"Delusional Nice People" - Kessler still on a rampage

[853guy]

That may all be true. However, it is driving up the costs for all of us. The irony is that you can still buy his product here for $30k if you get it it another color. That color is not available in Asia.

Hmm... Not quite. Consumer goods have increased in price for many reasons not limited to increased demand, low inflation, increase in income, low taxes for higher income brackets, tax breaks for large corporations in which a greater portion of the wealth is withheld from shareholders, the growing divide between the richest and poorest segments of society, and a decrease in the purchasing power of the middle-class. To say Asia’s newly found wealth and spending habits are responsible for “driving up costs for us all” is rather short-sighted, considering the West has been outsourcing most of its labour there since 1978 and paid them very little for the privilege.

One of the benefits of the fat-tails in high-end audio is that should you not wish to support companies who feel the need to increase their prices to take advantage of opportunities of Asian consumer habits, you can generally find smaller, boutique manufacturers in America, Europe and elsewhere who offer competitive products, and are often more willing to accommodate your preferences, charging mostly for their expertise, labour and parts cost, rather than their marketing and social media department looking to go global.

Best,

853guy

 

[DaveC]

I think 853 and Amir make some good points and it goes a long way towards explaining why high end audio gear is so expensive.

Another aspect is cost of parts and supplies. Manufacturers of high quality speaker drivers, capacitors, resistors, wire and everything else want to make money and they are in a niche market too, so they need markups far higher than commodity parts and this gets passed on to the designers using these parts in their products. Often their parts are not produced where labor is cheapest either, but where they are designed. So TI foil resistors cost nearly $15 each, Accuton drivers cost hundreds, quality caps can be tens of dollars if not more... each! These parts are very, very costly compared to what mid to lower end products use.

Then you have to consider the costs of low-volume but more advanced industrial design, which is expected for most high end gear as people are picky about what they are going to put in their home. This is a major expense in most gear, moreso than most people think who aren't familiar with the subject. Not only are designers paid a lot to develop the form and construction of the cabinets and cases, but these are expensive to have built as well.

We also need to keep in mind that the Asian markets are a major driver as they account for roughly half of high end audio sales. They value a high msrp and are often conspicuous consumption items purchased for status, often without listening to the gear first. And they have A LOT of money. There's no doubt this distorts the market at the high end, but don't blame the industry, they are simply trying to provide what the market wants to buy. If you don't like what "the industry" is doing then look in the mirror (not personally, just in general). There is a large part of the high end market that has very different values and reasons for purchase vs typical US/Euro customers.

 

[Al M.]

Then you have to consider the costs of low-volume but more advanced industrial design, which is expected for most high end gear as people are picky about what they are going to put in their home. This is a major expense in most gear, moreso than most people think who aren't familiar with the subject. Not only are designers paid a lot to develop the form and construction of the cabinets and cases, but these are expensive to have built as well.

Thanks for your post, Dave. As for the above, yes, that also seems to be the case (contra what was claimed earlier in the thread).

Here is Jason Stoddard again (I know, some people will hate me by now for citing him, but he makes good points). He also addresses the low- vs. high-volume issue:

The biggest “coulda” failures I’ve seen (not just in audio) usually stem from one of two things:
1. Getting fixated on a design that is not producible. This is the current bugaboo of the super high end. Milled chassis with hours of CNC work for “striking” features, made out of a single block of aluminum. Yark. Do you know what billet aluminum costs? Do you know what machine time costs? I’ve seen quotes for stuff (not ours) that went as high as $1600 for a faceplate (yes, one faceplate.) This type of design is simply unsustainable, unless you’re literally producing millions of products, like Apple—and even then it’s pricey. So, hint: just because Apple is doing it doesn’t mean you should.


***

Until recently I hadn't been aware of it that much, but this is one of the things that has turned me off $ 20,000+ DACs (last year I was still lusting for one). I am not anymore willing to pay 2 or 3 grand (after dealer mark-up) just for the chassis. I can do without the bling. I do perfectly understand owner's pride, to which companies respond with their designs, but personally I am not that much into this design thing anymore.

Yet before I am getting hypocritical here, I will quickly remind myself that I do like my new amp stands also for their looks:

https://www.musicdirect.com/furniture/solidsteel-hyper-spike-hf-series-amp-stand

 

[microstrip]

Thanks for your post, Dave. As for the above, yes, that also seems to be the case (contra what was claimed earlier in the thread).

Here is Jason Stoddard again (I know, some people will hate me by now for citing him, but he makes good points).

The opposite - the more you quote him, the better this forum will see he does not understand the high-end, although his views have a real meaning when debating value for money.

