[Laundrew]

"...Then the next step from 97% to 98% is gonna cost a LOT more, like $100,000. or so..."

 

Be well...

[jimdgoulding]

The problem with analogies is they leave some issue out. The razor is fine as a sort of analogy. The problem there is to get the audio straight razor to that 97% from the 90% cost tens of thousands of dollars. Not quite the same a simply doing a better sharping job.
Then the next step from 97% to 98% is gonna cost a LOT more, like $100,000. or so...
The 90% boombox can be had for a hundred bucks...
Like right now i own some decent gear. To move up.. hah...
The money is like BIG money..

There is a lot to be said for understanding and synergy independent of cost.  No audiophile should fret about not having big bucks for gear.

[TONEPUB]

What I always fail to understand about these conversations (and they always go the same way) is that the comments are always made by people having no experience with this gear.  At best you may have heard it at a show for five minutes where it wasn't set up that great.

If you can't afford it, who cares, really?  I can't afford an Aston Martin DBS (MSRP, about $300k) but it doesn't make the car any less awesome because I can't afford it.  It also doesn't lead me to constantly comment about how top level cars from Porsche, Ferrari and Aston "aren't worth the money" and that my favorite $25k car is 90% as good.  It isn't.

You can enjoy music whether you have $500 or $500K to spend on a system.  But why is it always so necessary to complain about the best products made?  Of course, it's not a rational choice for the average person, but I've certainly known more than my share of people that make regular guy (or girl) salaries that have nice things in other areas or take lavish vacations because that's what they enjoy.

It doesn't cost 100,000 dollars to go from 97% to 98% whatever that means. I don't think I could even hear 1%.  And in the end a lot depends on the room.  It's a lot easier and cheaper to get amazing sound in a small room than a large room, so it's a moving target at best.

But seriously, why do you all get so crabby about this gear?

[JLM]

3 billion people are living on $2 USD per day or less, so all audio equipment (and the associated music, electricity, and room to house it) is relatively expensive.

I struggle with all the money I've spent over 40 years at this and how much my current "main" rig cost.  But my donations exceed what I spend on toys, my credit rating is very high, and it hasn't warped me (too bad).

[Diamond Dog]

On a fairly regular basis, someone posts about some ultra high-end dingus and it is guaranteed to start a conversation. Unfortunately it's always the same conversation...These are halo pieces designed to push the boundaries and/or separate the over-moneyed from some of their filthy lucre - fine, whatever. It doesn't exactly make me want to hoist up a pitchfork or a torch and take to the barricades in outrage.
Seriously, is it any less crazy to spend ten large on a audio dingus then to drop sixty? It's Toyland, people. The amount of money that many of us on AC have spent on this stuff would be considered utterly degenerate by the majority of people on this planet and in some respects they would be right to feel that way. Ultimately, it's my hard-earned money that I'm spending and I will spend it as I choose. I encourage everyone else to do likewise. Follow your bliss. And as JLM points out, try to maintain some balance.
If the idea of someone spending that kind of cheddar on a whatever offends anyone as being too aspirational, feel free to head back to the collective and resume living your life according to Leninist norms. 

D.D.

[TONEPUB]

Well said...

[timind]

Well said...

We'll have to agree to disagree.

[Bill Baker]

 I too don't understand why people get so upset about what others spend on their hobby. I think the car analogies fit best. Is there a need to buy a $300k car? Absolutely not. The same market that will spend $300k on a car would not hesitate to spend $29k on a phono stage or $100k on a pair of speakers or whatever.

Yes, there may be some vanity involved. or maybe pride of ownership. Whatever it is, it doesn't give us the right to put them or the gear down.

 The other issue that was brough up is whether or not those that complain about expensive systems have ever really sat down and listened to one. These systems do things that inexpensive systems simply cannot do. (This is not to say that less expensive systems cannot be musically involving and very enjoyable).

 Bottom line is that this is a hobby. I'm sure many of us here spend big money on different hobbies. Who here has never heard the words "are you nuts? you spent how much on that"?

On a final note, running a company and doing R&D is not cheap. I seriously doubt that selling one $30k piece covers this expense. Not even close.

[jimdgoulding]

Speaking for myself, the ludicrously priced high end insults my intelligence.  MY intelligence, not anyone else's.  I use the word ludicrous from some experience.  There were two points in my past when I had enough disposable income to fill my fancy and I did.  I converted a small barn to a listening room at one point with curved custom paneling.  Where am I today?  Very happy in a smallish room with good equipment that seems to combine to make the whole greater than its parts and well suited to my size room.  Could I have gotten here without the experience above?  Well, without SOME experience, heck no, so I'm not preaching.  I'm just going on what I've learned and I've learned that having a five figure phono pre is completely unnecessary to the faithfulness of what's in recordings.  That would be my opinion and my priority.  The only thing I could wish for is greater scale but I don't spend time dwelling on it.  Have I heard the phono pre under discussion?  No, and it's probably excellent, for persons in the business for reasons of their own in particular.

