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Hi Stereophile,
It's time to bring back the Audio Cheapskate. After reading those letters in the latest issue, which were really good, I got to the 170 thousand dollar amps review.
Micheal Fremer pointed right off that whats the point of spending that kind of money on what (most) people spend on 2 or even several cars.
Hey Stereophile, not all your readers are driving brand new BMW's.
There should be room in your mag. to bring back some sort of cheapskate subject as Sam Tellig did. It would only increase your circulation and make some Hifi fans,who drive beaters, feel like they weren't snubbed by the country club....sincerely, Jack Benny....Mark Korda
Follow Ups:
I agree and decided this month to let my stereophile subscription lapse.
My decision to drop stereophile was based on two factors:
#1:the preponderance of reviews of ridiculously priced equipment.
#2:the lack of effort on the part of stereophile to identify those electronic measurements that correlate to the sound qualities described in text by the reviewers. Too much of a disconnect between the electronic measurements and the reviewer text leads me to believe the whole equipment review thing is way too subjective to mean much.
There must be something wrong with me for not having something wrong.
was popular and very interesting written in a romantic ambiance. JA2 could consider bringing in a similar feature. But how cheap can we get? For tuneful bass we need to spend! Those Wharfedale 10 and PSBs did not have it.
Bill
I enjoyed reading of his experience in progressively learning about audio reproduction. He was able to communicate the enthusiasm most of us felt when initially dipping our toes in, and his surprise at the "ah ha" moments we take for granted. As he moved along he was able to articulate why changes (at his level of exploration) were audible.
Hi,
Hope you don't mind me diving in, but you're 100% correct about the importance of affordable gear. We've always maintained a site called www.SoundStageAccess.com for that reason, but more important, one year ago, for the site I run under our umbrella, www.SoundStageHiFi.com, I began a column called "System One" that focuses exclusively on affordable gear.
I set up an entirely an entirely new system, different room, for this project. I expected it might be popular -- but I underestimated how popular. It's the most popular feature that we've launched in at least 10 years. Obviously, I'll be continuing it on -- and it's something I really enjoy. You can find the link to it below. Of course, I'll still be writing about gear no matter the cost.
Doug Schneider
SoundStage!
Hi Mark, thanks for the note. I just happened to check out AA and saw it. It's true: You''ll reach us more reliably if you contact us on our own site, or send a letter to the editor.
There's a wide range of audiophiles with a wide range of incomes and tastes--and a lot of people who can't afford the ... um ... pricier stuff enjoy reading about it anyway. Since I took over, we've had a pretty even balance of quite affordable and quite expensive stuff--and some stuff in the middle. That's the way I aim to keep it.
My Best to you and to all.
Jim Austin, Editor
Stereophile
Why does a review of something that neither you or I can afford upset you? Was it not just interesting in its own right like reading a review of a Bugatti in a motoring magazine or the burgundy wines of Romanée Conti in a wine magazine? After all Stereophile is a hobby magazine that covers a range of topics. It's not simply a buyer's guide.
Personally I would find any magazine that never strayed from products at or below my budget extremely boring with a utilitarian outlook and providing nothing to aim for or dream about.
Besides Stereophile already reviews many items that the average audio enthusiast can not only aspire to but can buy right now. Like, in the same issue, the JBL Stage A179 floorstanders ( $500 a pair). Or should I complain as I am not interested in $500 speakers ?
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
Although I agree with pretty much all of your points, over the years the various audio publications have tended to drift toward being audiophile versions of the Robb Report. It'd be nice if a wider range of products were covered. Stereophile seems to be headed that way, so I guess we'll see. Presumably, if a wider range of products are covered, a wider audience would read the magazine. Presumably, again, that would lead to more pages so neither end of the economic spectrum would be shorted. Road and Track, for example, reviews both Bugatti's and VW GTI's.
This does bring up a wider topic. That is, the basic economics of the audio biz.
A friend of mine - no longer with us - once told me that his distributors in Asia only were able to sell products priced at less than about $600 US, or more than $50K US. The middle was hollowed out.
Assuming that is really still true, I'd presume that audio manufacturers produce products to fit that market structure. So, at one end you have AudioQuest Dragonfly DAC's and various Schiit products. At the other end you have products that you basically can never see or hear before purchase. (There's obviously some exceptions to that.) Not as much in the middle as you might expect.
I've also seen some recent examples where a product that has a BOM cost of $200-300, including assembly, sells for several thousand dollars. (I could build one myself, with no quantity buying power, for about $400, including professional pc boards and the same cabinetry. I priced it out, for fun.) Yeah, there's obviously more to the equation than the BOM, but 15-20x mark-up? Perhaps that just reflects a minuscule market out there. Dunno.
