[Hantra]

All:

I had to post this b/c I think it may very well be the single best explanation of why the industry is not the same as it once was.  Lots of people rant about this topic all the time, but this guy may have a valid point. .  Some of it is a rant, and I am not saying I agree with everything this guy says, but his reasons for people backing out of high-end sound really believable. . .

I found this while digging through the newsgroups for info on op-amps. . .

_______________________________________ ______

I had a good laugh at the notion someone posted claiming that "high-end done
right gets so very close to live music.."  There is not even a pinhead's
worth of truth to that statement, and I say that as someone who was once in
the business and has been involved in the hobby for 30 years.  What is true
is that high-end (speaking qualitatively) can create such a euphonic
illusion of live music as to be deeply enjoyable in its own right.  But
there has never been a system that can reproduce the anything remotely
similar to the musical experience of a live orchestra, staged rock
production, an opera or even a jazz quartet in your house.  I don't care how
much money you spent on either you house or your hi-fi.  I've been in every
kind of "Oh Yeah?" environment imaginable over the past 3 decades.  Close to
live music?  The notion is a bad joke.

There was a time when high-end had no trouble getting and keeping its
constituency.  Part of the reason was that the role of music in lifestyle
aided and abetted the hobby.  But there was another reason.  In, say, 1976,
anyone with a decent job could imagine piecing together a system of the very
best components, yielding "the best".  A Linn-Sondek cost $275.  A SME
tonearm cost about $250.  A great moving coil cartridge was $400 - $800.  An
Audio Research SP3a-1 cost $695.  A set of Magneplanar Tympani IIIa speakers
were $3000.  The 3 Audio Research Dual 76a amps to tri-amp them were $1l95
each.  An ARC EC3a crossover was $400.  A ReVox A700 RR tape deck with Dolby
was $1800 or you could go Tandberg 10XD for $1200.  There were alternatives,
but that system laid a pretty solid claim to "the best" in its day, and it
would hold up well today.  Want solid state?  Well, a Levinson JC2 preamp wa
s $1200or an LNP2 was $2300.  Even college kids into high-end saved to buy
one or more of these components, planning to add as finances allowed until
they had "the best".  Maybe they listened to Advents on one ARC D76A for
awhile.  Maybe they had Rogers LS3/5a speakers on a modified Dyna Stereo 70
or a used Marantz 8B for awhile.  But step-by-step they got there.  But
aiming high, doctors, car mechanics, lawyers, plumbers, college professors,
teachers and housepainters all imagined affording "the best" and in fact
many did.

By the second Reagan administration, high-end lost its soul, and with it the
emotional politics of attainability exemplified in the previous paragraph.
There were $15,000 amplifiers and you needed 2 or 3.  And 10 years further
it only got worse.  Suddenly, most people knew they could never afford "the
best", so they settled for mid-fi rather than step on the treadmill.
Couldn't blame them.  WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE for positing that a KRELL
amplifier sounded anything at all like music????  Dan D'Agostino?  Well,
sure, him.  But the knuckleheaded retailers and reviewers who blessed the
passage of Krell into the marketplace failed high-end miserably.  Krell
products were a worse insult to the market than the Dynaco Stereo 120 had
been!  I don't want to single out Krell, as there were other such
abominations.  But Krell exemplified everything that went wrong with
high-end in the 1980s and 1990s.  Packaging over sound and design.
Aggressively masculine industrial design unfriendly to most households.  And
really bad sound.  Irritating, unmusical, one-dimensional,
colder-than-a-witch's-tit-in-a-brass-bra-on-the-north-pole-on-Christmas-Eve
sound.  Then the "new" Mark Levinson sound was inflicted upon us, with Mark
no longer attached.  Pretty soon, with $90,000 turntables, $150,000+
speakers and $60,000 monoblock amps, and $20,000 CD players representing
"the best", the market's emotional appeal rested on too skinny a footprint
of people to support growth any more.  The cost of "the best" escalated far
in excess of what inflation could account for.

