graz_lag
Major Contributor
Or simply you do not know how and where you can spend your money ... like the dozens of soccer players getting $500,000 per week ... ohh sorry, much less after deducting between 25% and 40% as taxes ...
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Insanely Expensive Audio
- Thread starter Ron Texas
- Start date
Or simply you do not know how and where you can spend your money ... like the dozens of soccer players getting $500,000 per week ... ohh sorry, much less after deducting between 25% and 40% as taxes ...
^^^ Give them my contact info, be glad to help them with that.
A local store has gone pretty much all-in on high-end installs and the last few times I visited they were unwilling to re-arrange speakers so I could do side-by-side comparisons unless I was willing to state I would be buying that day. This along with a fairly snooty salesperson. I walked out. They did the same to a friend of mine and even a bit worse -- he looks like a scruffy old codger and they treated him like a "senile old fool" (his words) instead of the gifted EE and fairly well-heeled audiophile that he was. That store lost well over $50k in business from us. Not the type of prices in this thread, but a helluva' lot of money to us. It seems many stores cater to the very rich and often, at least in the experiences I have had at several stores, treat lower-end shoppers (or those assumed to be such) with a "buy this, it's on sale, and that way I won't have to spend any more time on you" mentality. Decades ago the stores at which I worked had the opposite approach with the idea that your low-end customer today would grow into the high customer of tomorrow. Now the salesman seem to be infected with the "get rich quick and easy" attitude. Customers are lottery tickets and they hope to hit a big one; the little ones aren't worth the money spent, and losing ones go in the trash never to be thought of again.
Ah well, bad day, long couple of weeks, maybe just getting old and cranky. Or senile. Or whatever.
A local store has gone pretty much all-in on high-end installs and the last few times I visited they were unwilling to re-arrange speakers so I could do side-by-side comparisons unless I was willing to state I would be buying that day. This along with a fairly snooty salesperson. I walked out. They did the same to a friend of mine and even a bit worse -- he looks like a scruffy old codger and they treated him like a "senile old fool" (his words) instead of the gifted EE and fairly well-heeled audiophile that he was. That store lost well over $50k in business from us. Not the type of prices in this thread, but a helluva' lot of money to us. It seems many stores cater to the very rich and often, at least in the experiences I have had at several stores, treat lower-end shoppers (or those assumed to be such) with a "buy this, it's on sale, and that way I won't have to spend any more time on you" mentality. Decades ago the stores at which I worked had the opposite approach with the idea that your low-end customer today would grow into the high customer of tomorrow. Now the salesman seem to be infected with the "get rich quick and easy" attitude. Customers are lottery tickets and they hope to hit a big one; the little ones aren't worth the money spent, and losing ones go in the trash never to be thought of again.
Ah well, bad day, long couple of weeks, maybe just getting old and cranky. Or senile. Or whatever.
Same here, I get done reading my issues fairly quickly now, no wheres near the hours I would spend pouring over every word back some thirty years ago. Outside of the index the next 40-50 pages are packed with Mikey and Dudley's claims that vinyl is SOTA, etc etc, very seldom read a word there. I can't remember when they gave serious review time to anything that I could afford or be interested in buying. It was back in the mid 80s that I actually bought something they reviewed, my VTL 100s for instance. But Stereophile is only partly and handshakingly responsible here. the high end manufacturers have been constantly pushing the $ envelope $ and what can be considered a product at the SOTA.
Hi
THe paradox is that we're at a point where inexpensive gear are producing stellar performance/results. e'g. the JDS Lab headphone amplifier reviewed recently by the King or the various Topping . SMSL , etc ... of this world. Same thing for the DACs where it is clear that $500 buys the SOTA in performance ...DACs reviewed on ASR here too... There are speakers out there that would obliterate most of the things traditional High End Audio has been producing at a fraction (JBL M2, JBL 4367, Dutch and Dutch 8C, Kii Three, Bang & Olufsen, various studio "monitors" ....).
We have very good gear at more than decent prices these days. They are available, requires some knowledge then again so does a TT or a tonearm ... The Audio magazine y could and should review these more ...
I have come to be in peace with High End Audio. To each his own. I do know now that performance doesn't lie in the way of High End Audio ... My ears have lost much of their gold patina. I can't hear differences between Power Cords anymore
.. I am enjoying it in a way I would never have thought...