So, maybe I've addressed my own point. That is, perhaps there is a reason why fewer mid priced products are reviewed - they barely exist.
Back in the mid 70's, one of the peaks of the audio business, a college kid or recent grad would typically spend about $400 on a stereo system. Some more, some less. That's roughly $2000 in 2019 US dollars. What can you buy for that price today? There's certainly products in that range, but they aren't in the middle of the bell curve, that seems for sure. At least to me.
Audio equipment pricing , like the pricing of luxury goods in general, can be complex and does not just involve the base material costs plus a reasonable margin but also the perception of the consumer as to the desirability ( rather than utility) of the product ( think of perfume).
I think that your friend with Asian distributors of his product is probably correct. I had a conversation years ago with the maker of some of the most expensive digital audio equipment who said that his Asian agents had one consistent complaint - it wasn't expensive enough. There is, for the rich, a culture of wealth display and this may have nothing whatsoever to do with the performance or reputation (beyond cost) of the equipment per se ( which they may, or may not, ever actually use). There is certainly equipment specifically made for that market and there is equipment where the basic item would be expensive by our standards in any case but which is further enhanced cosmetically to attract that ultra wealthy Asian market.
As for mark-up BOM is only one contributor to costs of production. There are also minor issues like paying the guys making it, taxes, factory rental (or mortgage),heating, lighting and other power requirements, financing production machinery, the cost of supporting warranty claims, transportation, advertising, insurance etc. etc. Even after paying all of these costs you have only reached the factory gate without selling a thing. Thereon distribution has to be financed , usually a margin added by a third party, then there's the retailer's margin. There may also be further taxes on the sale, say, 20% VAT approx here in the EU. So a product may sell for multiples of BOM costs but never make a profit for the manufacturer. I can think of one very famous piece of audio equipment, still in production, where this is the case though I can't reveal what it is or my source. As far as I can tell it continues as it is a fundamental part of that manufacturer's market identity and serves to help them sell other products.
I don't think that it is as simple as the middle market being hollowed out. Since the 1980s there has been a third sector added - the high end or ultra high end. This really didn't exist before and many of the direct predecessors of today's middle market products were at the top of the market in their day with prices that ( adjusted for inflation) we regard as moderate now but in their time were considered eye-watering.
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
I should've been clearer.
A lot of the electronic goods "manufactured" in the USA are actually outsourced. In many cases, it's to local manufacturers who specialize in that service. (Asian manufacturing may require higher volumes than audio products can ever demand.) So, when I suggested that the BOM included cost of assembly, that covered a lot of the additional items that you listed under one lump sum.
Certainly, that does not include R&D (although that is also often outsourced - hardly a new phenomenon), and the various other businessy activities you mention like marketing, sales support, and so on.
Still, companies like Schiit have most of the same expenses with the exception of activities that they get around by selling direct, which adds its own expenses.
I still maintain that the middle of the industry is very shallow. Whether this is because of demand or supply - probably both, since they are tightly coupled - I don't know. I'm not in the audio business. If you consider that most people by definition want something in the middle, it's peculiar that there's relatively few products there by comparison. That suggests to me that, as you say, there's an ultra high end and the stuff that's inexpensive by comparison.
My own belief is that trying to recreate live performance at home is pretty much impossible. Not necessarily because of technology limits, but because most recorded music is not engineered or intended to sound like live performance, whether in a music hall or in a studio. So, there's nothing to recreate. There's exceptions of course, but imagine that you are a fan of contemporary music, as I imagine most younger folks are. What live anything is there to recreate? Is there a point in spending money on an attempt to do so? Even if you try your best, will the overall sound be better than listening to the same music in your earbuds from your phone? That's not necessarily a criticism of anybody in the production chain - just an observation. So, why spend the money and other resources on trying to do so?
Thanks CG, interesting points. I'll comment on a couple.
"If you consider that most people by definition want something in the middle, it's peculiar that there's relatively few products there by comparison"
That does seem rational but speaking with people, I don't think that most people do want something in the middle. For most the prices that we may see as middle market are still way, way ahead of anything that they would contemplate on spending on an audio system. They just want something that plays their songs, isn't too physically dominating and doesn't cost the equivalent of a month's salary. So I think that most people want low cost items (by audiophile expenditure standards).