Now you may say that mid-fi got better along the way.  Yes it did, meeting
many people's notion of what would satisfy them.  But many people never
explored beyond mid-fi because they assumed they couldn't afford it, and the
retailers were hostile to educating them anyway.

Yeah, OK, home theater drains money away from high-end.  It takes money to
blast 38Hz all over your room and feed 6 speakers with current.  Listen to
music on that system and now you are really hosed for fidelity.  The
equipment continues to be inelegant, expensive, inconvenient, and suspect as
a reproducer of music if live is the measure of success.  So no wonder
people would rather get outside and ski, scuba, drive their Corvette,
Porsche or weenie BMW.  Lots of people want 6 or more speakers in their
living rooms, with the cabling to boot!  6 speakers and "5.1 channels"
guaranteed to be mediocre compared to the stereo pair they would have bought
if they hadn't been sold off stereo.

Ever look at the workmanship and materials of purported "high-end" today?
Rega turntables?  Are you kidding me?  Wadia CD players?  WATT speakers?
Quad 909s?  In every other area of manufacturing, materials quality and
workmanship is improving.  In hi-fi it is devolving.  Most of the equipment
doesn't leave the buyer proud to own it.  There are many exceptions to this.
Hovland's preamp and amp.  Nagra's preamps and amps.  Art Audio electronics.
But the cost is high relative to what you get, viewed through the lens of
most consumers.  They are hotter for a $14,000 flat panel TV they can hang
on their wall.  It looks cool and sends a message of success, and they will
use it often.

Sure there are even other factors killing high-end.  The continuing
mediocrity of recordings does its part.  The declining availability of
dealers and distribution helps.  The industry's aversion to Internet selling
ensures the sector will wilt.  The sad joke of the wire/cable business in
high-end alienates plenty of prospects.  But everything traces to the loss
of high-end's soul sometime in the first Reagan administration, when
high-end packaged itself for wealth and status, rather than for music and
realism.  Every time you spy the cold mask of a Krell amp, you are looking
at what became the beginning of the end for high-end, the vampire creation
that symbolized the destruction of emotion, welcome and warmth from the once
vital community of audiophilia in America.

Phil

pressler@wwc.com

[JoshK]

This is a good read, however it talks about what has happened but not why.   The why can be mostly explained by demographics.  What generation was it that spent so much time, effort, enthusiasm and money on hi-fi?  Its the aging baby-boomers.  With interest rates dropping like stones from the early 80's to today and this sector becoming more financial secure more of their income could be spent on such discretionary items.  The hi-end skyrocketed with this ability but left behind the mp3-generation.  

The up and coming generation x (and even y for that matter) think that hi-end is the $1000 receiver at bestbuys.  They haven't even heard of Krell by and large.  They have been brought up with tapes and CD's, compressed radio airplay, short attention span advertising and music on the go. Most of this generation listens to their music mostly in their car or on their discman.

The hi-end has so seperated itself from this generation by targeting these rich baby-boomers that is has no hope of teaching us now.  Problem is the baby-boomers are starting to retire or think to retiring so no longer will their be this demand for luxury items.  My generation has been wooed by HT, in line with their lack of attention span and their musically uneducated ears.  

The hi-end marketeers are backpedaling to capture this HT market as a last chance effort to stay in the game as their growth prospects dwindle in the baby-boomer generation.  But as many of Gen-Y and Gen-X as living up to the prediction that they will not make as much as their fathers, this ad-hoc targeting has mis priced what this sector can and is willing to afford.

Companies like those here in these forums who offer better than average equipment at reasonable prices are the only companies set to stay competitive for this dwindling target.

My humble thoughts,

[nathanm]

I would agree with Josh's assesment.  In addition to there being many more forms of entertainment out there besides music (video games, the internet, cat's cradle, kick the can etc.), the basic fact is that the prices of hifi gear are totally whacked and they drive away anyone of non-CEO income who might be interested.  Pretty soon you get it in your head that you cannot afford "the best" and thus abandon it entirely.  This is a pretty hard notion to undo.

