Jeff Dorgay of Tone Audio says "yes."
What do you think?
What do you think?
Is High End Audio Gear Worth the Money?
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
A big thank you to Ron for being kind enough to post this. Gosh, I'm hoping I have a few more people on THIS forum that agree with me. I truly love the level of enthusiasm out here and the mega systems. I'd like to hang out here more, but not always hours in the day. I will make it a point if you all think it's ok.
I always worry that as publisher of TONE, what I have to say will be tainted by the fact that I have advertisers, so...
But I do really enjoy the level of systems, and knowledge that is here.
I always worry that as publisher of TONE, what I have to say will be tainted by the fact that I have advertisers, so...
But I do really enjoy the level of systems, and knowledge that is here.
I largely agree with Jeff in his video.
Relatedly:
1) I think that sound quality is only slightly correlated with cost.
2) Sometimes high pricing of high-end components does not result in super high-quality components or amazing build quality or bulletproof reliability. Sometimes the high price is a function of one or more of very low production quantities, marketing expenditures and manufacturer/distributor/dealer pricing structure.
Relatedly:
1) I think that sound quality is only slightly correlated with cost.
2) Sometimes high pricing of high-end components does not result in super high-quality components or amazing build quality or bulletproof reliability. Sometimes the high price is a function of one or more of very low production quantities, marketing expenditures and manufacturer/distributor/dealer pricing structure.
I agree with you 100% on this. And truly, low production quantity always means expensive.
At a lower price point, look at the $4,200 Technics 1200G. Because Panasonic has such a large scale of manufacturing, they can build and sell this table at this price. I'm sure if a smaller, more bespoke mfr made this table, it would not have the level of execution, and would probably cost 10k. Same for their 20k model.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
I don’t think that higher price always means better quality. The best things are usually more costly but because it’s higher priced does not mean it’s better or even good .
People expect a level of fit and finish when the spend a significant amount no matter what they purchase . I don’t think audio is any different as these products go into peoples homes and looks do matter .
The performance level of product and the results are not a function of price.
I think lack of consistency of result and a real lack of information and understanding of how to get the best result in consumers homes significantly influences these rants on line. High End audio is not plug and play
People expect a level of fit and finish when the spend a significant amount no matter what they purchase . I don’t think audio is any different as these products go into peoples homes and looks do matter .
The performance level of product and the results are not a function of price.
I think lack of consistency of result and a real lack of information and understanding of how to get the best result in consumers homes significantly influences these rants on line. High End audio is not plug and play
Really good point there as well "not plug and play" I think a lot of gear has a "sweet spot/point of diminishing returns," but some want to go as far as things can go.
The real thing I was trying to drive home here is how tired I am of all the new YouTubers telling the world that great audio doesn't matter and isn't worth it. How far you decide to take it is up to you. And NO, (whether you approve of them or not) you can't build a pair of 900k Magicos yourself for $5k. that's really the stuff I take offense at.
And I've seen the comments section full of the grumpy guys who can't or won't spend the money on the gear. Seriously, I'm sure all of the people on this forum with the systems and the experience they have, could put together a rocking system in a modest sized room for $5k and be engaged. I've talked to kids that have spent more than this going to see Taylor Swift a few times.
The part about the GT3 RSR that @TPJeff mentioned brought a smile to my face.
About 15 years ago we were in the UK on trip and then headed to the US afterwards.
I went to the Nurburgring and had lined up a car with Rent-4-Ring.
A couple of fellows were there from the Bay Area and rented a turbo charger Opal.
I got the RHD Suzuki Swift with the roll cage, seat, brakes and tyres.
The deductible on it was 4k euros and the GT3 deductible was $45k euros.
Freddy said that the Opal was 35 seconds faster than the Swift.
The track was foggy, sunny, wet, snotty leaf strewn.
I passed 2 GT3s, 2 Audi R8s a couple of Ducati bikes.