[TONEPUB]

I agree, pure absurdity!
Has Stereophile's MF reviewed it yet? 

Actually Mikey reviewed it about four years ago.  Interestingly their newer 1008 that only costs 11k sounds better, so they've incorporated some of the technology in the latest box.  The 2008 is more analytical, the 1008 more musical.

[Bill Baker]

 jimdgoulding -The point is that you are happy where you are and with your system regardless of how you arrived at that point. That's what it's all about.
 I'm not knocking the ultra high end gear nor the affordable, value oriented stuff. I simply don't understand why everyone cares what others do or how much they spend.

 It's simple....if you think it cost too much or it's not worth the cost, don't buy it.

[ricko01]

It comes down to the price difference rather than the percentage difference and thats where it gets tricky.

A $500 cable is twice the price of a $250... and the difference is $250...so you can "absorb" that mentally to some degree.

A $50,000 turntable is twice the price of a $25,000 but the difference is $25,000.. it gets harder to understand what engineering differences (and therefore musicality) $25,000 gets you.

A $100,000 speaker is s twice the price of a $50,000 but the difference is $50,000.. it gets harder again to understand what engineering differences (and therefore musicality) $50,000 gets you.

So for me its not the cost of the product, it is what in absolute terms these massive price differences gain you.

And the very interesting thing is most of us can name 90% of the car manufactures that produce high priced cars.... but in the world of audio every new audio show has some new set of manufacturers hawking a statement product. That indicates that there is a lot of "phising" going on at the high end of the high end, trying to part people from their money.

I remember I think it was at the last RMAF that Boulder produced a new statement power amp... the case work was HUGH... as was the price... and the explanation for the hugh case work was that buyers in Asia like their amps to be physically imposing.. so it had zip to do with sound quality... and all to do with marketing.

So thats also the issue with high priced gear... at what point does the tech side get left behind and the "jewelry" aspect take over?

Again... for me its to do with skepticism... and if I did have the money... I would still want to know that the dollars I paid out actually got me a meaningful benefit.

Peter

[SoundGame]

Some are sold on these but though to some degree I can conceive some effect, I'm darned if I could part with money on them.  Just seems like a little too much hocus pocus.

http://www.synergisticresearch.com/acoustic-art/acoustic-art-system/

[James Tanner]

It comes down to the price difference rather than the percentage difference and thats where it gets tricky.

A $500 cable is twice the price of a $250... and the difference is $250...so you can "absorb" that mentally to some degree.

A $50,000 turntable is twice the price of a $25,000 but the difference is $25,000.. it gets harder to understand what engineering differences (and therefore musicality) $25,000 gets you.

A $100,000 speaker is s twice the price of a $50,000 but the difference is $50,000.. it gets harder again to understand what engineering differences (and therefore musicality) $50,000 gets you.

So for me its not the cost of the product, it is what in absolute terms these massive price differences gain you.

And the very interesting thing is most of us can name 90% of the car manufactures that produce high priced cars.... but in the world of audio every new audio show has some new set of manufacturers hawking a statement product. That indicates that there is a lot of "phising" going on at the high end of the high end, trying to part people from their money.

I remember I think it was at the last RMAF that Boulder produced a new statement power amp... the case work was HUGH... as was the price... and the explanation for the hugh case work was that buyers in Asia like their amps to be physically imposing.. so it had zip to do with sound quality... and all to do with marketing.

So thats also the issue with high priced gear... at what point does the tech side get left behind and the "jewelry" aspect take over?

Again... for me its to do with skepticism... and if I did have the money... I would still want to know that the dollars I paid out actually got me a meaningful benefit.

Peter

Hi Peter,

I like this post   I found the same when I was researching the speaker I am building.  At some point you are choosing eye candy rather than improved performance.

I totally understand eye-candy and pride of ownership,  and it is relevant but it also makes sense to consider the science as a major part of the equation.

james

[sebrof]

Sometimes I think myself, What is the good idea to manufacture such thing?
Boulder 2008 phono $29,000
And when I think deeper I realize that I like my music library more then my system and I could never care about such a product.
Now,is this the way that we try to to attract our future generation in this hobby?