To me the high end stuff should be represented by increased build quality and more hand craftsmanship.  Instead it seems to be represented with lunatic prices which are normally seen on cars and houses!  How many people attending these conventions where audio equipment is displayed can actually afford the gear most manufacturers are showing?  Seems like every report I see about a show has pictures of gear that costs six months' of my gross salary - and I don't think I'm exactly poor!  Sheesh!  Who is buying this stuff?  Millionaire playboys with disposable income?!

[JoshK]

Then there is the whole issue in how the hi-end marketeers are doing their damnedest to not let on that the economic slowdown is severely hurting them.

[DVV]

All:

I had to post this b/c I think it may very well be the single best explanation of why the industry is not the same as it once was.  Lots of people rant about this topic all the time, but this guy may have a valid point. .  Some of it is a rant, and I am not saying I agree with everything this guy says, but his reasons for people backing out of high-end sound really believable. . .

I found this while digging through the newsgroups for info on op-amps. . .

______________________________________ ...

Which part is rant?

I completely agree with the man, probably because like him, I saw it all happen first hand.

We devolved, and especially the Japanese. In the early 70-ies, JVCs and Sonys were SERIOUS products, even in case of starter models, the one lowest in the line - let alone those higher up. Yes, they tended to overdo the button'n'switch thing, but the sound was good.

In the US, there were companies nobody even remembers these days, like H.H.Scott, Fisher, Craig, etc who made stuff that sounds great even today, 30 years down the line. And it still works immaculately, too.

In many ways, the man is right - Krell WAS a turning point. Dan d'Agostino came along with some good ideas (as exemplified in his original KSA series), but soon enough, to boost sales, he was using very cheap Motorola transistors nobody else used any more, but in a sexy package. Of course, if it wasn't Krell, it would have been somebody else, so let's not gather a posse after d'Agostino just yet.

Today's "high end" has prescious little to offer other than sexy packaging and fancy marketing campaigns. I was talking to Milan Karan the other day (http://www.karanacoustics.com ) and he told me that his case alone costs about 1/4-1/3 of his factory price. Terrible, we agreed, but he pointed out people wouldn't even look at his stuff otherwise, never mind that he uses top class components inside. Sad, but true. Which means that these days, it's more customer perception of value than actual sound qualities and the build inside - just the outside.

Then there's the distribution. You are happy if your factory price is just tripled before it reaches the consumer. I've heard this so many times from manufacturers I can't help sympathizing with them. The distributor and the dealer each make more money on the product than he does.

Did you know that dealers won't even speak to you for less than 30%? Nor will the distributor, often climbing to 40% "for promotional reasons".

It's not just the high end, it's the whole system which stinks. Everybody has turned into gluttons.

Cheers,
DVV

[DVV]

This is a good read, however it talks about what has happened but not why.   The why can be mostly explained by demographics.  What generation was it that spent so much time, effort, enthusiasm and money on hi-fi?  Its the aging baby-boomers.  With interest rates dropping like stones from the early 80's to today and this sector becoming more financial secure more of their income could be spent on such discretionary items.  The hi-end skyrocketed with this ability but left behind the mp3-generation.  

...

All true, Josh, but in my view, not entirely to the point.

I think most people interested in music these days don't have much to look up to. The prices have escalated to incredible and totally insane levels WITHOUT sonic justification. While most would not admit it openly, they go to listen to far too many high end systems and they think something like: "Well, this ain't much, and for the price, it ain't nothin' at all". But they are impressed by many pounds of aluminium effectively wasted. They look at the price tag and know that's way beyond their means.

Not much to aspire to + mad prices = low interest = low sales = still higher prices to compensate for lower sales. It's insulting, if you ask me.

The industry didn't help much either. They started throwing everything they could out, including some very useful controls, all under the excuse of keeping it simple - but they didn't keep the prices simple, did they? No, they actually charged you for something they threw out. It's like taking the wheels off a car and saying it's a better product now - lookee here, mister, no blowouts, no flats, you don't have to worry about proper pressure and tyre make.