At the end of the day (my 8 lap pass) the 2 Bay Area fellows (not a couple, just some guys from Microsoft.)
They said, ‘you better go first because our car is faster.’
And back at the rental place they said, ‘you just took off.’
I am sure on a nice Sunny and dry day that the other cars would have been dandy.
But I was peddling for all I was worth and clenched with fear.
It was about as much fun as I could take.
Freddy had overheard the conversation as asked me if I had an idea on the lap times.
I said, ‘I think about 9:15.
He said that sounds like about as good as you could expect… not being a regular here…. and that his times are 30 seconds faster in the dry. And that he prefers the Swift to the Opal because it is a lot more fun.
I doubt that people in the other cars and bikes enjoyed their day more.
Then to top it off I want back to the hotel am teirgarten and Sabine’s sister and mother served up the beers.
And similarly listening to some music with the Mrs., or friends, on even a mediocre system… may be just as enjoyable as on a mega system. But I would not know.
About 15 years ago we were in the UK on trip and then headed to the US afterwards.
I went to the Nurburgring and had lined up a car with Rent-4-Ring.
A couple of fellows were there from the Bay Area and rented a turbo charger Opal.
I got the RHD Suzuki Swift with the roll cage, seat, brakes and tyres.
The deductible on it was 4k euros and the GT3 deductible was $45k euros.
Freddy said that the Opal was 35 seconds faster than the Swift.
The track was foggy, sunny, wet, snotty leaf strewn.
I passed 2 GT3s, 2 Audi R8s a couple of Ducati bikes.
At the end of the day (my 8 lap pass) the 2 Bay Area fellows (not a couple, just some guys from Microsoft.)
They said, ‘you better go first because our car is faster.’
And back at the rental place they said, ‘you just took off.’
I am sure on a nice Sunny and dry day that the other cars would have been dandy.
But I was peddling for all I was worth and clenched with fear.
It was about as much fun as I could take.
Freddy had overheard the conversation as asked me if I had an idea on the lap times.
I said, ‘I think about 9:15.
He said that sounds like about as good as you could expect… not being a regular here…. and that his times are 30 seconds faster in the dry. And that he prefers the Swift to the Opal because it is a lot more fun.
I doubt that people in the other cars and bikes enjoyed their day more.
Then to top it off I want back to the hotel am teirgarten and Sabine’s sister and mother served up the beers.
And similarly listening to some music with the Mrs., or friends, on even a mediocre system… may be just as enjoyable as on a mega system. But I would not know.
"Worth the money?" At the high end that Mr Dorgray mostly discusses, depends how the buyer perceives value. Could be:
- Sound quality - Bling factor - Outspend your audiophile friend - Just wanting the most expensive hifi money can buy
or any other number of reasons.
So something can be of great value to one person and far less if any value to someone else. Gryphon Entileon EVO's are of no value to me because they wouldn't fit in my music room.
For hifi that is not essentially bespoke, I'm a strong believer that the market forces prevail and products perceived as value for money will sell and those not perceived as good value won't sell.
- Sound quality - Bling factor - Outspend your audiophile friend - Just wanting the most expensive hifi money can buy
or any other number of reasons.
So something can be of great value to one person and far less if any value to someone else. Gryphon Entileon EVO's are of no value to me because they wouldn't fit in my music room.
For hifi that is not essentially bespoke, I'm a strong believer that the market forces prevail and products perceived as value for money will sell and those not perceived as good value won't sell.
Somehow the “cheap audio men” think it’s all just a big scam to separate unknowing, innocent people from their money.
One fellow here was talking about his Aston Martin. Perfect example. Years ago Bang & Olufsen was kind enough to let me have a DBS for a week to write about the hifi system. What an incredible car!