You are obviously not their target demographic.
Neither am I, but I have no idea why I would take exception to someone manufacturing it or buying it.
You need to remember that there are a lot of people with A LOT of money, where $29K is not a lot of money at all for a toy. I'd much rather have them spend $29K on a phono amp than $290K on a car because the $29K will be "re-invested" in a way back into our hobby in the form of technology trickling down into things I can afford.
FWIW - My phono preamp cost $1K new. To most people that's nuts but to others I'm going cheap and missing what's on the record. What's nuts to one person is completely reasonable to another.

[werd]

I would buy it if i could afford it. Can't afford it so i don't much worry about it.

The thing is if you buy it outright before working your way up to it, i guess it can be a bit of a let down. A person needs to qualify their listening taste to appreciate it. If they do not listen to a lot of other phono stages then they might not get the point of the boulder and what it has to offer at 30k.

[Diamond Dog]

Some thoughts provoked by some of the posts on this thread:

a) Say what you will about the guys who build this uber-gear for the elite but at least they are still
actually building something ( hopefully here ) which is more than can be said for many members of the aforementioned elites to whom they market this stuff. The folks who, as Matthew Good sings: "...don't build nothin', they just show up to get paid".

b) Perspective plays a roll in all of this. The view that it is easier to "absorb " the difference between a $250 dingus and a $500 dingus than a $25000 vs. a $50000 dingus etc. as a value proposition hinges on how much "absorbancy" the prospect comes equipped with and how "absorbant" they choose to be. Ever see that movie The Company Of Men?  Remember the scene where Tommy Lee Jones' character comes home after the company lays off thousands of workers to improve their profitability and is confronted by the $16750 end table which his wife has purchased that day? Remember the look of conflict on his face as he stares at the price tag still hanging off the table and tries to get his head around the juxtaposition of those two events? Back that up to see the car he drives up in and the mansion that table is sitting in and you see that he probably hasn't always felt so conflicted ...Perspective.
  Now, for those of you who read my earlier post and shuddered, thinking that Gordon Gekko had ascended from the Netherworld to defile your little land of milk and honey, you miss the point. I am neither pro nor con regarding the existance of mega-$$$ audio components or sports cars or kitchen appliances or whatever as from my perspective, they are irrelevant to me. So I have no skin in that game and am unlikely to join a mob of pitchfork-wieldng torchbearers looking to chase the purveyors of $60000 phono stages or $10000 1000-watt monoblocks down to the windmill. Or for that matter, the people that buy them. There never seems to be a shortage of villagers ready to form that mob anyway so y'all go on without me...

c) Pez raises an interesting question : Where do you draw the arbitrary line and who gets to draw it? It wouldn't be hard to find opinions on AC that negate the need to spend any given amount on a dingus or to ever spend the money on a new dingus instead of a used dingus and so on and so on. I guess we could deal this down until we're all listening to music on our alarm clock radios. But then some guy wearing a black hat and suspenders would pull up in a buggy and berate us for doing that... So it goes.

D.D.

[James Tanner]

I think you have to define what it is the device you are purchasing is designed to do. That goes for manufacturing as well.

At some point the device does what it was designed to do and the rest is marketing

James

[Diamond Dog]

I think you have to define what it is the device you are purchasing is designed to do. That goes for manufacturing as well.

At some point the device does what it was designed to do and the rest is marketing

James

Absolutely agree, James. My point is that it's up to the individual to decide the value of something for themselves and conduct themselves accordingly. And that definition you allude to, while eminently sensible and even scientifically verifiable, may prove illusive. The cable conundrum comes to mind. I've also seen opinions ( which I do not adhere to and which you may have heard as well ) which question any actual requirement for the existence of Bryston's halo amplifier ( no disrespectful reference to competitors intended  ) the 28B, or others like it, for example.

As an aside, it always fascinates me how the word "marketing" leaves some people's mouths like they're expelling sour milk...

D.D.


   

[James Tanner]

Good points DD 

It is just that for example; if we define an amplifiers ability to pass the input on and do nothing but amplify it with as few changes as state of the art allows, anything beyond that are questions of marketing - how do we tell our story and to whom do we sell and how.  All important obviously but at some point I am asking our customers to realize that accurate signal reproducing is our goal first and foremost - after that we have to make decisions that involve the ability to market the product. Over the years I have had many so called very expensive state of the art amps through our facilities that are very poor representatives of the accuracy goal.

So two comments:

1. In my opinion you can spend much more money on an amplifier than Bryston but it will not be more accurate if state of the art signal reproduction is the goal.

2. I realize people buy things for many more reasons than the task at hand - my famous saying around the factory is "people do not buy a Rolex to tell the time"

james