access to different levels of engineering talent. Therefore designs from these two companies can have varying sound and levels of sound quality at similar price points and it is not inconceivable that one could have better quality sound at a lower price point. I think of a product line that I have decades of experience with, Thiel Loudspeakers. Jim Thiel was a master speaker designer and yes given a higher price point he could always come up with a better sounding speaker. But because of his expertise he could also come up with a design at a given price point that was almost always better than most speakers at that price and many people would argue better than a lot of speakers at higher price points.And on the other hand there was a thread on another board about a speaker from Audio Note that was made with all silver wiring (including the voice coils). Each pair used over 40 pounds of silver. And to recover the cost of that the speakers carry a six figure price tag. Does all that expense translate into better sound and is that sound better than other speakers in that price range? I have never heard the Audio Notes, so I cannot say for sure, but I have a hard time imagining that any two way speaker with a single 8' woofer can keep up with the six figure offerings from companies like Nola and Wilson. (Not that they wont sell them , because there of often issues other than pure sound quality that go into a speaker selection (one of the biggies is size) and the Audio Note could perfectly fit somebody's need even if they could get a better sound speaker at that same price and that make it the right choice for them.)Using your example I agree that one should expect a $3,000 Bryston amp to sound better than a $2000 Bryston amp, but whether the $3,000 Bryston sounds better or worse than $2,000 and $4,000 amps from Company X is up for grabs. While price may lead to a probability that a given piece will sound better, it does not guarantee it. There are product out there that are just simply over achievers and likewise the are some higher priced units that simply to not perform up the the standard you would expect for the price the charge for them. And if you look carefully you will be able to identify both. (Although the former is a bit easier to find,bedcause the audio opress will always talk up a winner,but traditionally have been very reluctant to give a bad review to a high priced item because of the potential ad revenue loss).
To me, the main point of this thread is to point out that the price/performance ratio hits a wall at a certain point. Beyond that, the cost to get improvement is not linear at all. It's like charging lead/acid batteries. Up to 86 % or so, it's pretty linear. Beyond that, it starts to take longer and longer to get that last percentage of charge. I think this principal holds true for any audio equipment, not just turntables playback setups. I've seen speakers with the same drivers sell for double what another guy charges for them. Measurements are very important, but agree they are not the be all/end/all. For example, tube amps do not measure as well on the whole as sand amps, but many people find them to be more musical than SS amps. The technical principals of operation differences between tubes and SS amps account for the differences in sound. I have both tube and SS amp/preamp setups, and enjoy each for their individual strengths. However, to really get the best from tubes, you either have to spend a lot, or, go DIY to get the best from a price/performance aspect. There are more variables at work with analog turntable playback than digital. It's harder to get vinyl playback right (IMHO). However, the results of getting the vinyl playback right is indeed rewarding. You have the turntable, tonearm, wiring, cartridge, and phono preamp to consider. How much funding one allocates for each to get the sound one wants can get tricky. That's where the price/performance arguments come into play.At any rate, happy listening.
