I'm gonna have a bit of an off the cuff ramble here, so bear with me. It's cheaper than a therapist.
If I want to buy a bleeding edge TV/display, I'll pay the early adopter tax and shell out maybe five times what I would for a great TV/display. I'm using five as an arbitrary multiplier but you get the idea. What I'm paying for is normally new technology and improved performance. If I want to go balls to the wall with a PC and have one built for me then, again, I could pay around five times what I might for a good rig. And I should notice the difference, there'll be no pain staking A/B testing looking for the slightest difference. The more money generally the better performance provided they and you know what's what, you should be getting the latest and greatest in technology. You can measure display/PC performance. Synthetic/real world benchmarks/useage, temps, clocks, overclocks, read/write speeds, peak nit, contrast ratio, refresh rate, pixel response time, resolution etc etc. There's no mistaking the results. The high-end PC or display might even be considered professional grade, depending on the component choices/intended usage. So we have a high-end TV/display and a high-end PC, the value is arguable as always, there's diminishing returns, but you're very likely getting a better experience for the money. I've used displays and PCs as examples but it extends to pretty much any consumer electronics I can think of.
So how about the audio market? Why is that multiplier so much higher and utterly unreliable? I can buy SOTA devices for £1000 or less. Much much less in many cases. Yet I could also spend a 100+ times the amount on a similar device that is objectively inferior. We're talking about consumer electronics here. Nobody who bought a super expensive TV would tell you it needed synergy with their games console, that you don't have the eyesight/hearing to appreciate it, or that they're still burning their remote in. However, they might have been upsold a fancy cable or two.
I can't fathom what makes audio different. The equipment produces a subjective experience, as do other forms of electronic entertainment and technology. This thread is prompted by YouTube's autoplay algorithm serving me a video. Sometimes I feel it doesn't know me at all. In that video the example of an audio product that costs almost half a million dollars was used. It was said that the existence of these items shouldn't annoy me. Luxury items exist in other markets such as watches and cars, so why not audio?.
Well, I respond, why audio and why are they so common? And it does at least irritate me that we've reached the point where consumer audio products priced in the tens and hundreds of thousands are not that unusual, yet often offer nothing more where it really matters. It's firmly sowed the idea that these sorts of items really are the top of the tree and offer an experience close to snogging the almighty, one that more lowly, less expensive products could never approach. It does a disservice to the entire industry. It has nothing to do with audio quality at all. They're prettier, more luxurious, not necessarily better. They're using higher prices to connote higher performance, rather than delivering demonstrably higher performance to justify a higher price. It's taken a general rule of thumb - you get what you pay for - and utterly abused it.
I've rarely heard a buyer of a £5k or £50k DAC say it's anything but superior in terms of performance. They don't say it's just about the joy of ownership, aesthetics, build, exclusivity, or other reasons people tend to buy expensive goods. They have to justify it in terms of sound first and foremost, and there's the rub. If the numbers don't exceed cheaper items, the metaphysics come out. If the numbers fall well short, the knives come out too. Truly the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to make people vote against their self-interests. They vote with their words and their wallets. And whether it's a substandard £5k DAC or a Jitterbug, the companies listen.
High-end means expensive, that's it. In consumer electronics, that comes with the expectation of better performance, although it's not always a given. In the world of audio the term is so regularly used, so often conflated with high performance they're almost synonymous; it's losing its meaning entirely. In fact I think some people just like saying it. It has disproportionate cachet. It's used in the title of audio shows for god's sake. It's the reason people list their gear as if it were their CV and others almost apologise for using cheaper devices. High-end audio has built a kind of wall around itself, a set of rules and a different set of standards to be held to. People wonder if they've yet achieved that elusive high end sound. Well, the common wisdom goes; spend this much on these products from these brands and you're a fully paid up member. If I hear "of course it's not fair to compare this to a high-end.." one more time I'll hunt them down and spit in their eyes. Why don't you try comparing, blind? Then wipe the spit from your eyes and be done with the blinkers for good.
I am an audiophile, I meet the definition. Yet you see people vacillate when asked if they're audiophiles because there's a seemingly indelible association with overpriced pseudoscientific bullshit. I resent having to distinguish myself. Or you find people who are audiophiles to the bone, yet don't feel like they can describe themselves as such because of the price of their setup. The existence of products none of us would ever consider doesn't mean there's any lack of excellent products for us to use. But it does tarnish the entire industry, both manufacturers and consumers, and allow audiophile to be used as a pejorative, or conversely even as an aspiration or badge of honour.
People are free to spend their money however they like. However, I can't think of any similar pastime where device performance and price are so out of whack, claims are so wildly at odds with reality (and sometimes the laws of physics), and where so many products outperform equivalent products fifty or hundreds of times their price while the inferior expensive products are still lauded. In a hobby that's ostensibly little different to any other involving consumer electronics and entertainment, just what is it about audio that's got us into this situation?.
