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In Reply to: RE: OMA Ironic posted by Bill Fitzmaurice on August 03, 2014 at 15:25:52
Haven't you heard? Hi-fi today means charging outrageous prices for everything, even the things you can DIY for a few hundred bucks. This is what is killing hi-fi. Young people just starting out cant afford any of it, so they just resign themselves to listening to MP3 files on their phone with ear buds. Sad, really...
Follow Ups:
Hornlover and Bill F., I very much agree with the two of you about outrageously priced audio components. This reminds me of Paul McGowan's daily online blog today. I hope I'm not breaking any rules to copy and paste part of it here. It is:
" How could it be any good?
Got a note from a reader concerning the new power amplifier I wrote about here. “Your new amp is going to sell for seven thousand and you write the goal is to make the best in the world. Really? How could it be any good at that price?” I was pretty shocked to read that. I am not sure what to write back.
Do we still equate price and performance even when we’re talking thousands of dollars? It’s true the new amp is less than some. I’ve seen amps reaching into the many tens of thousands of dollars. It is also true it’s significantly higher than many.
Does price give products permission to lay claim to greatness? I am sure we’d all like to think we’re above this and rely strictly on performance. But I fear we may be kidding ourselves. This whole subject confuses and confounds me.
At my age I don’t want to make products that compete within a category. We’ve done that for years. “Best in class.” Boring. Time’s too short. I want to make products that actually are the best.
I wonder if within our culture the idea of price vs. performance isn’t so ingrained as to be immovable?"
Some poor Bozo is bothered that the amp is ONLY going to cost seven grand. How could it possibly be worth a damn?
I think this clearly illustrates what the two of you mean.
I believe I have one of the best amps in the world. It cost me less than 1/4 of seven grand used. But then it only outputs 10 watts or so into the speakers it drives. It is the most expensive power amp I ever bought.
The adage 'A fool and his money are soon parted' may pre-date the advent of audio gear by five centuries but it still applies.
One more thing. Throughout history, fools have been reproducing, so it's more than sound propagation!
> Throughout history, fools have been reproducing
+1, like the poor God must surely love the stupid, He certainly keeps cranking them out.
Right on Bill.
Like the guy on Ebay who had some beat up old Western Electric drivers for sale for a ridiculous amount of money.
It wasn't based on audio performance, more about historical museum grade rarity and lots of text.
Amen to that Bill!
I'm listening to: Bluebird Fly by Jessica Lee
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Totally agree. That's how I got back into hifi, after 25 years away - discovered SETs and the loonies that build them by scrounging dumpsters for old TVs to get parts - they seemed to be having so much more fun that the guys competing to see who could spend more for speaker cables!
These days it seems the young and poor are into headphones, much more affordable and well adapted to small apartments and frequent moving, not to mention roommates who don't like your favorite music!
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