What do you think is the standard price for HI-FI, HI-END?

[pinger]

I have read your opinion carefully.

I am well aware of that too. Just because something is expensive like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini doesn't mean it always performs better. This is especially true in the audio field.

I am particularly aware that the performance of recent products is becoming more standardized, and we have entered a world where Chinese audio DACs are showing tremendous specifications.

Therefore, on the one hand, I was curious about how you all think about what is considered "HI-END".

I also understand well why they don't provide measurement values. They argue that "measurements cannot express the value and sound of our products."

One might say, "What nonsense!" However, because there are people who accept this and make purchases, and because I was curious about the thoughts of you all from various countries, I decided to write this post.

Using a car analogy doesnt really work. All cars are different and perform differently. Other than speakers all the other components will essentially sound the same. They should be purchased on build quality, features , ergonomics, functionality, aesthetics etc. Not sound quality

 

[pinger]

Are you asking in our context or elsewhere? As noted, you are way too high on many of these in our book.

With respect to general audiophiles, I think the DACs can go down to $10K+ and still be "high-end." Amplifier can likewise be $10K+ and still be high-end. Cables, $5K. Speakers at $50K are the entry into high-end. I would say $100K+ is what i the norm there.

Statement high-end systems clock at $400K+.

Confused by your response especially wrt to cables. Are you now saying cables make a difference in sound quality? Or just in dependability or functionality?

 

[pinger]

The only thing wrong with a Rolex is when you tell people it is more time accurate than a $500 Apple Watch. I love watches but my Hamilton Auto is accurate enough if I want analog. Maybe I’ll buy a Rolex one day but not to tell time. Same with audio, you want $150k of gear? Go for it. Just know what you’re paying for.

Yeah watches are part jewelry part functional. Buying them at exorbitant prices and trying to justify by saying they are more accurate than a cheaper watch is absurd. Just admit they are jewelry. Nothing wrong with that

 

[Holmz]

Using a car analogy doesnt really work. All cars are different and perform differently. Other than speakers all the other components will essentially sound the same. They should be purchased on build quality, features , ergonomics, functionality, aesthetics etc. Not sound quality

I am not sure ^this^ is 100% correct.
Amps do mostly all work well into a resistive load, but some speakers are mongrels in terms of complex loads, and some amps do better than others with those loads.
And preamps and amps (and some sources) can have impedances that make it hard to drive them, or make what comes behind them require a high input impedance.
While in general the electronics are largely solved, at those edge cases there can be some small audible difference.

 

[lini]

In English when pronounced, it sounds the same as "your *ahem* booty hole" so it's often used as a joke.

As you've triggered my memory, I just can't resist - behold "Brown 25" (from "The Groove Tube"):

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[GXAlan]

I think you can take automobiles, and drop it by a factor of 10.

The cheapest new car in the U.S. is the Nissan Versa at $18,000. Some people buy used cars.

So I would say a normal “dedicated” system should be under $2000. You can see how a Sonos surround setup would be around $2000.

Obviously, you can get the Micca $200 speaker and a WiiM Amp for $300 and get a full system that’s quite good. But that would be like getting a value car.

Then you have entry level luxury like the Audi A4, MSRP $42K. Higher with options.
This is where a premium setup lives. So at $5k, you can get a Denon AVR, Revel Speakers, nice rear speakers, etc.

You get the point. The people owning $100K systems are typically those who could afford the $1M super car. People owning $80K cars, might find the $8k sound system reasonable.

Now, no one thinks twice when they see a Lucid Air, Cybertruck, or Mercedes S-class on the street, if you live in a major metropolitan area. Lots of people are able to finance or spend $100K on a depreciating product. There is certainly the individual who will choose to drive an older Lexus or Toyota Prius instead of getting the S-class and then putting it into their statement home theater.

I know somehow who went from a BMW 3 series to a Tesla Model 3, but has FOUR of the Western Electric monoblocks which is $250K MSRP for the four. But that’s different.

So all you need to know is do you define a high-end car as BMW, Lexus, Mercedes? Or is that just mainstream to you, and high end means Lamborghini, Ferrari, and McLaren? Others may say those supercars are call “super” because it’s an extreme… we often hear people call it “summit-fi.”

