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In Reply to: Assembling a Good Audio System – black art or not? posted by John C. - Aussie on March 1, 2006 at 19:08:28:
with sufficient effort. Effort is the combination of experience, knowledge, and money applied to the problem (labor, brains, and capital in a business context). To a limited extent, these are fungible, so that the kleptocrat with no time to spend studying the subject can buy very expensive components and hire the expert to assemble them, while the poor but diligent student can scrounge and hack together something very cheap that delivers equally satisfactory sound.The tradeoffs are not linear, though. It is much easier to get good sound with a reasonable balance of these inputs than it is to use one of them alone. I believe this fact explains the rancor behind many of the inmates' judgemental posts. There is a group of ignorami who bitch about the prices of refined components. There is another, overlapping, group of engineer wannabees that thinks every tweak is snake-oil. None of these benighted souls has satisfactory sound, but they seek to blame a corrupt marketplace rather than their own ignorance, and abuse this forum to find mutual support.
Follow Ups:
> > It is much easier to get good sound with a reasonable balance of
> > these inputs than it is to use one of them alone.
Indeed!
> > I believe this fact explains the rancor behind many of the inmates'
judgmental posts.
OK maybe not understanding this fact does explain some inmate’s behavior or perceptions but I disagree with how you've incompletely applied it in your follow-up comment.> > There is a group of ignorami who bitch about the prices of refined
> > components.
Sure but what's this got do with the fact you refer to above - bitching about the high cost of audio is one thing but and even you admit above that knowledge and understanding can go along way towards making up for a lack of money. Having little or no knowledge and simply paying a dealer lots of money for a refined audio system seems even less likely to yield satisfactory results than choosing components by throwing darts at Stereophile recommended components lists.I do agree in general that the best audio does come with increased spending combined with experience and knowledge. What bothers me as much as those who whine that all expensive audio is useless audio jewelry (IMO much of it is) is those who believe spending money with a minimum of knowledge or experience actually makes them deserving of audiophile credibility.
> > There is another, overlapping, group of engineer wannabees that
> > thinks every tweak is snake-oil. None of these benighted souls has
> > satisfactory sound, but they seek to blame a corrupt marketplace
> > rather than their own ignorance, and abuse this forum to find
> > mutual support.How would you know that those who think tweaks are snake-oil don't have satisfactory sound? This seems like quite a stretch on your part. Again I kind of agree with your generalization but not completely. But then again, as you did in the first comment, you ignore the second half. How can you explain that every month dozens of components are favorably reviewed in the audio press? Rarely is a comment not good, and maybe 1/2 the time a component is worthy of a recommendations. What does this say about your definition of refinement? Well statistically speaking "refinement", "recommendation" or "highly touted" means absolutely mediocre. And the statistics obviously and completely back up my comment. This is not a charge of corruption, unethical behavior or dishonesty - it's a charge of good business practices along with a charge of a lack of taste and discrimination.
Your comment reveals you to be clearly in one camp and not in the middle. And your Kleptocrat doesn't seem to make sense to me either.
klep•toc•ra•cy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (klp-tkr-s)
n. pl. klep•toc•ra•cies
A government characterized by rampant greed and corruption.
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[Greek kleptein, to steal + -cracy.]
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klepto•crat (-t-krt) n.
klepto•cratic adj.
Give me rhythm or give me death!
"Having little or no knowledge and simply paying a dealer lots of money for a refined audio system seems even less likely to yield satisfactory results than choosing components by throwing darts at Stereophile recommended components lists."This assumes the dealer is a crook or jerk. I know a few dealers. They are neither crooks nor jerks, and try very hard to provide equipment and systems that meet their customers' needs. The recent thread by Srajan shows a large number of similar experiences by other inmates.
Perhaps you have not had the good fortune to meet such a dealer. However, even if you have not, to what camp does your comment suggest you belong?
> > This assumes the dealer is a crook or jerk.Baloney! I know many nice, friendly and helpful dealers - in fact I consider some of them my friends.
I've never met a crooked dealer.
But what I know as fact, it is not an assumption, is that few dealers have any clue to what I like. And those that do who are far and few.
> > Perhaps you have not had the good fortune to meet such a dealer.
LOL! Most of the dealers I know are very good people but this has nothing to do with whether or not I would like they system they assembled for me if I heaped a pile of money at their feet.
What does that say about you?
The real question though is what does it say about audiophiles who think they can dump a bunch of money on a dealers doorstep and believe they can have a worthy and satisfying setup? What it says to me is that these buyers are most likely not discriminating or particular and probably easy to please when it comes to buying an audio system.
Give me rhythm or give me death!
Should have known Don T wouldn't leave a good post unassailed as he rides his usual hobbyhorses off in all directions. :-)
There's no question the audio world is littered with ignorami bitches and benighted engineer wannabees but what's troubling about Al's post is he's willing to give those who spend freely a pass while casting stones at those who do so less willingly.IMO spending has nothing to do with whether one is an ignorami bitch or a beknighted engineer wannabee.
Give me rhythm or give me death!
How on earth did you get that out of my post?The one nice thing we can say about kleptocrats is that they are too busy making money to waste time posting drivel on this forum.
Sure you did by focusing your attention on the hard core objectivists and those who believe spending money doesn't bring rewards. You know your ignorant and benighted comments.Of course, in general, I was in agreement with your comments. I just felt you didn't give the flip side of the extremes their rightful due.
The benighted and ignorant kleptocrats with fancy audio equipment do not read or post on this forum, so there is no point in discussing their contributions to it.
Yea sure the non-audiophile doctors, lawyers, pro atheletes, etc. who make up a big share of the high end market probably don't read this forum. As if any audiophile should be jealous of the sound many of these top dollar systems are delivering to their non-audiophile owners.But lo and behold there's a number of audiophiles from the ranks who are willing to argue that jealousy is the main reason why one would criticise an expensive audio system. LOL - as if very expensive poorly matched, setup, selected or just bad sounding systems and equipment don't exist in the homes of the very wealthy.
There's no counting how many times I've been charged with being blinded by envy or jealousy because I claimed a stereo that costed more than mine sounded bad - it's one of the most ridiculus charges ever rendered as if simply because it costs more it should sound better. Such "beliefs" seem almost common on this forum.
It's hardly revelatory to find an expensive audio system that doesn't sound good - in fact it the norm not an exception even in dealer showrooms.
So sure it's fine that you picked on the frugal objectivist and less fortunate - but you did seem to forget those that are or long to be benighted and ignorant kleptocrats with fancy audio equipment.
nt
nt
You nailed it.
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