He also addresses the low- vs. high-volume issue:

The biggest “coulda” failures I’ve seen (not just in audio) usually stem from one of two things:
1. Getting fixated on a design that is not producible. This is the current bugaboo of the super high end. Milled chassis with hours of CNC work for “striking” features, made out of a single block of aluminum. Yark. Do you know what billet aluminum costs? Do you know what machine time costs? I’ve seen quotes for stuff (not ours) that went as high as $1600 for a faceplate (yes, one faceplate.) This type of design is simply unsustainable, unless you’re literally producing millions of products, like Apple—and even then it’s pricey. So, hint: just because Apple is doing it doesn’t mean you should.


***

Until recently I hadn't been aware of it that much, but this is one of the things that has turned me off $ 20,000+ DACs (last year I was still lusting for one). I am not anymore willing to pay 2 or 3 grand (after dealer mark-up) just for the chassis. I can do without the bling. I do perfectly understand owner's pride, to which companies respond with their designs, but personally I am not that much into this design thing anymore.

Yet before I am getting hypocritical here, I will quickly remind myself that I do like my new amp stands also for their looks:

https://www.musicdirect.com/furniture/solidsteel-hyper-spike-hf-series-amp-stand

Most of the people in this forum are "tweakers" and take the influence of mechanical aspects in electronics and sound quality very seriously - just see the threads on expensive active tables and expensive quality stands. They will easily understand why some manufacturers use chassis made out of a single block of aluminum. Decades ago Goldmund wrote in their white paper : The intensive study of several kinds of audio components made by the Goldmund engineers have proved that most of the audio sonic colorations are due to mechanical vibrations. We can find the whole document here https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0ahUKEwiXs82I1p_UAhULkRQKHU4GD7wQFgg2MAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fattachments.goldmund.com.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2011%2F08%2F12%2F05%2F46%2F00%2F505%2Fgoldmund_mechanical_grounding_white_paper.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFcuzwGxEplmvztFhQo_V7cqUhy2w&sig2=qoCW_QHkGCLCavZF9Gs0-A&cad=rja

Do you pretend that Jeff Rowland, Boulder or Ayre use milled chassis just for bling, not for sound quality?

And yes, I see you found a perfect and valid argument to limit your expenditure - you love the sound but dislike the bling. IMHO we are looking to the same high-end from two opposite sides - I look for the successful examples and great achievements, automatically excluding what I dislike, you just look for the poor dubious cases to support your point. BTW, IMHO, it is acceptable that owners have pride in the excellent sound quality of their equipment ...

 

[DaveC]

Yeah, industrial design is a challenge, it's hard to make really nice looking stuff on a budget and at the high end you might be designing components for folks who have put a massive effort into their interior design, who might have millions invested in art, etc...

And either way, people want to have nice looking stuff.

Personally, it's hard for me to believe how much the speaker I'm designing is going to have to retail for. I use top end parts so drivers cost me thousands, top quality DSP and amps for the active bass section are thousands more, a locally built cabinet with curved sides that requires a vacuum mold to be built costs thousands, a thick ano aluminum baseplate with top end isolation footers are thousands, a custom built mechanism to adjust tilt of tweeter and mid cab with custom machined parts is a huge expense, and we haven't even covered labor, testing, shipping, taxes that have to be paid, etc... It's daunting and the costs just pile up. And after all that I need to actually make some money and the dealers do too, as do the folks shipping these things. For a low-volume production it's just an incredible amount of money. Unless you've owned a business it can be hard to understand the extent of the expenses involved, the list is far longer than many might assume.

 

[Al M.]

The opposite - the more you quote him, the better this forum will see he does not understand the high-end, although his views have a real meaning when debating value for money.

On the contrary, to me and others on this forum, including several posters on this thread, it is clear that he understands the high-end all too well.

Most of the people in this forum are "tweakers" and take the influence of mechanical aspects in electronics and sound quality very seriously - just see the threads on expensive active tables and expensive quality stands. They will easily understand why some manufacturers use chassis made out of a single block of aluminum. Decades ago Goldmund wrote in their white paper : The intensive study of several kinds of audio components made by the Goldmund engineers have proved that most of the audio sonic colorations are due to mechanical vibrations. We can find the whole document here https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0ahUKEwiXs82I1p_UAhULkRQKHU4GD7wQFgg2MAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fattachments.goldmund.com.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2011%2F08%2F12%2F05%2F46%2F00%2F505%2Fgoldmund_mechanical_grounding_white_paper.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFcuzwGxEplmvztFhQo_V7cqUhy2w&sig2=qoCW_QHkGCLCavZF9Gs0-A&cad=rja

Do you pretend that Jeff Rowland, Boulder or Ayre use milled chassis just for bling, not for sound quality?

No, I don't. However, elaborate milling of 'striking features' is not necessary to achieve the desired effects of a single block of aluminum on sound quality.