 

[Thomas Savage]

We really need to bring back the blanket ban on car analogies , or at the very least for every one used you need to send the mod team a case of beer .

 

[HalSF]

One of my core audio convictions is that proposing a distinction between high fidelity (hi-fi) and the emergent luxury-market, price-indexed audiophile system of thinking called “the high end” was a huge historical error and the source of endless counterproductive mystification and upselling deception.

There’s a thin line of legitimate discourse around the concept of “reference” components that I can sort of get behind — exceptional gear with superlative functionality and measurable state-of- the-art performance that professionals and reviewers can utilize as a comparative standard of excellence. On the reviewer side, alas, this often boils down to the dreary listing of many tens of thousands of dollars of “associated equipment” in the reviewer’s possession that becomes a kind of resume and bona fide that qualifies the reviewer based on profligate spending (or professional discounts), not technical knowledge.

 

[antcollinet]

Apologies in advance for some of the bluntness below. But I'm not going to try to sugar coat it for you.

When comparing ultra-high-end DACs, the performance of the speaker system is important,

But the same is true for nearly all the DACS measured here. Even DACS at the lowest price end are audibly perfect (noise and distortion below human audibility) - as are ALL those in the blue/green section of the DAC chart here. So unless your "ultra-high-end" are faulty in some way, and have audible noise or distortion, or non flat frequency response, there will be nothing in the signal reaching your ears to differentiate it from the average topping device - regardless of the performance of the speakers.

Unless it is a DAC with a perfect sound characteristic like Esoteric, most ultra-high-end DACs sound accurate, so they sound almost the same. The characteristics changed depending on whether or not the filter you pointed out was used.

Again - not only "high end DACS". High end means only expensive (as far as I can see). They bring no audible benefits compared to a well designed £$200 dac.

The important thing in a DAC is the word clock!

No, it's not. There is almost no dac on the market which has a clock resulting in audible distortion.

if you use a rubidium clock, the bass will be too low, so this is also a matter of taste. I didn't really like using a rubidium clock. Even though the resolution was high because the jitter was reduced and the accuracy was high, the bass was low, so it was annoying to set the sound.

And this is just total nonsense.

Using a clock with moderate performance definitely helped improve the sound quality because it reduced the jitter.

Also nonsense. There is almost no DAC on the market today which has audible jitter. If there are any that do - they are broken by design.

It looks like almost everything you have learned about the performance of electronics - especially DACs - is wrong. As others have said above, you're going to need to unlearn a lot of stuff before you'll be able to move on.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I think you can take automobiles, and drop it by a factor of 10.

The cheapest new car in the U.S. is the Nissan Versa at $18,000. Some people buy used cars.

So I would say a normal “dedicated” system should be under $2000. You can see how a Sonos surround setup would be around $2000.

Obviously, you can get the Micca $200 speaker and a WiiM Amp for $300 and get a full system that’s quite good. But that would be like getting a value car.

Then you have entry level luxury like the Audi A4, MSRP $42K. Higher with options.
This is where a premium setup lives. So at $5k, you can get a Denon AVR, Revel Speakers, nice rear speakers, etc.

You get the point. The people owning $100K systems are typically those who could afford the $1M super car. People owning $80K cars, might find the $8k sound system reasonable.

Now, no one thinks twice when they see a Lucid Air, Cybertruck, or Mercedes S-class on the street, if you live in a major metropolitan area. Lots of people are able to finance or spend $100K on a depreciating product. There is certainly the individual who will choose to drive an older Lexus or Toyota Prius instead of getting the S-class and then putting it into their statement home theater.

I know somehow who went from a BMW 3 series to a Tesla Model 3, but has FOUR of the Western Electric monoblocks which is $250K MSRP for the four. But that’s different.

So all you need to know is do you define a high-end car as BMW, Lexus, Mercedes? Or is that just mainstream to you, and high end means Lamborghini, Ferrari, and McLaren? Others may say those supercars are call “super” because it’s an extreme… we often hear people call it “summit-fi.”

I am a music lover who had a reasonable sound system years before I bought my first car (I lived in London where a car is worse than useless) and have never bought a car which cost as much as my stereo.

 

[GXAlan]

I am a music lover who had a reasonable sound system years before I bought my first car (I lived in London where a car is worse than useless) and have never bought a car which cost as much as my stereo.

