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Is Harman Anti-Audiophile?

Purité Audio

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A small amount of technical knowledge allows one to sort out genuine engineering from snake-oil , sadly the general population have no interest whatsoever in how things work as long as they do.
Keith
 

DonH56

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Kal's story brought back a lot of memories... I used to build Hafler kits for a local store and had the same issue: I couldn't build them fast enough to make it worth my while and get a decent hourly wage. So, I added upgraded input capacitors, some additional decoupling, beefed a few wires, and we sold them at a premium over the normal "wired" price. Paid for books and toys for a few semesters...

When I got my first "audiophile" preamp, upgrading my Hafler to a used Audio Research SP3a1, there was also an SP6 in the store that was priced a couple of hundred dollars higher (I think the SP3a1 was maybe $400 and the SP6 $600 at that time). The owner said the SP6 wouldn't sell until he raised the price, so he brought it up to $900 and sold it in a week. Coincidence, maybe, but the mind (and ego) can be a scary thing.

As for Harman being anti-audiophile, not sure they care: http://harmangroup.ca/ :)
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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I learned that early in high school. At the time, I was an "outside salesman" for a local audio store where the owner hired local kids to wire up Dynakits and he sold the amps at lower prices than the factory-wired. However, considering the narrow range of prices (Stereo 70 was originally 89.99 as a kit and $110.95 factory-wired), he found it hard to sell his locally-wired amps at any intermediate price. However, at my suggestion, he repriced his amps at a higher price than factory-wired and they sold rapidly.
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My first amp, which I built from the kit about 1959-ish. I shopped around and got the kit for $74 plus a bit more for shipping. I had it for over a dozen years with never a problem along with a companion Dynakit PAS-3 preamp.
 

Old Listener

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My first amp, which I built from the kit about 1959-ish. I shopped around and got the kit for $74 plus a bit more for shipping. I had it for over a dozen years with never a problem along with a companion Dynakit PAS-3 preamp.

My early experience was similar to yours. My first system included a Dynaco SCA-35 built from a kit. I've had a total of 7 amps in 50 years.
 

Thomas savage

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This is the funny thing with this hobby. You can log on to pretty much any audiophile forum on the web, and you will notice that the guys with the most expensive systems are automatically seen as some sort of "experts on everything audio". Even if it's ridiculously obvious that they have no freaking clue what they are talking about. Which is usually the case.

To be honest, I'm starting to really hate this hobby. The whole thing is starting to look like one big joke.

Don't worry about what their doing, you have got the right idea from what I can make out:)
 

amirm

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The strangest thing, to me, is that some of these people actively DONT WANT to save money. "So you're saying that a DAC that costs 1/10 of the DAC I'm thinking of buying can serve me just as well? Hm... I don't like the sound of that".
If you live by flashing your stereo to the world every chance you get, then you want the most expensive jewelry there is. Who would admire your system if you put bunch of cheap stuff in there?

It would also spoil the bias factor. Someone coming over to listen will be more inclined to say the system sounds amazing when they see equipment at prices way higher than they can afford. Just sitting there doing nothing such gear sounds good! :D
 
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