" My own belief is that trying to recreate live performance at home is pretty much impossible. "
I completely agree. It is wrong-headed as well as being being impossible because the record itself does not contain a facsimile of the live performance. It is a confection. However there is merit in trying to reproduce the record as best as one can. Incidentally in 55 years of this hobby I have only heard two systems that I thought began to sound pretty close to live music. Both were huge and cost in the million dollar + area (for a single source, amplification and speakers + wires only). But I have heard many other systems which were so good that any further pursuit of better sound seemed irrelevant to me. But these were not inexpensive either.
As for what young people listen to and whether good sound has relevance I am simply too old to possess the ability to judge or comment. But they do seem to like pod speakers in mono :-).
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
Hey! Don't knock mono! We have a restored RCA 9T that sounds glorious. Sadly, there isn't much in the way of AM programming that isn't completely wretched in our reception area.
My only quibble with your comments is this:
"For most the prices that we may see as middle market are still way, way ahead of anything that they would contemplate on spending on an audio system."
Back in the 70's college kids could not wait to spend $300-500 on a stereo system. That's roughly $2000 in today's dollars. I know it's not directly comparable, but a new car in the USA in 19875 sold on average for $3800 - roughly 10x the price of a stereo system then. The average transaction price for a light vehicle in the USA this year is about $36k.
You can take my argument either that the relative desirability of a stereo system has dropped significantly in the past 40+ years - a very real possibility - or that even if there really is demand, there's inadequate "supply" in that price area, whether due to lack of sales outlets or lack of gear. Compared to inflation the desirability of a new car or truck has gone up, while that for a stereo system has gone down.
Obviously, I don't know the answer to that.
One quick anecdote about the realism of systems.
At a NYC show sponsored by Stereophile back around 1990, Richard Sequerra was showing a system that was pretty much all his own products. The room had very few visitors - by comparison, The Sound by Singer demo room of Krell products and I can't remember what else right down the hall had a waiting line that stretched beyond Sequerra's room.
My wife and I weren't much interested in either Krell or long lines, so we went in and sat down in the Sequerra room, where he was playing recording he had made using a DAT recorder of his local opera company. I'm not a fan of opera, but that was easily the most realistic playback I've ever heard in a demo room. I heard someone cough, and turned to look at who it was. It was in fact on his recording.
Several years later, my daughter was in a holiday concert at her elementary school. I thought it would be a good thing to record it as a keepsake. The audio equivalent of a home movie, if you like.
So, I purchased a Sony Walkman Pro recorder and a pair of binaural microphones that attached to my eyeglasses. I spent about 15 minutes prior to the concert learning the controls and how to operate the machine - just enough to not screw up. I sat in the back of the room, made sure not to cough or sneeze and to turn the tape over at the right time. Mission accomplished.
A couple days later, I thought of listening to the tape. I didn't expect much in the way of sound quality - that wasn't the point. But, even just taking the output from that same Walkman Pro into our living room system provided a kind of revelation. The sound quality was better than 99% of the recordings played through that same system. Obviously, that wasn't because of the gear I used or any skill on my part. It just showed to me that commercial recordings are pretty much not intended to recreate an actual performance.
Thanks again for your comments. I wouldn't knock mono per se, after all I run a proper mono vinyl system. I really meant mono Pod speakers in the sense that stereo isn't a priority for young people or, indeed, for many others. I was a real estate agent for a number of years and , despite visiting hundreds of properties, I never saw a properly set up stereo system. The two channels' speakers on top of one another behind the sofa, sure.
Re: doing your own recordings and the realism that can result, absolutely:-). As I said " the record itself does not contain a facsimile of the live performance. It is a confection".
A $500 system in 1970? I think that there may be a cultural difference between my country and the USA. I would say that no British kid at college in 1970 could have afforded a system the equivalent of $2K, a tenth of it would have been more like it and preferably less. A year before in 1969 I was the only person in my college who had stereo! Or, indeed, anything other than what I think you call a suitcase record player.
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
Well, as I said, the high end might've been $500. It was typically lower.
But, college did not cost then what it does today. And, it was obviously a different time.
I will say that this amount might have been somewhat tilted because this was a nerd school, rather than a more wide ranging school where you'd find language and history majors. For some reason, the liberal arts majors I knew at various other schools weren't as focused on gear of any kind.
Hi, CG,
What do you consider to be the "middle of the bell curve" in today's markekt? Even back in the 1970's a $400 stereo wasn't considered in the middle of the lineup. With careful shopping, you can purchase a pretty decent stereo for $2000. A $400 stereo (including a source other than FM radio) in 1975 wouldn't be near the quality of sound as what you can buy today for an equivalent price. At least in my experience.