Very good point. I think it’s better to say that for audiophiles who live in an area where it’s the norm to drive routinely, the math works out.

May I ask what your stereo setup is?

 

[Frank Dernie]

Very good point. I think it’s better to say that for audiophiles who live in an area where it’s the norm to drive routinely, the math works out.

May I ask what your stereo setup is?

I have had a reasonable or good system for 57 years, currently 30 year old Goldmund CD transport (and 40 year old turntable on the odd occasion I listen to an LP) with Devialet amp and 27 year old Goldmund Epilog speakers are my main system in my listening room.

 

[gfinlays]

Hello everyone!

I posted an ASR article for the first time yesterday.
I'm so happy that members are actively participating and discussing my questions together. I love conversations.

I have an additional question.
What price range do you consider as the threshold between HI-FI and HI-END in a 2CH speaker system?

In my opinion, for DACs, I consider over $30,000+ to be HI-END. For speakers, I think $50,000+ is HI-END. Because many brands have increased their prices by over 100% since the COVID-19 period, I think we should also raise the price standard for HI-END significantly.

For a 2CH speaker system to be considered HI-END, I think the price should be:
Speakers $50,000
DAC $30,000
Amplifier $50,000
Cables $20,000
= $150,000
Based on MSRP, shouldn't it exceed this amount to be called a HI-END system now?

I know it's an incredibly large amount. But surprisingly, many people use systems that cost more than this. In fact, people who own audio systems at this price point tend not to skimp on investing in what they buy. They're often people of high social status.

As society is becoming increasingly polarized, this is how I think about it, but I'm curious about what others think.


P.S.
Is it appropriate to post this kind of content here?
My nickname doesn't have a strange meaning! It's Uranus, a god from the generation before Zeus and Cronos! I chose it with good intentions, but everyone seems to think negatively about it! .... Should I change my nickname?

Who cares? HI-END in my view is BS. Lots of people have expensive systems in poor rooms that sound like @ss. Other people have modest systems with DSP in good rooms that sound superb.

Let's also not forget that some hi-end components perform terribly when objectively measured.

I have a friend whose ~£60,000 system sounds nowhere near as good as my relatively humble system. Why? I have a reasonably well-treated room with a fully-active, linear phase, time-aligned 3-way speaker system.

I also have a much more humble 2-way active nearfield desktop system, also linear phase and time aligned. Blows the doors off my main rig and I have the measurements to prove it.

Owning expensive hi-end hi-fi and not getting the most out of it is like owning a Ferrari F40 and only ever driving it to the local supermarket to buy the weekly groceries. You will never, ever get the most out of it.

Owning a Lotus Exige and regularly caning it at track days is a considerably less expensive and far more satisfying experience.

Too many people in this hobby assume that price=performance. Performance can be objectively measured and more often than not the best performance comes at very close to the lowest price.

 

[ahofer]

Uranus’ bass is low because of the rubidium clock.

LMAO. I’ve been thinking it’s a troll, but I can easily imagine some “experienced” audio ponce saying this with a straight face.

 

[Holmz]

Uranus’ bass is low because of the rubidium clock.

LMAO. I’ve been thinking it’s a troll, but I can easily imagine some “experienced” audio ponce saying this with a straight face.

OK so you’re not of the opinion it’s a BOT then?

 

[Harmonia]

Your user name is at least brave in an English-language forum, but strangely correlates with the term high-end in the meaning assigned to it, if it is only linked to the price.

High-end in the audio sector can also be inexpensive if it is considered solely in terms of sonic performance.

Especially in the field of DACs, very good, transparent and inexpensive devices can now be found.

For a tenth (rather less) of your 150,000 dollar budget for speakers, DAC, amplifier and cables, you can get over-the-counter audio equipment that sounds perfect.

Thanks for your opinion.

Yes, many people are saying that high-end is only about sound quality, so I'm trying to think that way now.

I know I'm causing a lot of controversy. But I'm learning hard. Thanks for the good opinions.

I'm puzzled by the OP's question and puzzled by this response

What is 'high-end'? It's clearly nothing to do with performance (or rather there is presumably a minimum, measured, bar for performance that has nothing to do with price).
It can't just be quality of materials and craftmanship (matched real wood, hand made, long warranty and maintenance service)
Is it the nebulous concept of 'brand value' ... where price is inflated irrespective of actual quality / performance?
Is it simply bragging rights?