Cheers,
DVV

[Hantra]

Which part is rant?

Well DVV, I was saying that for the most part it is a rant.  I don't consider a rant to be pointless, or bad.  

Good points that you made though, and I am sure that myself, and others in my generation are learning a LOT from this thread by people like you who have been through it. . .

Thanks for that. . .

B

[WilliamL]

Without getting too preachy, I will say that I agree with a lot of what is being opined here. Or course Hantra's article makes some good points that many of us in the industry have comtemplated for a long time.

Thank goodness for the "new blood"-- the up -and -coming manufacuters, such as the ones that have their own forums here.

At Eighth Nerve, we knew the harsh realities of the hi-fi industry when we started, but knew that there was room for a different business model based on customer service and value. That said, we don't just rely on the audiophile market: We also serve the educational, church, and commerical markets in order to stay competitive and remain a player in the market place.

Have a great day,
Bill Laurent

[Carlman]

Thanks to places like 8th Nerve, AKSA, etc... I have actually found some hope in hifi.  I have a friend that's been in the audio biz for years and has recommended some great gear.  However, it was all old and I wanted to find out what was new and potentially better.

I have always been interested in hifi but, didn't know what was good for a long time.  I can recognize and appreciate craftsmanship however, the sound quality has to be there to justify the cost.  I'm probably GenX or possibly GenV and started really critically listening for a good system in 1989.   The best was indeed; insanely expensive and therefore it kind of put me in a tough spot to figure out my goals.  How can you decide an upgrade path when the really good stuff doesn't sound good and costs a lot?  I realized money doesn't equal quality very quickly in my quest for good sound.

People tell me I didn't hear it setup correctly and so on and so forth... well, my answer is that it should sound pretty good for $10,000 no matter where it is.

The best statement I've read so far is this one from DVV:
"The prices have escalated to incredible and totally insane levels WITHOUT sonic justification."

This happened before I started looking.  That's why I enjoy this forum so much.  There are lots of people looking for creative ways to solve the equation of affordable and sonically superior hifi.  To me THIS KIND of forum is the only way high end will stay alive.  

There have got to be more people like us/me that are smart enough to not fall for the marketing and realize the proof is not in the pudding.  

The best analogy for this forum and this type of hifi community is that it's like the 'Linux' of computer systems.  Independently yet collectively working toward making hifi as good as possible.

Hats off to all of us choosing to escape marketing attention and make up our own minds about what we like.  That's a tough thing to pull off but, it's happening here.

[WilliamL]

Carlman wrote:

THIS KIND of forum is the only way high end will stay alive.

I have to say that I agree with his observation for all the reasons given.

Grass Roots (a la Audio Circle)  participation in the hobby, where open dialog exists between manufacturers and hobbyists will prevail.  Technology will always drive innovation, but the audiophile pubic needs to have their collective voices heard concerning the application of said technology.

 

[hmen]