And yes, I see you found a perfect and valid argument to limit your expenditure - you love the sound but dislike the bling. IMHO we are looking to the same high-end from two opposite sides - I look for the successful examples and great achievements, automatically excluding what I dislike, you just look for the poor dubious cases to support your point. BTW, IMHO, it is acceptable that owners have pride in the excellent sound quality of their equipment ...

Of course owners should have pride in the excellent sound quality of their equipment, and I have nothing against them having pride in particular design features either (even though this aspect isn't beguiling me as much personally). Just don't pretend that these striking design features are necessarily connected to the sound quality.

 

[NorthStar]

Yes, that looks like him indeed:

Delusional; he is not alone in this audio world of ours. Our planet is getting warmer from more tube amps, and the Antarctic ice is separating from the main.
I don't know his rampage, I don't know what system he's using on, I don't know what music he's playing, I'm reading his article and I'm wondering where he's going with his baggage.

I like the b&w pic, his facial and hands expression; it tells a story bigger than reality...I see.

 

[bonzo75]

Most of the people in this forum are "tweakers" and take the influence of mechanical aspects in electronics and sound quality very seriously - just see the threads on expensive active tables and expensive quality stands.

Actually, that discussion, while great, shows that despite a lot of expenditure, no one has compared the different solutions yet.

 

[853guy]

Actually, that discussion, while great, shows that despite a lot of expenditure, no one has compared the different solutions yet.

And even if they did, would it tell us anything beyond their own preferences, contextualised within and possibly limited to the particular and specific components in their systems?

853guy

 

[DaveC]

On the contrary, to me and others on this forum, including posters on this thread, it is clear that he understands the high-end all too well.



No, I don't. However, elaborate milling of 'striking features' is not necessary to achieve the desired effects of a single block of aluminum on sound quality.



Of course owners should have pride in the excellent sound quality of their equipment, and I have nothing against them having pride in particular design features either (even though this aspect isn't beguiling me as much personally). Just don't pretend that these striking design features are necessarily connected to the sound quality.

Well, once you've got a block of alum and are machining it into a chassis the "striking features" don't cost much more, the block is already in a milling machine and might take another few minutes of machine time. Chassis are tough, the costs can get out of hand really quickly if you want something that's "distinctive" or whatever... Like my preamp chassis design, material costs were many hundreds and it's just wood and sheet metal! It would easily be a $1k+ chassis if I didn't do it myself. If you look at it, it's a pretty simple design overall with relatively little machining of metals. The exotic woods used aren't a major expense in this either, they might add 10% to the overall costs of the chassis.

As for Jason's views, they are a result of thinking about delivering the best value for the money and I personally appreciate that. I am glad they make components that deliver good SQ for reasonable prices. I've owned a Schiit DAC myself. That's the model ZenWave is built on, top end cables for less than top end prices. But not everyone cares about value... for some spending 6-figures on a stereo is not that big of a deal and everything Jason says just doesn't matter. These are distinctly different markets and understanding that can provide some perspective as to why some manufacturers might spend thousands of dollars on industrial design and thousands more on excessively expensive implementations, like making speaker cabs out of exotic materials or coffee-table sized chassis out of billet aluminum for 1kW amplifiers...

One alternate perspective is the high end does drive technology which trickles down to lower end products, so in a sense we should be grateful there is a market for true high-end cost-no-object gear.

 

[Al M.]

Well, once you've got a block of alum and are machining it into a chassis the "striking features" don't cost much more, the block is already in a milling machine and might take another few minutes of machine time. Chassis are tough, the costs can get out of hand really quickly if you want something that's "distinctive" or whatever... Like my preamp chassis design, material costs were many hundreds and it's just wood and sheet metal! It would easily be a $1k+ chassis if I didn't do it myself. If you look at it, it's a pretty simple design overall with relatively little machining of metals. The exotic woods used aren't a major expense in this either, they might add 10% to the overall costs of the chassis.

Ok, thanks for that information, good to know.

As for Jason's views, they are a result of thinking about delivering the best value for the money and I personally appreciate that. I am glad they make components that deliver good SQ for reasonable prices. I've owned a Schiit DAC myself. That's the model ZenWave is built on, top end cables for less than top end prices.

Something that I really appreciate, and the results are clear! Thank you!

But not everyone cares about value... for some spending 6-figures on a stereo is not that big of a deal and everything Jason says just doesn't matter. These are distinctly different markets and understanding that can provide some perspective as to why some manufacturers might spend thousands of dollars on industrial design and thousands more on excessively expensive implementations, like making speaker cabs out of exotic materials or coffee-table sized chassis out of billet aluminum for 1kW amplifiers...