High-end for me is top quartile performance, quality design (robust, designed for long life), features that I want and well designed user interface ... but that's nothing to do with the direction of the thread.

Puzzled as to why this gets discussed here, it's nothing to do with ASR. The thread seems harmless enough, but I'm out

It's because of the "Veblen effect". The biggest reason is the self-satisfaction of the people who bought it.

No one around me has properly explained the meaning of "high-end" to me for over 15 years. So I thought it was a word related to price. Thanks to you guys, I also learned that it was first used by Absolute Sound. I'm learning a lot.

I posted this because I was curious, and it's true that it might not fit here. But I was curious about your thoughts.

it's all those things plus you have to remember that the 'high end' people genuinely believe that they are buying sound quality which cannot be got for less.

There's a whole separate world of high end, a bit like the gods on Mount Olympus, and I think Amir was simply quoting the minimum prices needed for entry to that world. If you went to these people and told them you had a 'High End DAC' and it cost £2K they'd laugh you out the room.

You gave such a precise example. I agree with you.

Wow, with that $150K budget, you can consider any of the following and get an extremely high performance audio system, with spare cash leftover for your other hobbies.

• D&D 8C + subwoofer + DAC + streamer + room_treatment
• Kii 3 BXT + DAC + streamer + room_treatment
• Genelec 8361 + Genelec sub + DAC + streamer + room_treatment
• Neumann KH420 + Neumann subwoofer + DAC + streamer + room_treatment
• and there are many other options that cost <$150K...

And if you want huge scale, huge soundstage and high SPL to fill a big area, maybe the Genelec 8381 might just fit the bill, probably with some spare cash leftover.

Enjoy....!

Right! If I had $150,000, then yes! But I don't have it? I was just giving an example. I was asking, "With this amount of money, is it high-end?"

Now I know that it's a word that has nothing to do with money.

Why?
What is your angle?
Are you trying to get into the market of gear?
Get into marketing?
What is your intention?


You sound like a BOT.



I am not sure I appreciate the idea of $$ as the bar to “high end.”
It might be more like some threshold of performance… but it am 90% sure that it is not SINAD.

I asked because I was curious. Now I know I was wrong all along.

 

[Blumlein 88]

On the whats the best forum a bit before Amir started this one, someone asked for the least expensive path to high end sound. I answered the then new JBL LSR 305 speakers and a DAC preamp. That might still be my answer. $300/pr for the speakers, and various DACs might fit the bill. I know of a couple DACs for $250 which could not be audibly bettered at any price. So for $600 with cables you'd have some rather high quality sound in a small to moderate listening space. All that is left for more money is going for larger somewhat better speakers (though the LSR 305 mk II speakers will sound very good), or to something with more convenience, nicer appearance or other capabilities like streaming or room EQ.

I always say find speakers you like or love and build your system backwards from there. Everything prior to the speaker is a solved problem on the playback end.

If you haven't experienced such a thing my claim will seem somewhere between unbelievable to naive by someone who doesn't know good sound. My claims are true however and I have heard some good systems. Some expensive systems. Wilsons, Soundlabs, and a few other expensive bits of gear. And I don't mean I heard them a couple minutes at some showroom or show. I've known people with them or owned them and spent hours listening to them.

So speakers are the only hard choice left anymore and the only one that might need to be expensive.

 

[Holmz]

…
I asked because I was curious. Now I know I was wrong all along.

Wring about what exactly?

 

[Harmonia]

Trying to put a hard number on what is essentially a social judgement seems doomed to failure, given social stratification exists. So here's other ways to approach the question.

High end starts at the price point where the people in your life think you are obsessed for spending that much on gear. And that means for truly wealthy people, there is no high end. No one would be so gauche as to ask what things cost in those circles.

Or maybe we could say the high end starts when we enter the Veblen Goods arena. Cut the price of "normal" hi fi by 50%, they will sell more units. Cut the price of "high end" by 50% and fewer units will be sold.