I think there are a number of things going on here. Back in the 60's and 70's when you went out to spend money on electronics there weren't nearly as many choices. You either bought a TV or Hifi equipment. The equivalent of today's cheap boombox or walkman was simple phonograph, either mono or with two cheesy speakers attached to it. There weren't giant screen TV's available so if you had extra money to spend on electronics you were probably going to buy hifi equipment. Now a lot of the people who would have bought a Marantz or Harmon Kardon 35 years ago are now buying home theaters. Some people are setting up old computers as music boxes because they're more interested in convenience than fidelity.
While a lot of people on this board are buying bass traps there are a much greater number of people that think the more bloated the bass the better. A lot of people actually judge a stereo by how loud it can play.
I read people complaining about compression but the truth is that most of today's popular music doesn't even have dynamics. It's all one level and lot of it is being generated by machines.  Things I look for when I listen to music aren't even a consideration with most of today's recordings.
Obviously, people such as myself, who listen to music as a hobby and not not a something in the background are a very small minority. Most people are willing to spend their speaker budget on six crappy speakers and a subwoofer rather than 2 good speakers. And manufacturers probably do better that way also.
Another problem is that whenever I go into a high-end store, whether in Manhatten or up here in Westchester I almost invariably find the people running these place to be a bunch of arrogant creeps. Thet usually try to steer me away from what I want to what they're trying to sell me. They almost always try to convey to me that my system is crap and that they have some kind of omnicient understanding of audio that renders them superior.  I've been told a number of times that what they want me to buy would go better with my system because it's "more forgiving." Don't they know that's a little insulting? Are they doing that intentionally? Do they even want my business? Almost all the audio equiopment I own comes from the internet. Most of it is used. I couldn't afford a lot of this stuff new.  I see people selling amps that cost more than my car and I wonder about what could justify the cost. I've also been buying from small companies where you can talk to the owner and the people making the product actually care. Go to review.com and read some of the horror stories about prestige companies that ship lemons and then can't service their own product correctly.   I could go on for hours about this but I think you get the idea.
We're a small group who are not the priority of the big companies and a lot of the other companies price their stuff out of reach. There are some good small companies that we can buy from and let's hope they survive.

[massappeal85]

Unfortunely, I can't really say wether my generation (generation Y?) really comprehends the concept of "high-end" sound, much less the workings of the high end industry. I notice that people at the highschool I attend to probably wouldn't realise or care for the difference in sound between their discman with earbuds or their fathers mid-fi rig.

If such is the case, I would assume that when a company wants the consumer to purchase their product on the basis of it being more "superior" in sound than a cheap mini-system, it would be a set-back to the company and thus the industry if the consumer purchased the mini-system instead of the more quality product because he/she couldn't tell the difference in sound between the two.

As there may be more of these kinds of people in my generation then previous, it would seem that this could be what would truly harm or "kill" such businesses here and perhaps "high-end" as a whole. Of course, there isn't much that I know about this sort of thing.

[nathanm]

I read people complaining about compression but the truth is that most of today's popular music doesn't even have dynamics. It's all one level and lot of it is being generated by machines.

Agreed about the dynamics, but it's not true that music can be generated by a machine.  At worst it can only be generated by lame humans.

[Tyson]

For all the laments about high end dying, I see a pretty vibrant marketplace w/internet direct brands and DIY.  In fact, I think DIY is making a comeback and turning hifi in to a true hobby once again.  I think that the B&M based businesses have done it to themselves - to much markup, not enough value, and creating a feel of esoterica around quality equipment, making it intimidating and inaccessable to the person just getting in to the high end.

[DVV]

Which part is rant?

Well DVV, I was saying that for the most part it is a rant.  I don't consider a rant to be pointless, or bad.  

I realize that Hantra, and he may have gotten carried away here and there, but I think it's because he really feels sad this has happened. I am also aware of the fact that your and my reading of that message is bound to produce different reactions, you being in the bloom, and me being one of the dynosaurs who actually saw it happen - a very natural difference.

So I ranted a bit.

Good points that you made though, and I am sure that myself, and others in my generation are learning a LOT from this thread by people like you who have been through it. . .

Thanks for that. . .

B

My pleasure. It should be obvious I share the man's sentiments to the hilt. I feel you young guys have been shortchanged for some ideals, and that's never good.

Cheers,
DVV

[DVV]

...

People tell me I didn't hear it setup correctly and so on and so forth... well, my answer is that it should sound pretty good for $10,000 no matter where it is.

That's hitting the nail on the head - with a sledge hammer. Pity most people never reach this conclusion early enough not to be either thoroughly dismayed and/or ripped off.

I couldn't agree more. People, $10K is no peanuts money, we have to sober up. Surely a man bankrolling it at that sum is entitled to at least solid sound, not a cacophony with an invitation to spend that again several times over before he comes to something decent.

Oh man, I get so annoyed with this type of logic.