THe paradox is that we're at a point where inexpensive gear are producing stellar performance/results. e'g. the JDS Lab headphone amplifier reviewed recently by the King or the various Topping . SMSL , etc ... of this world. Same thing for the DACs where it is clear that $500 buys the SOTA in performance ...DACs reviewed on ASR here too... There are speakers out there that would obliterate most of the things traditional High End Audio has been producing at a fraction (JBL M2, JBL 4367, Dutch and Dutch 8C, Kii Three, Bang & Olufsen, various studio "monitors" ....).
We have very good gear at more than decent prices these days. They are available, requires some knowledge then again so does a TT or a tonearm ... The Audio magazine y could and should review these more ...
I have come to be in peace with High End Audio. To each his own. I do know now that performance doesn't lie in the way of High End Audio ... My ears have lost much of their gold patina. I can't hear differences between Power Cords anymore
.. I am enjoying it in a way I would never have thought... 
You guys keep buying it and by doing so endorse and enable its direction.
graz_lag
Major Contributor
Sir : I recycle instead - as I buy only second-hand however recent and/or actual items, I save the VAT (20%) + another 40-50% on the original price ...
With very few exceptions.
The entire system is $22K .. By all accounts it seems to do better than "playing loud" ..
$22K in High End Audio buys you a nice USB cable complete with velvet gloves...
svart-hvitt
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2017
- Messages
- 2,375
- Likes
- 1,253
"As configured, the system as displayed would cost some $800,000 here in the United States. I smugly explained to my friend that, in taking on such an ambitious project, the ESD folks had set for themselves—and subsequently met—a set of arbitrary, difficult, and ultimately unnecessary technical challenges. Why go to the trouble of putting together a system like this when simpler, cheaper systems could accomplish much the same thing? Look at all those boxes! Look at that price tag! "
From Stereophile. Full article here: https://www.stereophile.com/content/nietzsche-schopenhauer-and-new-york-audio-show
I find the author's argument to be absurd.
Noticed how fast the author, Jim Austin, came to the price? I believe that speaks for itself.
OP
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2018
- Messages
- 6,238
- Likes
- 9,371
- Thread Starter
- #430
I believe the vendor told him the price. There's no way I would want that thing in my house. There is tasteful looking gear from the likes of Revel and Sonus Farber with the cool green glow of McIntosh electronics that will sound great and have a luxurious look.
I heard about the price twice and I never even went into the room!
OTOH, I agree with Jim about this: "Why go to the trouble of putting together a system like this when simpler, cheaper systems could accomplish much the same thing?"
OP
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2018
- Messages
- 6,238
- Likes
- 9,371
- Thread Starter
- #433
Amen.
svart-hvitt
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2017
- Messages
- 2,375
- Likes
- 1,253
Well, Jim poses a question, with a question mark after it. Everybody can agree upon a question.
What I like about science is its avoidance of double-speak.
My old man always told me,
Keep your friends close
And your antagonists closer.
Just finished Decembers "As We See It".
Jon Iverson appears to get it.
Not so sure his reviews reflect that.
It is a rhetorical device which, in effect, directly questions the motives of the producers and follows it with some finger-pointing, "Look at all those boxes! Look at that price tag!" His position is quite clear to me.
These days it's keep friends close and your advertisers closer.My old man always told me,
Keep your friends close
And your antagonists closer.
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2016
- Messages
- 20,766
- Likes
- 37,625
That article on the $800K ESD system makes some sense to me. I think it is a grandiose rationalization of a juvenile motive. But sometimes, especially with age juvenile motives can be worthwhile for personal enjoyment. Doing it as a business is sort of crazy, but so what? It reminds me of being in grade school and saying, "hey man, what if you took the jet engine off of an F4 and put it on a car. Man it might go 600 miles an hour. Cool yeah? What would that really be like?" And sometimes I even did some of it. Not the jet engine, but a stupid thing just as a what if. So the ESD system is a really big what if. And it inherently has some irrationality to it......unless you know how humans behave. I don't mind crazy systems like that so much as snake oil con games on expensive cables.
Last edited:
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Where is the RTR?
I don't think you can consider yourself a real audiophile baller unless you're capable of playing $450 per tape Tape Project reels.
I don't think you can consider yourself a real audiophile baller unless you're capable of playing $450 per tape Tape Project reels.
Completely agree. Although the ESD system is insanely priced, you can see where a whole lot of money is spend.
I find it much less offensive than $10,000 power cords and $30,000 speaker cables containing less then $50 in materials. ( But tens of thousand spent on spinning marketing BS and advertising in the "right" places.)