If we ask the question what is the price for transparent, then we can nail things down with measurements. Amp+DAC+ speakers + stands in my system, around $3000 US. I doubt many here would see that as "high end" in the social sense, though by the numbers it is transparent. My neighbor who is a sound engineer at a local venue would not see that as high end, my neighbor who is a printer probably would.

I read your comment carefully. 'Veblen goods' is the key point. This can be considered the standard for all luxury goods. Is it because there are only engineering students around me that no one has told me this story?

And Pareto, as you said, the people among my acquaintances who are really rich don't care at all and buy because they want to buy, so they probably don't care much about the price.

Of course, they compare. They compare the history, value, performance, design, etc. of the brand, and if they think it's reasonable, they buy it. They don't buy it unconditionally.

I now know well that it's important to say that "money is not necessarily related to sound quality."

Probably around $1,000,000 it's hard to find a decent DAC for $115,000 anymore.

The price has gone up 2-3 times during the Corona period, so it's hard to buy it now!

I have a $10-11k system (80% speakers)*. I haven’t heard a better system (and I’ve heard some Wilson, B&W, and Duntech set-ups), but I’m sure it exists. Whether it is so much better I would pay a multiple of what I have paid, I dunno.

*Revel F228be with Hypex class D amp and room EQ via Roon. I bought the speakers used.

You're using a system that can produce reasonably good sound. When my friends start doing audio, I'll tell them to set up a system like yours.

To me, a high-end product would have to be absolutely exquisite in every way.

When it comes to audio gear, the sound quality is only one aspect. As has been pointed out, the electronics that is good enough to exceed our listening capabilities can be had a with very moderate investment, whereas top quality transducers are considerably more expensive.

Every piece of equipment should look superbly stylish and exclusive - immediately recognizable as superior compared to average stuff. In practice, I'd say something designed by the most talented ones from Italy.

Every electrical and mechanical component used should be of highest quality, and the enclosure should not contain any cheap materials, or parts.

Woodwork done in Finland by people who have shown their mastery in bespoke furniture building.

The assembly, fit and finish should be done in Switzerland.

To satisfy my criteria, my rough estimate for the price would be:
- 4 000 € for digital front-end (streamer, A/D conversion, DSP, D/A conversion)
- 15 000 € for Vinyl Player including tone-arm and pickup (to be connected to digital fron-end for A/D-conversion and RIAA-conversion in digital domain)
- 6 000 € for Amplification
- 25 000 € for Set of two speakers

All together 50 000 € VAT excluded. My estimation is that in principle this could be done, at least if we forget the luxury image surcharge, which could easily double the price.

"To me, a high-end product would have to be absolutely exquisite in every way."

As you said, I could define high-end like this. Your article explained it in a way that I could understand. Along with Amirm, your standards are almost the same as what I usually think.

Thanks for the kind words.

This notion of high-end comes up often in our relatively wealthy world (at least the part of the world most of us inhabit).

There are several attributes that cost money. One is performance, but in the audio world that costs very little these days. This is a good thing for those whose primary focus is performance.

Then, there is the buying and owning experience--the way owning something makes one feel. Veblen doesn't really have this right, in my view, and seeks to place a moral implication on the choices we have in the market, based on price. Sometimes, buying extreme performance for very little money is as satisfying an ownership experience as buying and owning something that reflects luxury and exclusivity. But most who claim to be impervious to the attributes of luxury and exclusivity are usually so only in some areas, unless they truly are financially constrained. So, the guy on this forum who insists that low-cost, high-performing audio products represent the moral ceiling of expenditure might have a $100,000 bass boat in the shed or a $5000 fly-fishing rod and reel.

(The first example in a Google search--I know nothing about fly fishing: https://thomasandthomas.com/collections/rods/products/individualist?variant=3547665217)

And when challenged, they will claim that the sheer craft of what they are using brings joy quite unrelated to measured performance. Note that I observe many owners of extremely expensive hunting and fishing apparatus--far in excess of what is needed for performance--are not in the ranks of the landed gentry at all.

There is nothing remotely immoral about these choices. Frankly, the only required justification for one who is meeting other financial obligations (including the obligation to be generous) is that they want it and they have the money.

(What is immoral, however, is attempting to persuade people falsely that paying more necessarily achieves higher measured performance, particularly when the "measure" isn't measurable at all.)