Tom
I'm suggesting that if there really is a bell curve, it's inverted. There's sales at the low end of the market and sales at the top end. Ford Fiestas and Bentleys, if you like - not many Jeeps or Accords. Since there may be a very small market for the Jeep/Accord equivalents, maybe not so many companies are even supporting what I suggested the middle might be, based on inflation.
While I agree that a $400 stereo system in 1975 dollars is not as good as a $2000 stereo today, that's what I'd call 40 years of progress. (BTW, I based the $400 number on what I saw my friends at that time purchase. If you want to say that the number was $600, then today's equivalent is $3000. I still believe that compared to the ultra high end and the less expensive gear, the middle of the market - if it still exists - is underrepresented.)
Perhaps the conclusion is that what was considered "pretty much good enough" back then can be bought for about the same price today, but *not* in dollars inflated by a factor of five. That is, maybe $400 today is considered "pretty much good enough." That really might be true in terms of usable performance, too, as I suggested to PAR just above.
Again, this is only my observation of the products on the market. If the middle of the market was big, I'd think you would see more products there than anywhere else, much as with the automobile market. Wouldn't you?
Anyway, I'm not trying to defend Stereophile or its content here; I'm just suggesting that their reviews may well be representative of the products available today.
Now that you've explained your intent a bit more I do agree, the middle of the audio gear spectrum is not representative of what's out there. At least not with past audio component reviews that I've read. But then again, that isn't necessarily the goal of audio publications. Commonly available middle ground gear probably doesn't entice as many magazine sales (not subscriptions) as the exotic stuff. Maybe it's my own bias but I think there has been an attempt to have the belly of the curve flatten out a bit.
Tom
Here is *my* problem with all of it.
Let's assume, just for the moment, that only two market segments exist and therefore there are only two strata of products. One being very affordable in a real sense, as in something you might buy your kid or your brother for her/his birthday. The other being what people often label as "aspirational". In other words, stuff you can't go listen to at some outlet and are very unlikely to be able to afford. (It's interesting that within an hour or so drive of my house, I can go to two McLaren showrooms, a Bugatti showroom, more than one Ferrari emporium, and so on. Very little of what is reviewed in the audio magazines is available for viewing, never mind listening, within that same area.)
Inevitably, there will be lots of innovation at the affordable end of things, even if it's just in ways to drive costs down. That's often interesting to read about, especially if you're comparison shopping.
At the other end, what we've often seen is not technical innovation or performance gains, however small. Instead, it's often packaging and basic bling.
I don't know about you, but I have a limited diet for reading about the latter. The bling, I mean. When those products are the bulk of what's reviewed in a magazine, and I'm *not* pointing a finger at Stereophile here, I think most people get the idea that being an audiophile is all about wretched excess and foolishness, not about listening to music. (I suppose they could be right, too!) That actually may steer the overall market offerings. I'm not keen on that. But, I just might be crabby, too. :8^)
People may buy a car magazine because they want to read about a new Koenigsegg Agera RS, but they may be even more interested in reading about a new GTI, Civic Type R, or even a new Jaguar SUV that they may have seen on the highway or might want to buy some day. But, if equivalent products don't even exist any longer, they obviously won't get reviewed.
Ah, yes, the bling thing. It is humorous, I think, that some people are so obsessed with bling that they're willing to spend a LOT of money to have it on display. But it's their money not mine. Unfortunately bling is what audio publications often want/need to show case so that's what we're going to see more of. As I said, I think it's getting better. Maybe what pragmatic audiophiles need is an audiophile-type Consumer Reports. I'd certainly buy a magazine like that.
Tom
Right, hardly anyone does. Sounds exactly like what you'r looking for, though :-)
I don't think Consumer Reports is the answer, but I take your point.
On that subject, one of the very strange aspects of the audio world is that very sophisticated measurements, way beyond simple THD and amplitude flatness, are available now. Yet, you don't see them discussed much.
Personally, I don't think that measurements yet tell the entire story, but something beyond what we currently are shown might be enlightening.
that column was great at first then tellig started redifining the word so he could review increasingly costly items. there are consistently affordable products available that the reviewer can maintain the initial intention of the column title.
if the cheapskate comes back as a column, lets ask to have it remain for the affordable. for instance, i would love to see a review of the new adcom line. i have a 555II which i consider to be a best buy for high power, high current amps.
lets do it!
...regards...tr
The pair I had was older, with the front handles, affectionately referred to as the Triple Nickle. I moved to other gear and sold the pair to a friend with IMF transmission speakers. Still wonderful to this day and never a fault. A Nelson Pass design, nuff said.
Shouldn't this be sent to Stereophile rather than posted here?
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it. ~ Bernard Bailey
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