At the time I was driving an 02 Boxster. Was I out on Aston Martin forums telling owners they were stupid? No. If I had the $, I’d write the check in a heartbeat. Worth every penny to me
Knowledge is more important than money in achieving good sound. The best systems I have ever heard are all DIY projects, or at least involve a substantial amount of DIY input. And the most expensive system I have ever heard sounded so bad that my friend, on hearing a well-known recording of his wife's mentor and close friend (his wife is a top professional singer), could not even recognize her voice. Personally, I really only achieved a satisfactory level of sound quality after I put together my own speakers and amplification. This is because I could tweak the design and components to improve the sound over time, and to make each component work well with the others and with the acoustic environment. The most expensive equipment means nothing if it fails to harmonize with the rest of the system. For me, it is not so much the cost of the equipment but its design and implementation. If it achieves what I want, the cheaper the better.
Pretty utopian, idealistic perspective. And it doesn't address the recent dramatic cost increase in hi end audio msrp's which certainly has no correlation to any typical cost of living matrix. And then there's the endless updates with the commensurate price increases. At what point is R and D paid off?
He seems to suggest that there is some type of nexus between cost and performance. A false argument in my view. Money spent on any audio product and its relative personal value (worth) is an entirely subjective value judgment. In any event, thanks Jeff for the video and welcome to WBF. Best.
He seems to suggest that there is some type of nexus between cost and performance. A false argument in my view. Money spent on any audio product and its relative personal value (worth) is an entirely subjective value judgment. In any event, thanks Jeff for the video and welcome to WBF. Best.
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Can’t say I’ve ever heard a DIY system that ever sounded compelling but that is only my set of data points
A completely separate community from high end audio, but endlessly fascinating. But you really need to be a DIYer to get into the scene, so few traditional audiophiles get to experience it.
Your post explains that your value system is tuned into driving low-slung fast cars. I have zero interest in driving cars fast, so neither a Porsche nor Aston interests me.
About 6 months ago we took a short break that included 3 or 4 days in a place called Roncolo 1888, about 20 miles from Maranello. There were two brothers and their sons staying in the hotel. They were on a Ferrari-related trip, as they had matching cars in the car park, about $750,000 each. At dinner every night it seemed to be a lot of car chat mixed with a bit of opera. They obviously got a lot of pleasure out of their cars and they bonded over them as a family. What they knew about their cars and how they drove them, I have no idea. They certainly weren't stupid.
We've been to the Ferrari museum in Maranello with the kids and had a great time. I was more impressed by the Italian Automobile Museum in Turin. If I had the money, I'd have one of those things as a work of art and put it in my living room. However, even if you buy a Ferrari just to look at it, with fuel added the performance is a given.
There are a lot of similarities with audio, except the marginal returns diminish at a much lower point and the performance is not a given. If you make $0.5m or $1m supercars and their performance is poor, your business will fail. This is proven. There seem to be quite a few audio products that do not seem to be value, not because of their price, but because at that price they should perform a lot better. That said, if an amplifier sounds lousy but someone wants to spend six figures just to look at it as a piece of industrial art, then that's their choice.
Before the rise of the railroads, watches were strictly for the rich. Then utilitarian models were made in high volumes for the railroad workers which also became commonplace for the general population. But fine watches have continued to thrive in their own market. The automobile and the hifi followed the same path. They started out as products for the rich which eventually trickled down to everyone. A high end market remains for the wealthy and that market funds the innovation which eventually trickles down to mass produced products. The markets will sort out the value. If the value isn’t perceived by the market then that product eventually goes away. Seen any large AM Radio consoles lately- in a home? They were once a coveted item. Why doesn’’t anyone make a $10,000 AM Radio today? Because no one would buy it. Yet that is what some models cost 100 years ago in today’s dollars.
So many look at a piece of stereo gear as a box of parts. They are inclined to add up the parts and say this is what it is worth. They have no clue about the development costs, the tooling costs and the investment costs which accrue over the development time of the project. Imagine paying interest payments for four years on a car you bought before you get to even drive it. In the high volume production world manufacturers have to recover their investment money in 1-2 years after product release or it’s not worth it to them. In the luxury market that investment cost must be recovered over far fewer quantities. Brands may even absorb some of that investment cost in their other products and write it off as R&D.