So, I might select audio equipment with beautifully constructed circuits and machined-from-billet cases, with equipment design that simply gives me joy. It might not perform better than something from Topping, but equipping one's hobby isn't usually just about performance. When I buy a Topping, it's a transaction with Amazon and a delivery truck driver. When I buy, say, a Krell, it's a positive-reinforcement personal interaction with a sales executive (probably the owner of the store) and comes with a significant service delivery, if I want it to. And when I see "Krell" on that amp, and know that it was hand-assembled by a guy in Connecticut whose name I can (probably) pronounce and who is being paid a fair wage for doing so, I might feel a satisfaction unrelated to the lack of audio distortion.

Someone mentioned a Rolex watch. That is a bit of an extreme example, for two reasons: 1.) A Rolex as become the standard status symbol (in America, at least) of the newly rich, and 2.) while the quality is quite good (for a mechanical watch) it is also rather pricey with respect to its competitors, new or used, because of (1). One might instead own, say, a Ulysse Nardin Marine Chronometer, which is as advanced as a Rolex, likely even more accurate, much more uniquely (yet still classically) styled, more beautifully crafted, and maybe half the price on the secondary market. Or, they might own a Zenith chronograph which in most every measurable dimension--including craft and cachet, but not including price--is on a par with Rolex. I would contend that my Breguet Type XX is on a par with Rolex and is made by a company with deeper luxury credentials, but on the secondary market it will be less than half the price simply because I won't be competing with every successful car dealer or real-estate agent in the U.S. to own one. Mechanical watches are accurate enough but they are not accurate at all compared to quartz watches (well, except maybe for that Ulysse Nardin, my example of which is accurate within 15 seconds a month--standard quartz accuracy). But that isn't the point of them, any more than getting to the grocery story is the point of owning, say, an Aston Martin.

All that said, price thresholds are not a dimension that really makes a lot of sense to me for defining what is "high-end". The high-end experience is about who made it, how they made it, how it was sold, how owning it makes me feel, how it looks, the story that I can tell others about it, and stuff like that. Excelling in all those areas usually means a high price, but that's a byproduct of value only to those newly rich car dealers, it seems to me.

By the way, child-like writing that is an honest expression from a non-English-speaking writer beats perfect grammar from an AI embellishment bot any day.

Rick "not an AI bot" Denney

Denney, thank you so much for your long and thoughtful article. I read it carefully.

After reading your article, I found that there are some things that cannot be explained by the "Veblen effect" alone. It seems that it is difficult to explain the part about satisfaction through ownership. I have not properly confirmed the Veblen effect yet. I will check it out.

" The high-end experience is about who made it, how they made it, how it was sold, how owning it makes me feel, how it looks, the story that I can tell others about it, and stuff like that. Excelling in all those areas usually means a high price, but that's a byproduct of value only to those newly rich car dealers, it seems to me. "
I completely agree with this. There are few products that express luxury as well as cars.

It is really difficult to concretize the part where people are "satisfied" emotionally.

The most important thing in consumption, not just in the high end, is how much money I can spend to get the thing I want. Everyone's level of wealth is different, and the amount of money they can be satisfied with is also different.

Generally, people can be satisfied even if they spend a lot of money on a house or a car. Of course, there are things like the high-end fishing boats and fishing rods you mentioned. DSLR cameras are out of style now, but there were also some.

Watches are still an item that many people like. People think that brands like "Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe" watches are worth collecting.

Among the rich, there are many people who suddenly made a lot of money and increased their assets, or those with moderate assets, who are busy showing off their money. There are quite a few people like this among those with assets of $1,000,000 to $10,000,000. They are obsessed with luxury goods and busy making their presence known.

I'm not saying it's bad or that I'm jealous. These people must have worked very hard to create this kind of assets. (Of course, there may be some who do illegal things.)

But I know a few people who are really incredibly rich. But they are very ordinary. There are many people who are more polite, considerate, and approachable than the people around us. They are like older brothers or grandfathers who live in the neighborhood. (Of course, they act and speak more carefully because they don't want to be an issue in the media.)

Among the people I know, there is someone who has assets of over $500,000,000, but he is really ordinary. He doesn't only look for and use luxury products. Oh, of course, he only buys new ones. He never buys used ones.

