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RE: If you've got it, indulge yourself

Well, that is all assuming people accept your premise.

Premise 1: Flaunting
Audio isn't a flaunting hobby. Almost no one knows anything about home audio - they think Bose is the best so if you wanted to flaunt for guests you would have Bose. People who come over to my place wouldn't know the brands in my system. They don't have an outlandish appearance. When I owned the Line Magnetic 219ia I did have women think it was cool and took photos of it. Something out of a Frankenstein movie to them no doubt.

My AN gear and this BAT amp aren't exactly known brands to most people. In other words you could build a $300,000 system with this stuff and it wouldn't look flaunting because none of it would look all that expensive.

Premise 2: If you can get near-perfect sound for $600.

If I could I would, but I can't so I didn't. I loved my Honda Civic Hatchback but it isn't a Ferrari. I would have to really live in an alternate reality to force myself into believing that it is so.

As someone who has auditioned $600 preamps and $100,000 preamps I have a different take than you. Which $30,000 preamp have you auditioned? More listening less reading perhaps.

Premise 3: Would you feel it was tasteful to flaunt a $30,000 preamp in world where billions fellow human beings live in rant poverty? At what point does indulgence transcend sanity, good taste, or both?

Well I am liberal so I can sympathize with your take here but I also have to balance my tilting at windows liberalism with the reality of my existence in a world where people look out for themselves only.

The economy has ripple effects. The economy is largely perceptual creation. People say they value education but pay teach shyte. A dimwit with the IQ of his shoe size happens to be a gift punch thrower and we elect to pay the donkey $30,000,000 a fight or a ball player $300 million over 10 years to hit a ball and make it on base safely at a 3/10 clip. Fails 70% of the time. Throw money at him.

We value some donkey $8m a year to write computer code that gives us Pong or some miserable version of Windows that everyone bitches about. We pay failures to make crappy programs a bucket of cash.

This is all out of our control. The system values X worker over Y worker which may perplex you and me I but there you are. Whining about it doesn't;t change it. Some ditz like Paris Hilton can buy and sell everyone who posts on this entire board combined. She is a ditz who has been handed everything in life - so it goes. She could also donate more and solve poverty issues far beyond the capacity of everyone on this board combined.

And here's the thing - the average millionaire on this board who buys a $30k preamp is actually putting his money INTO the economy. The $30k goes to the dealer who can pay his rent for the next 6 months and stay in business paying his employees. Helps keep the light on at BAT and pays for those employees.

The point is the money is injected back into the economy and ripples out to all the companies that are "tied to" BAT - and beyond the USA as maybe parts come from Canada and transformers from Lundahl etc.

No different than spending $30k on a car.

It's the next wealth tier up that you want to get the money from to do something for poverty. Those guys need to buy 10000 $30k amplifiers to boost the economy but they will only buy one too. Those guys need to build infrastructure with their insane money that is sitting doing absolutely nothing.

I go after the guys who have nesting doll yachts, not the guys who spend $200k on a sports car or $100k on a stereo. This money helps the economy. This isn't to say the Yacht also doesn't infuse the economy either but it's more about the stockpile of cash doing zilch.

People have their different lines in the sand.

Of course, I write this from the perspective that my amplifiers currently resale for more than $30,000 too. But yes I made sure to audition Schitt as well.


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