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In Reply to: Re: sure John / and Bruce posted by jim@signalpath on April 25, 2007 at 07:27:49:
"While I think that organizations like PARA and the CEA have done a lot of good for our industry, they've done a terrible job of creating demand for high end audio and video in the average home. Why is it that people won't think twice about spending tens of thousands of dollars on Jacuzzis, raised hearth firplaces, granite top kitchen and bathroom counters, Viking stoves, and Bosch appliances, but as soon as you mention a $30,000 theater or $15,000 listening room they absolutely cringe?"Well, let's think about that for a minute. All of the items you mention bring added value into the sale of a home. So they become investments with a financial return. You might get away with calling a home theater an "investment", esp. if it's outfitted like the rooms shown on "this Old House" and "Hometime" like shows. Problem is, none of these rooms are actually set up for sound. Listening rooms and WAF or even decorator's sensibilities typically don't co-exist. Just pulling the speakers into the room gets most people to throw a fit. How do you think they'd handle room treatments, equipment racks, and big cables across the floor?
Follow Ups:
Bob, I'm going to mildly disagree::if you look at the work that custom installers do...distributed audio and video..home theaters...media rooms...custom lighting...LANs...etc...etc.. All of those appointments are value added additions to the home. I would place them above swimming pools and outdoor hot tubs, which are sometimes a negative ( personal experience ) and below high end bathroom and kitchen additions like granite counter tops, custom tiles, and high-end fixtures.
dedicated listening rooms are a tough sell. Integrating them in to a theater seems to be the current demand; sometimes with less than satisfactory results.
Jim you got me here....I did say that properly designed home theater installs might be considered an investment - see my comment on "This Old House" and "Hometime" featured installations. But I will argue that most of the time, when I see pictures of these setups, the focus is on the visual, not the sonics. I've seen pictures with Watt/Puppies placed against the wall and close to the corners. Same with 801s and 802s, or worse, inwall speakers with inwall subs. I'll occasionally take a look at the AV mags and I don't recall many (if any) feature stories on installing speakers for proper soundstaging, or even proper speaker placement.
sorry, Bob. reread your post and see that we're pretty much agreeing.the mention of custom installation is important for several reasons. The most important being :: In many cases it's the only way that high performance products can make it in to the home. ( WAF...) And, if industry statistice were available you'd see that a lot more of what we consider high end audio is sold through the retail installation channel than through the internet or over-the-counter retail. I will exclude "used" sales for obvious reasons.
Of course, unlike the home improvements you mention, we can take the hifi system with us.But I hear you. There’s much progress to be made in the area of promoting the aesthetic acceptance of a high-end system in a particular room in the house. Baby steps? In any case, there’s a lot of middle ground to be covered between what most of us think of as a music system and the two Bose speakers tucked away on a shelf that most people think is the pinnacle of musical entertainment in the home.
John, I understand youe feelings about the middle ground, but let's face it, in both your example and Jim's the demo systems are on the extreme end of the spectrum. The question is how would the same people react if the demo system were say... Creek and Epos? Is there a definable point for the general public where the reaction goes from ehh! to WOW this is worth investing in?
Hi Bob,I suppose that middle ground will vary with each potential purchaser, but I’ve dropped jaws with fairly modest systems such as a pair of ACI Sapphire XLs and a Musical Fidelity A5 integrated. In such cases what people are responding to, mostly I think, is a properly set up system. Most people don’t even know what the object of a stereo pair of speakers is. Invariably they’ll point between the speakers with amazement that it sounds like there’s someone standing there. They have no idea that this elementary part of the experience even exists.
In raw numbers I have no idea how many budding audiophiles are out there to be shown the light, but I can say that I’ve prompted my share of people to buy systems and I’ve helped many others to maximize what they have. Who knows what could be accomplished with a little more awareness.
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