He uses good products, but he doesn't buy products that are ridiculously expensive. (Of course, he consistently accumulates assets such as works of art.)

Of course, people who spend well spend a lot regardless of their assets. They spend money that we can't even imagine. Because they have the perfect means of consumption called installment payments!

Thank you for writing such a great article. It makes me think a lot.

ps: Am I using Google Translate right now without using any AI?

 

[Harmonia]

everything can be hi-end, even a 1000 euro system, when the speakers are positioned correctly, the choices of the system and its composition are logical and the listening room has the correct acoustics.

Almost everything can not even be hi-fi, if the speakers, even 60,000 euro ones, are badly positioned, the choices and the composition of the system are illogical and the listening room does not allow for good acoustics.

It is not a question of price, but it is a question of rules on how to build, where and how to position, and position yourself to listen at your best.
The term hi-fi or hi-end refers to the final result which should be the closest listening to the recorded reality; it does not refer to the price or the "caliber" of the individual devices as one would mistakenly believe.

It is not a fact that as the price increases, the performance increases. The performance of the devices is now available as competent even on devices that are little more than entry level.

I totally agree with you.

Space is the priority for good sound, and if the space is messy, you will never hear high-end sound. I know this because I have been educated a lot about setups. I also like setting things up.

That is why there are many places around me that use expensive $100,000+ systems that sound worse than the $20,000+ systems I set up.

As I mentioned in the previous post, dealers in my area never set up the sound properly for their own sales. They just make the sound and run away. The funny thing is that customers don't really care? They just think it sounds good and use it.

Well, I don't have people like that among my acquaintances.

But that sums it up really. High End Audio is about status enhancement, making the wealthy owner feel good and 'above' his (usually a 'he') friends and locals in the audio fraternity. I was told that one far eastern market was so 'bad' in this that gold danglking price tags should be fitted to the stuff selling there and a $12k phono stage would be 'better' than a $3k one which itself is 'better' than a $1k one, even if the latter wiped the floor performance-wise with the other two (look at the reverence Audio Note and Esoteric Audio Research products are held in some quarters, the latter deliberately blinged their products up and increased prices drastically to gain cachet in these markets with some success)

Edit - @rdenney above summed it all up better than I

P.S. Rolex is regarded as a 'B&O Type' product in thw 'high end' watch fraternity I was told. There are far more 'high end' mechanical watches out there with outrageously intricate movements and costing mutiples of the same I gather, Rolex in these circles being looked down on as 'audiophiles' often thought of B&O in past decades.

We seem to be a very tribal species, so par for the course if you can afford it...

"above" is the point!

I think this is the basis of all luxury marketing.
That's because you have to sell it at a high price. And this is something that new luxury brands have a hard time pursuing.

It's shocking that they hung a gold price tag in the eastern market. They really have a lot of money.

I think Rolex is like B&O or B&W. The really expensive watches are the three brands I mentioned above, and Rolex is a popular luxury brand like Benz or BMW. Just like anyone can buy an A~C class Benz if they want.

In what way 'better?'

I had a discussion about the SMSL SU1 dac, when someone wanted 'better.' Their realistic response was that they wanted more facilities, a display and remote control, possibly of output level as well. This can be done for well under $250 now and some of these boxes have half-decent headphone outputs as well. Moving up to what I think 'we here' feel is a highest end dac for overall performance, the RME certainly does it all at or very near the top of the tree, but I'm sure as you'd feel? that a nicer package to clothe it in would be advantageous. Tis would of course turn a sub $1500 unit into a severak grand one, simply 'cos a decent case in tiny quantities would add substantially to the cost.

You're right. Everyone has different criteria for finding better points.

In audio, if there is no major cash flow problem as of now and the founder dies but his children or associates take over the brand and continue to grow it (like Wilson Audio), wouldn't ultra-expensive products generally show better performance? That's what I meant when I wrote that price and value are related.

As a watch nerd, I relate Rolex with McIntosh. I perceive them both as brands widely known for recognizable (some might say blingy) look and high prices. Consequently, they are often bought by people who want them exactly for that reason - To convey image of wealth.

Oh, right. They both feel similar. Rolls-Royce and Macintosh. They both have a long history, technical value, design features, and other brand values that feel similar.

It's cool to say that they convey an image of wealth.