Sure, as long as people don't pretend that for many of such products the high prices are all just about sound quality.

One alternate perspective is the high end does drive technology which trickles down to lower end products, so in a sense we should be grateful there is a market for true high-end cost-no-object gear.

Absolutely. Even though I do not own their gear, I really appreciate the cutting-edge efforts of dCS, Spectral, Magico and Wilson, to name just a few brands.


PS: Nice preamp design.

 

[Al M.]

And even if they did, would it tell us anything beyond their own preferences, contextualised within and possibly limited to the particular and specific components in their systems?

853guy

Good point.

 

[RogerD]

" But still we place so much faith in those admittedly nice people who are unconsciously or otherwise blowing smoke up our asses that we nod and agree so as not to seem deaf or stupid. "

Probably the best quote in the whole rant. Except I'll modify faith to blind faith .

 

[microstrip]

(...) Just don't pretend that these striking design features are necessarily connected to the sound quality.

Unfortunately they are ... For example, the Vivaldi CD transport uses a massive, over expensive ultra-high-precision turntable system---VRDS-NEO Mechanism. I am sure that your mentor will tell it is an overkill with lots of bling - bits are bits. But IMHO it sounds much better than any other redbook or DSD64 source in the Vivaldi DAC.

Atmasphere had a cheap but decent plate cover in their preampilfier. Recently Ralph upgraded it to a three part very solid massive cover. It increased considerably the performance of his MP1 amplifier, but also its cost - the two covers cost half of what some people want to pay for an amplifier!

I could go on forever ...

 

[Al M.]

Unfortunately they are ... For example, the Vivaldi CD transport uses a massive, over expensive ultra-high-precision turntable system---VRDS-NEO Mechanism. I am sure that your mentor will tell it is an overkill with lots of bling - bits are bits. But IMHO it sounds much better than any other redbook or DSD64 source in the Vivaldi DAC.

Which is not what I meant. This is not a bling feature, but a functional one. And no, Jason Stoddard is not my mentor. It would be useful for you to drop the condescending attitude if you want to be taken seriously.

 

[microstrip]

Which is not what I meant. This is not a bling feature, but a functional one. And no, Jason Stoddard is not my mentor. It would be useful for you to drop the condescending attitude if you want to be taken seriously.

My apologies, I do not want to offend you anyway. But you do not present any real data or quantitative facts except quoting and commenting Stoddard dubious arguments about expensive high-end.

Anyway, how do you separate bling from functional in the high-end? By our own preference? If we like it is functional, if we do not like it is bling? Sure we have some common preferences, we would agree in some equipment, but IMHO it is not a fair criteria.

 

[microstrip]

And even if they did, would it tell us anything beyond their own preferences, contextualised within and possibly limited to the particular and specific components in their systems?

853guy

Excellent point. But even so we enjoy reading about their systems and preferences. And interesting comments and debates sometimes rise from these threads.

 

[morricab]

Yes, that looks like him indeed:

Delusional; he is not alone in this audio world of ours. Our planet is getting warmer from more tube amps, and the Antarctic ice is separating from the main.
I don't know his rampage, I don't know what system he's using on, I don't know what music he's playing, I'm reading his article and I'm wondering where he's going with his baggage.

I like the b&w pic, his facial and hands expression; it tells a story bigger than reality...I see.

You can't be serious...the antarctic ice is not separating from the main. In fact it is just as thick as it has ever been in the last 15 million years or so...the misinformation out there would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad...

 

[Al M.]

My apologies, I do not want to offend you anyway.

Apology accepted.

Anyway, how do you separate bling from functional in the high-end? By our own preference? If we like it is functional, if we do not like it is bling? Sure we have some common preferences, we would agree in some equipment, but IMHO it is not a fair criteria.

We've gone over some things already, no need for repeats.

And seriously? Just take a look at the appearance of high-end gear 25 years ago and compare that to some of the chassis designs that are presented nowadays.

By the way, have you noticed how little the look of Spectral amps has changed over that same time period? They are all exclusively about cutting-edge technology, no frills. And compared to some of their competition these days, their prices are extremely reasonable for what they offer (certainly in the US *), their prices in Europe seem to be a different matter). Coincidence? I think not.

__________

*) their top preamp (DMC-30SV) sells for $ 14K, their top monoblocks (DMA-400) for $ 30 K a pair. For the extreme high-end, which these products undoubtedly belong to, this is 'cheap'.

 

[bonzo75]

And even if they did, would it tell us anything beyond their own preferences, contextualised within and possibly limited to the particular and specific components in their systems?

853guy

The point is, even in their systems, they haven't compared. Preferences aside, it might be found out that some really make a big difference and some minimal. Or not. We will never know. If we had a substantial comparison set, you might see common patterns.