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In Reply to: RE: auditioning is irrelevant posted by morricab on July 06, 2015 at 02:13:09
..than they were 15 years ago, due to the explosion of the IT markets and the explosion of the 'world' economy since the 90s, when the Chinese got 'most favoured nation' status in the US and almost all remaining manufacturing moved there.
There is more than ever low performance low cost material being manufactured than ever before in the electronics industry, meaning the actual materials costs (supply of the raw materials is ultimately limited by actual availability and higher costs to mine, etc.) have increased on the whole.
At the retail level, only the very low volume stuff can be really good, and prices increase virtually exponentially with low volume (who can live on designing and manufacturing expensive pieces that only a few people buy? Almost no one.)
Follow Ups:
"At the retail level, only the very low volume stuff can be really good"
The deal is (IMHO) that to this day we still don't have a comprehensive handle on the factors and their limits that are necessary to control to insure the best listening experience. Bummer.
The implementation is a level below that and really should be driven by it. Currently that is not typically the case so our systems tend to be "tuned" rather than "optimized" because we don't know what optimization means. It has nothing directly to do with production volume.
Rick
It is unfortunate that the review magazines (SP in particular) tend to think so little in terms of system synergy and review components as such.
But this is market and cost-driven (SP for example, won't review anything that isn't available in a dealer network, for advertising reasons IMO).
Consumers then come to think of components as better than other components at what they do (in traditional component categories), when everything should really be designed with the whole chain in mind.
The market has moved towards swiss army knives of audio to save costs,
True optimization is expensive because 1) each listening room is different 2) every recording is different 3) ears vary 4) only the super rich can afford optimization.
It's what keeps people on the 'upgrade mill', in addition to just getting tired of the way their mid fi electronics are reproducing the recording.
By the way, in our focus on the reproduction, we forget that the recording and mastering is also crucial. Give me a great recording on a boombox ANY DAY over a poor recording on the world's most expensive stereo.
And it does, indirectly, have to do with production volume. Everyone's tastes, ears, and rooms are different, just as every piece of music is different. Making products that reproduce them all with reasonable facsimile is truly an engineering miracle, which is only made 'affordable' with mass production.
Even the most expensive amplifier uses production parts, not one-offs.
"It is unfortunate that the review magazines (SP in particular) tend to think so little in terms of system synergy and review components as such."
Well, in a way I think they're kinda stuck. The potential field configurations are almost limitless and the device I/O's are poorly specified especially for out-of-band susceptibility and emission and longitudinal currents.
On the other hand for users, say me for instance, it's a different story. If I am changing just one link in the signal chain and anticipate relative stability in the rest of the system's environment then it's a matter of finding the best fit for my particular case. My dealer allows trials and when I find a good fit, I keep it. Maybe crude but It has proven quite effective...
Rick
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