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Insanely Expensive Audio

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Ron Texas

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Full time reviewers go through a lot more stuff than a normal consumer would so there's plenty more chances to screw something up.

Personally, I believe the high defect rate is due to sourcing lots of stuff from small manufacturers who lack sufficient resources to thoroughly test their products.
 

Thomas savage

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Personally, I believe the high defect rate is due to sourcing lots of stuff from small manufacturers who lack sufficient resources to thoroughly test their products.
It’s Amateur hour for many of these companies wrt manufacturing imo .
 

JJB70

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If a company like Onkyo, Marantz or Sony manufactured their goods to the same quality standard as many small high end audiophile producers they'd be ripped to shreds by the same reviewers who wax lyrical about audio jewellery. Not that I'm a cynic or anything.
 

NorthSky

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Their sub bass extension isn't so hot, -10 db @30 hz. I wonder how these would in a shootout with a pair of Salon 2's which are one tenth the cost. For the nearly $200k difference you could buy a boatload of pretty artwork. If you knew what you were doing that stuff would be worth more than you paid for it in 10 years.

Absolutely, I agree. What we need is a blind test between the Akira (love that name) and the Revel Salon 2 (sounds like a living room chocolate ice cream on a stick).

If we go with measurements alone I know some speakers for $1,000 that look very nice on graphs.

If we go for ears alone we have to use the ears of the people who have the most important ears...the potential interested buyers, very.

* For $215,000/pair US dollars speakers it's nice to have decent bass @ say 20Hz?
Yes, for a quarter million dollars (with the speaker cables), a normal audiophile would prefer to have a full range loudspeaker, in particular if he is into electronica music, classical orchestral music, and other music genres with energy in the lowest frequencies of the human audio spectrum range. Music emotions are also revealed in those frequencies, in all frequencies, but emotions vibrate stronger when energised between opera vocals, cellos, pianos, violins, harps and organs. ...In my humble opinion.

Repeat after us; we want 20Hz +/- 0.5dB with our music.
For $215,000 we don't want to buy additional subwoofers, because we can buy the KEF LS50 speakers and add two nice subs for a fraction of the price and be in musical heaven nonetheless.

It is in comparisons that we identify the love of our life. Without comparisons anything goes.
______

▪ Ok, from strictly good looks I like them more to say Magico and Wilson speakers.
I would pick them first for that aspect. But it's the sound that counts the most, the looks are important but not the essence. And it makes good sense from a $200,000+/pair loudspeakers to have 20/20 sound and vision, with the smallest deviation possible all across the range and even off axis.

■ I still like their looks though, and John likes their sound too.
As for measurements I've read what John said. Each room measures differently, each set of ears hear differently, each people's brain function differently.
 

NorthSky

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I think it's in US dollars. If it was in Cdn dollars they would stipulate.
[$590,800 USD = $774,922.82 CDN]
102018-Aida-600.jpg

_____

* I'm not too sure about that bamboo wand, even for only $750.
Unless it's the one Harry Potter uses.
102018-MikeTangAudio-600.jpg
 
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Kal Rubinson

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I think it's in US dollars. If it was in Cdn dollars they would stipulate.
[$590,800 USD = $774,922.82 CDN]
I think they did. "(unless otherwise noted, all prices in this report are CN$)"
 

NorthSky

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You are right kal; I jumped over the first few paragraphs and went directly to the heart of the matter, as Ron Texas mentioned to go to the bottom of the page.

"... (unless otherwise noted, all prices in this report are CN$), which represents something of a bargain for all this hardware."

Yes, what a bargain @ only $590,800 Canadian for that last full system.
...All McIntosh gear with those great looking Aida II speakers by Sonus Faber and positively reviewed by Michael Fremer last month.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/sonus-faber-aida-loudspeaker
 

Sal1950

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It’s Amateur hour for many of these companies wrt manufacturing imo .
Agree but this failure rate still amazes me. If you were sending a product into Stereophile or whoever for review, wouldn't you give that piece of product a very close examine before shipping. I'd at least want to be confident they were getting a best possible example of my unit.

If a company like Onkyo, Marantz or Sony manufactured their goods to the same quality standard as many small high end audiophile producers they'd be ripped to shreds by the same reviewers who wax lyrical about audio jewellery. Not that I'm a cynic or anything.
Speaking of the big Japanese suppliers, I know Amir has his hands more than full but I would find it very interesting to get some exhaustive measurements on a few pieces of their gear, (integrated, separates, streamer-DAC's etc, from the likes of Marantz, etc. Stereophile focuses on the high end and I understand the approach as JA detailed in the latest (AWSI NOV 2018) but rarely dips into the under 5 digit level of products with the exception of the occasional NAD and alike. I got a pretty good feeling that a lot of the upscale Japanese stuff would crush much of the expensive tubed rigs that is so popular to read about. I'm pretty sure you can put together a very "transparent" complete stereo system that would push the edge of SOTA reproduction on a very limited budget. We've had a small taste like @Blumlein 88 writeup of the Marantz AV7701 I sold him, and Kal's review of the Marantz AV8805 this month but it was short on measurement, including only his subjective impressions. (largely good BTW). I would have loved to see the real performance of the internal multch DAC's and the much bragged on but little evidenced HDAM modules But multich aside, how about something like the new Marantz ND8006 server and PM8006 integrated that is being heavily pushed by ad copy right now. Don't mean to single out Marantz but for whatever reason they just seem to be the one who's ads I pay most attention to.