It’s not really about cost as much as market value. If a buyer perceives value in the product for a certain price then that is what the product is worth. If a manufacturer cannot produce the product for a profit at that price then they won’t. Eventually the market adjusts or the product goes away. Notice how car prices have increased above inflation these past 5 years? And yet the auto industry is in trouble. The auto market is adjusting perceived value to cost and this even affects the used car market.
One of the things I learned about electronics while managing a test equipment group is that high resolution circuits have to be tweaked and tuned. The calibration of a particular circuit might take a technician many hours to get working to spec because it requires sorting through capacitors and resistors. The tolerances of these components are not tight enough to simply drop in and meet the performance requirements of the circuit. I’m sure this is true for hifi. Mid fi can tolerate variations in components but hifi cannot. I know this also because my cousin has been refurbishing old speakers for years. He learned to buy capacitors in bulk and he sorts through them when rebuilding crossovers to get the right combination of parts for good sound.
High end Audio, like high end cars and watches have three tiers of buyers. The new buyers are the affluent who also influence the market. Tier two buyers buy the second hand high end gear. And the third tier buyers buy the classic gear, the decades old once top end gear. Each of these markets sort out value and worth. Trying to guess which components will become classics and hold their value over time is difficult.
In the end it is about looks, feel and enjoyment. Some products tick all of those boxes and become sought after. On the used market their worth isn’t about their bill of materials cost, although reliability and repair costs might be a factor. Their worth is sorted out by the market. Ownership is an illusion. We borrow things for a time and we pay for that time. What are you willing to pay?
So many look at a piece of stereo gear as a box of parts. They are inclined to add up the parts and say this is what it is worth. They have no clue about the development costs, the tooling costs and the investment costs which accrue over the development time of the project. Imagine paying interest payments for four years on a car you bought before you get to even drive it. In the high volume production world manufacturers have to recover their investment money in 1-2 years after product release or it’s not worth it to them. In the luxury market that investment cost must be recovered over far fewer quantities. Brands may even absorb some of that investment cost in their other products and write it off as R&D.
It’s not really about cost as much as market value. If a buyer perceives value in the product for a certain price then that is what the product is worth. If a manufacturer cannot produce the product for a profit at that price then they won’t. Eventually the market adjusts or the product goes away. Notice how car prices have increased above inflation these past 5 years? And yet the auto industry is in trouble. The auto market is adjusting perceived value to cost and this even affects the used car market.
One of the things I learned about electronics while managing a test equipment group is that high resolution circuits have to be tweaked and tuned. The calibration of a particular circuit might take a technician many hours to get working to spec because it requires sorting through capacitors and resistors. The tolerances of these components are not tight enough to simply drop in and meet the performance requirements of the circuit. I’m sure this is true for hifi. Mid fi can tolerate variations in components but hifi cannot. I know this also because my cousin has been refurbishing old speakers for years. He learned to buy capacitors in bulk and he sorts through them when rebuilding crossovers to get the right combination of parts for good sound.
High end Audio, like high end cars and watches have three tiers of buyers. The new buyers are the affluent who also influence the market. Tier two buyers buy the second hand high end gear. And the third tier buyers buy the classic gear, the decades old once top end gear. Each of these markets sort out value and worth. Trying to guess which components will become classics and hold their value over time is difficult.
In the end it is about looks, feel and enjoyment. Some products tick all of those boxes and become sought after. On the used market their worth isn’t about their bill of materials cost, although reliability and repair costs might be a factor. Their worth is sorted out by the market. Ownership is an illusion. We borrow things for a time and we pay for that time. What are you willing to pay?