Cheers,
DVV

[JohnR]

In fact, I think DIY is making a comeback and turning hifi in to a true hobby once again.  

Aha! Break out your soldering irons folks!

Since our friendly resident historian is napping at the wheel , could I just point out that from the mid-50's there were several hundred thousand Dynaco ST70 and MkIII amplifiers sold. And the majority were sold as kits! Many were shabbily assembled, but they worked! (I've worked on a few...). That was the golden age and as far as I can tell was the birth of hifi as we know it.

In addition, there were other brands some mentioned by FRH. Fisher were all sold prebuilt; Scott were mostly prebuilt but also produced a line of kits that had different cosmetics (not as nice); Eico, now there's a great company, butt-ugly styling but work great and sound great, point to point, easy to work on, again mostly sold as kits. I kept three Eico amps (two monoblocks and one stereo amp) out of the dozens of amps from that era that I owned at one time. And one pair of Dynaco Mk IIIs.

I will forever regret selling my last ST70. I snagged it on EBay for a song and underneath the dust and grunge it was pristine. Very nicely assembled too. Sold to a friend of mine who wanted one bad. Oh well

[DVV]

Aha! Break out your soldering irons folks!

Since our friendly resident historian is napping at the wheel ,

Your daddy was napping when he shouldn't-a been. And not at the wheel either.

could I just point out that from the mid-50's there were several hundred thousand Dynaco ST70 and MkIII amplifiers sold. And the majority were sold as kits! Many were shabbily assembled, but they worked! (I've worked on a few...). That was the golden age and as far as I can tell was the birth of hifi as we know it.

In addition, there were other brands some  ...

You are absolutely right John, Dynaco did more of its business in kit form than assembled, I think. I also agree with your notes on their overall quality - maybe not the best under the sun in absolute terms, but unbeatable value on the bang for dollar basis.

Remember the JVC integrated amps of the early seventies? And Marantz offerings? Oh man, those were the days! They were really competing hard on sound quality in those days.

In 1972, Harman/Kardon's Citation XIV was King of the Road in terms of high end sound quality - you have problems finding one today for less than $2K. It took John Curl's first designs for Mark Levinson, then a brand new name, to take its No.1 place.

And those WILD Marantz receivers - blue lettering against a black background, scale a red dot, remember John? A few friends still use them, I still envy them, and they NEVER EVER broke down, only some light bulbs inside were changed.

Value for money, both in sound and build quality, ruled in those days. Completely the opposite of today.

Cheers,
DVV

[Dan Banquer]

I'm gonna take a lot of crap for the following statements, but I am going to make them anyway.
  Audiophiles have themselves to blame in many ways. Audiophiles have demanded fancy packaging first and performance a distant second. The war stories that I trade with other manufacturers are echoing that last statement.
  Audiophiles gave up on objective measurements in favor of the golden ears. The golden ears you gave your trust to for the most part have no formal traing in engineering, physics, or music. It shows. Audiophiles abandoned measurements because they didn't explain poor performance in certain areas. This is true, but their are measurements, and the interpretation of those measurements that go much further to explain what's really happening. I have talked about some of this in the past. I may talk more about this in the future.
   John R. has made an excellent point. In the earlier days of audio more people built kits, and learned about some of the basics of electronics. Nowadays most audiophiles play with wire, assorted tweaks, and have learned near nothing about those basic principles.
    I have had the opportunity to talk to some of the major financial people in high end. They will not finance any venture into producing better equipment because the market is predominantly interested in garbage, and they do not see any change in that trend.
   Before any of you decide to respond to this post; take a few minutes and think about what I have said here. It's a sad indictment of what is presently left of high end.

[Marbles]

Speaking of the DIY kits, I grew up with a Heathkit radio (turntable added later) and a Mono corner speaker in the basement.

Dad said he made them, but I never even saw him change a lightbulb!

They must have been pretty easy to assemble!

BTW, it sounded pretty nice IIRC, nice enough to shoot pool to.