Hey Kal, BTW how about asking JA to do a full measurement followup on your 8805? Let's find out how well it really performs. ;)
TIA
 

Kal Rubinson

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Hey Kal, BTW how about asking JA to do a full measurement followup on your 8805? Let's find out how well it really performs. ;)
TIA
It is always his option but his workload, especially these days, is monstrous. I can't promise anything.
 

Blumlein 88

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To pick up with what Sal is saying, I think there is at least some sizable niche where reviews of things like the Marantz gear is useful. Having a speaker based stereo rig and a separate mch rig is asking for lots of space and money. If the heart of the mch rig is up to snuff, it opens up to having both in one system. Getting good measured info on mch stuff is hard as there just isn't much there. And you have some cherry picking in most of what is. In the Emotiva pre/pro which proved not so good there is a review where they do measures, but only comment on what they wish. Well they reviewed that Emotiva unit and only mentioned one measurement. It happened to be the only one which it was really good at. They had to find the same problems I did, but hid them. Someone like JA or what Amir does here with a consistent battery of tests and reported results is much more useful to prospective buyers.

When you see Schiit claims or the Asus sound card claims and view the actual results, they paint entirely different pictures. Obviously you can trust claimed specs from many makers.
 

NorthSky

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Kal, I'm only curious; when you get junk email what genre they are?
Mine are from some audio vendors...Sony for example...4K TVs, and from Wi-Fi magazines, others from Pharmaceutical companies, some from ... all type. ...Even stuff I never heard of my life and less search for. ...Once in a while from Ultra hi-end mags, with relatively expensive audio gear, reviews.
 

andreasmaaan

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If we go with measurements alone I know some speakers for $1,000 that look very nice on graphs.

It takes a lot of different measurements to get a complete picture of a speaker, and the magazines only publish the basics. So although there are some very good $1k speakers around, I'm confident that additional measurements could be done that show up the difference between these and the best speakers in the $10-$20k range.
 

Frank Dernie

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JA and some of his colleagues (not Prof. Robinson) often seem to have technical difficulties of this kind. I've blown a fuse in an amplifier and spilled a beer on my aged MacBook Pro once. But these are rare, once-every-ten-years events for me. For these reviewers, such mishaps seem to occur every other review.
I do think it is more likely for a reviewer testing an item to the extremes of its performance to encounter failures near that limit.
A purchaser is not going to risk damaging a new item by thrashing it, at least I am not, and subjective reviewers are unlikely to get anywhere near testing limits.
 
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Ron Texas

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It takes a lot of different measurements to get a complete picture of a speaker, and the magazines only publish the basics. So although there are some very good $1k speakers around, I'm confident that additional measurements could be done that show up the difference between these and the best speakers in the $10-$20k range.

True, and the graphs really need experts to interpret them.
 

Kal Rubinson

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To pick up with what Sal is saying, I think there is at least some sizable niche where reviews of things like the Marantz gear is useful. Having a speaker based stereo rig and a separate mch rig is asking for lots of space and money. If the heart of the mch rig is up to snuff, it opens up to having both in one system. Getting good measured info on mch stuff is hard as there just isn't much there. And you have some cherry picking in most of what is. In the Emotiva pre/pro which proved not so good there is a review where they do measures, but only comment on what they wish. Well they reviewed that Emotiva unit and only mentioned one measurement. It happened to be the only one which it was really good at. They had to find the same problems I did, but hid them. Someone like JA or what Amir does here with a consistent battery of tests and reported results is much more useful to prospective buyers.
I understand all that but the decisions about how to apply the limited resources and to which products are made by JA. I intend to flag these posts for him but it might be more effective for you and others to address him directly by email and/or the Stereophile website forum.
 

Kal Rubinson

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Kal, I'm only curious; when you get junk email what genre they are?
Mine are from some audio vendors...Sony for example...4K TVs, and from Wi-Fi magazines, others from Pharmaceutical companies, some from ... all type. ...
All of the above plus plumbing and electrical supplies as we recently completed some renovations.
Even stuff I never heard of my life and less search for. ...Once in a while from Ultra hi-end mags, with relatively expensive audio gear, reviews.
Ulta hi-end mags don't bother with me.
 

Kal Rubinson

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* I'm not too sure about that bamboo wand, even for only $750.
Unless it's the one Harry Potter uses.
102018-MikeTangAudio-600.jpg
It reminds me of a hobbyist version of the late, lamented ADC40.
 
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