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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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In Reply to: Just for you, JA posted by Charles Hansen on May 2, 2012 at 05:07:11:
A couple more things:
"Of course we do offer sonic upgrades (at a reasonable cost) if and when we determine how to improve the performance of a given design. But that is a different story altogether."It is, but it reminds me that it's not uncommon for manufacturers--usually at the lower end of the market--to "upgrade" a unit in order to lower their manufacturing costs. To be clear, I am NOT talking about Ayre here. This can be legitimate--sometimes you can improve sound while saving money--but more often, I suspect, it's a way of spinning cost-cutting as improvement. (Certainly it's an improvement for the manufacturer--just not the customer. Industry associations in some industries give awards for this sort of thing: Congratulations to ABC Industries for increasing their profits while fooling their customers! Congratulations to XYZ Foods for figuring out how to get customers to pay $15 for a jar of strawberry jam!)
Also notable that many manufacturers will make changes to their design or (more often) parts over time without telling customers, whether it's because the old part became unavailable or because they found what they think is a better part. Either way, if you trust the manufacturer's judgment--and probably you should if you're going to invest in their expensive equipment--then this either doesn't matter or is a good thing. But, given that sound is subjective, it does make it likely that the sound of your unit will vary from the review unit. (This is also an argument for continuing to review--and measure--older designs--CAT, Vandersteen 3, some Ayre units--over time, as Stereophile has often done. This practice has the added advantage of NOT motivating manufacturers towards planned obsolescence (or at least frequent changes in the product lineup).
And then there is the fact that tubes--which I continue to enjoy--are a huge and difficult to control (for consumers at least) source of sample-to-sample variation. Charles mentioned break-in in solid-state gear, but with tubes the performance of a product continues to evolve over the lifetime of a set of tubes. For some people, that's just part of the fun.
Jim
Edits: 05/02/12
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Follow Ups
- Thanks Charles - Jim Austin 05:39:08 05/02/12 (1)
- Value Engineering - Tony Lauck 12:08:46 05/02/12 (0)
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