The automobile market is highly developed and refined. You can calculate the cost of ownership for a 2025 GT-3 or a 1995 911 per month just about down to the dollar. Buy, borrow or lease- each method has a monthly cost. The cost to own Apple products is pretty straightforward too- deduct 65% per year starting with the price new. That’s the trade-in value. Might do a little better selling it yourself on the used market. Just bought a new Mac Studio? Pulling that seal off the box just cost you $3000. Pulling the seal off that new iPhone box costs $600. And we thought cars were expensive to own.
The High End Audio Market seems to be more difficult to predict. Sure, we have some published book values based on a small sample size of sales information. 30 years ago I was a Tier 3 buyer. I bought classic High End hifi gear. I did DYI tweaks to the gear and enjoyed that side of the hobby. Usually found cost of ownership to be favorable because the gear held its value. I moved up to Tier 2 and eventually became a Tier 1 buyer. Cost of ownership is quite high but I enjoy it even more. Cost of ownership used to be primary for me. Now performance is primary and cost of ownership is not so important to me. The “ownership” of my stereo gear will likely be passed on to my sons. Or if the market tanks perhaps my gear will buy me a few extra meals.
Didn’t mean to get so dark- just one of many possible scenarios. Hey, I might upgrade in a few years or sell it all to get a pair of headphones, who knows?
The High End Audio Market seems to be more difficult to predict. Sure, we have some published book values based on a small sample size of sales information. 30 years ago I was a Tier 3 buyer. I bought classic High End hifi gear. I did DYI tweaks to the gear and enjoyed that side of the hobby. Usually found cost of ownership to be favorable because the gear held its value. I moved up to Tier 2 and eventually became a Tier 1 buyer. Cost of ownership is quite high but I enjoy it even more. Cost of ownership used to be primary for me. Now performance is primary and cost of ownership is not so important to me. The “ownership” of my stereo gear will likely be passed on to my sons. Or if the market tanks perhaps my gear will buy me a few extra meals.
Didn’t mean to get so dark- just one of many possible scenarios. Hey, I might upgrade in a few years or sell it all to get a pair of headphones, who knows?
Hifi seems to quite excellent these days. Lots of choices - find your flavor of excellence and settle in.
Ken Shindo considered all of his components to be equally excellent, each with a certain sound, and with a certain price ( I assume the cost of manufacture of that product).
Some components are a better value than others. High end equipment rolling used to be a thing among those with millions in discretionary cash, kind of like a fad or something, but not so much any more.
Nowadays there seems a greater economic divide in the populous between the have nots & the have yachts crowd.
Just my opinion.
Ken Shindo considered all of his components to be equally excellent, each with a certain sound, and with a certain price ( I assume the cost of manufacture of that product).
Some components are a better value than others. High end equipment rolling used to be a thing among those with millions in discretionary cash, kind of like a fad or something, but not so much any more.
Nowadays there seems a greater economic divide in the populous between the have nots & the have yachts crowd.
Just my opinion.
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Looking at world history, we have always had a large economic divide between the rich and the poor. That economic divide may seemed to have narrowed in the 20th Century especially in developed nations like the US with the rise of the middle class. But think of the middle class as the affluent poor. In reality that is what it is. We will always have rich and poor. The real issue is raising the world’s minimum standard of living. Plenty of progress has been made but it’s always hindered by wars and conflicts.
The research we did at TAS indicated an emerging ultra-luxury customer segment on high end audio. This simply mirrors what has happened in cars, watches, and clothing. That creates more financial stability for the tiny manufacturers in the industry. Indeed, if you read the Wall Street Journal, that is largely propping up US consumer spending now.
Best yet, it creates better sound performance in more affordable gear. My Alexia Vs benefitted significantly from the XVX. The Apex in my Rossini came from the Varese research and development.
Best yet, it creates better sound performance in more affordable gear. My Alexia Vs benefitted significantly from the XVX. The Apex in my Rossini came from the Varese research and development.
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