I feel much better now. I realise I haven't said anything that hasn't been said before, but my question stands. High-end audio has gone nuts, and it's not getting any saner. If anyone has thoughts about why it's so out of step with other consumer electronics I'd be interested to hear them
If I want to buy a bleeding edge TV/display, I'll pay the early adopter tax and shell out maybe five times what I would for a great TV/display. I'm using five as an arbitrary multiplier but you get the idea. What I'm paying for is normally new technology and improved performance. If I want to go balls to the wall with a PC and have one built for me then, again, I could pay around five times what I might for a good rig. And I should notice the difference, there'll be no pain staking A/B testing looking for the slightest difference. The more money generally the better performance provided they and you know what's what, you should be getting the latest and greatest in technology. You can measure display/PC performance. Synthetic/real world benchmarks/useage, temps, clocks, overclocks, read/write speeds, peak nit, contrast ratio, refresh rate, pixel response time, resolution etc etc. There's no mistaking the results. The high-end PC or display might even be considered professional grade, depending on the component choices/intended usage. So we have a high-end TV/display and a high-end PC, the value is arguable as always, there's diminishing returns, but you're very likely getting a better experience for the money. I've used displays and PCs as examples but it extends to pretty much any consumer electronics I can think of.
So how about the audio market? Why is that multiplier so much higher and utterly unreliable? I can buy SOTA devices for £1000 or less. Much much less in many cases. Yet I could also spend a 100+ times the amount on a similar device that is objectively inferior. We're talking about consumer electronics here. Nobody who bought a super expensive TV would tell you it needed synergy with their games console, that you don't have the eyesight/hearing to appreciate it, or that they're still burning their remote in. However, they might have been upsold a fancy cable or two.
I can't fathom what makes audio different. The equipment produces a subjective experience, as do other forms of electronic entertainment and technology. This thread is prompted by YouTube's autoplay algorithm serving me a video. Sometimes I feel it doesn't know me at all. In that video the example of an audio product that costs almost half a million dollars was used. It was said that the existence of these items shouldn't annoy me. Luxury items exist in other markets such as watches and cars, so why not audio?.
Well, I respond, why audio and why are they so common? And it does at least irritate me that we've reached the point where consumer audio products priced in the tens and hundreds of thousands are not that unusual, yet often offer nothing more where it really matters. It's firmly sowed the idea that these sorts of items really are the top of the tree and offer an experience close to snogging the almighty, one that more lowly, less expensive products could never approach. It does a disservice to the entire industry. It has nothing to do with audio quality at all. They're prettier, more luxurious, not necessarily better. They're using higher prices to connote higher performance, rather than delivering demonstrably higher performance to justify a higher price. It's taken a general rule of thumb - you get what you pay for - and utterly abused it.
I've rarely heard a buyer of a £5k or £50k DAC say it's anything but superior in terms of performance. They don't say it's just about the joy of ownership, aesthetics, build, exclusivity, or other reasons people tend to buy expensive goods. They have to justify it in terms of sound first and foremost, and there's the rub. If the numbers don't exceed cheaper items, the metaphysics come out. If the numbers fall well short, the knives come out too. Truly the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to make people vote against their self-interests. They vote with their words and their wallets. And whether it's a substandard £5k DAC or a Jitterbug, the companies listen.
High-end means expensive, that's it. In consumer electronics, that comes with the expectation of better performance, although it's not always a given. In the world of audio the term is so regularly used, so often conflated with high performance they're almost synonymous; it's losing its meaning entirely. In fact I think some people just like saying it. It has disproportionate cachet. It's used in the title of audio shows for god's sake. It's the reason people list their gear as if it were their CV and others almost apologise for using cheaper devices. High-end audio has built a kind of wall around itself, a set of rules and a different set of standards to be held to. People wonder if they've yet achieved that elusive high end sound. Well, the common wisdom goes; spend this much on these products from these brands and you're a fully paid up member. If I hear "of course it's not fair to compare this to a high-end.." one more time I'll hunt them down and spit in their eyes. Why don't you try comparing, blind? Then wipe the spit from your eyes and be done with the blinkers for good.
I am an audiophile, I meet the definition. Yet you see people vacillate when asked if they're audiophiles because there's a seemingly indelible association with overpriced pseudoscientific bullshit. I resent having to distinguish myself. Or you find people who are audiophiles to the bone, yet don't feel like they can describe themselves as such because of the price of their setup. The existence of products none of us would ever consider doesn't mean there's any lack of excellent products for us to use. But it does tarnish the entire industry, both manufacturers and consumers, and allow audiophile to be used as a pejorative, or conversely even as an aspiration or badge of honour.
People are free to spend their money however they like. However, I can't think of any similar pastime where device performance and price are so out of whack, claims are so wildly at odds with reality (and sometimes the laws of physics), and where so many products outperform equivalent products fifty or hundreds of times their price while the inferior expensive products are still lauded. In a hobby that's ostensibly little different to any other involving consumer electronics and entertainment, just what is it about audio that's got us into this situation?.
I feel much better now. I realise I haven't said anything that hasn't been said before, but my question stands. High-end audio has gone nuts, and it's not getting any saner. If anyone has thoughts about why it's so out of step with other consumer electronics I'd be interested to hear them