How much is too much?
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Hi
The real question remain : Are these high price items really superior to less priced ones? In what way?
What I have come to understand and to lament is the steady descent of the High End Industry in Wine-tasting-luxury items category. There are a few people call them gurus, whose opinions take the form of a ranking ... Oh! It is subtle, not people who anoint themselves really, much more insidious, they hear these things which for the most port,very few audiophiles will ever audition except under the worse conditions: At shows. THese trend setters anoint the expensive gears and from that point, audiophiles construct a world of want and dreams around these. For example all the replies defending the price of those products implies some how they are truly exceptional and the there could be lesser priced product benefitting from the research (really) and development that goes int the absurdly priced ones.
So High End Audio has come to be that entirely subjective. There is however some clear rules to this subjectivity. Analog is always superior , so are tubes, not preferred mind you superior. iIt has been coming: High End Audio is now entirely subjective. Simply a mater of taste of course expensive tastes.
Yet Music reproduction remains an objective endeavor.. It is grounded in an objective reality: The ability to reproduce music as closely to the original event as possible. In what way do these extravagance approach it? I suppose that it should be measurable? Oh No! Not this word! Measurements?
Audiophiles are an interesting lot. I would have thought such high prices would have left them unhappy.. On the contrary, we find all kind of rationales to justify these. It won't end until as Tim put it so wisely when the audiophile market, people of our generations (45 and up) will have passed away... another 50 years.. I am not certain it will last that long.
The real question remain : Are these high price items really superior to less priced ones? In what way?
What I have come to understand and to lament is the steady descent of the High End Industry in Wine-tasting-luxury items category. There are a few people call them gurus, whose opinions take the form of a ranking ... Oh! It is subtle, not people who anoint themselves really, much more insidious, they hear these things which for the most port,very few audiophiles will ever audition except under the worse conditions: At shows. THese trend setters anoint the expensive gears and from that point, audiophiles construct a world of want and dreams around these. For example all the replies defending the price of those products implies some how they are truly exceptional and the there could be lesser priced product benefitting from the research (really) and development that goes int the absurdly priced ones.
So High End Audio has come to be that entirely subjective. There is however some clear rules to this subjectivity. Analog is always superior , so are tubes, not preferred mind you superior. iIt has been coming: High End Audio is now entirely subjective. Simply a mater of taste of course expensive tastes.
Yet Music reproduction remains an objective endeavor.. It is grounded in an objective reality: The ability to reproduce music as closely to the original event as possible. In what way do these extravagance approach it? I suppose that it should be measurable? Oh No! Not this word! Measurements?
Audiophiles are an interesting lot. I would have thought such high prices would have left them unhappy.. On the contrary, we find all kind of rationales to justify these. It won't end until as Tim put it so wisely when the audiophile market, people of our generations (45 and up) will have passed away... another 50 years.. I am not certain it will last that long.
Frantz,
do you honestly feel that something like say the Arc LS27 or even the Ref5 should make audiophiles unhappy due to their cost?
Both are at certain price ranges that seems to be a competitive market price level where there are many products with similar excellent build-engineering-sound quality, and it seems with many happy audiophiles buying these or comparable products.
Cheers
Orb
do you honestly feel that something like say the Arc LS27 or even the Ref5 should make audiophiles unhappy due to their cost?
Both are at certain price ranges that seems to be a competitive market price level where there are many products with similar excellent build-engineering-sound quality, and it seems with many happy audiophiles buying these or comparable products.
Cheers
Orb
..no, I'd say that's my "sounds like my Bose wave" look 
accompanied by this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6G9PN5z-E0&feature=related
accompanied by this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6G9PN5z-E0&feature=related
Frantz,
Simple. They sound better, or just some people prefer the way they reproduce music.
Although I can understand your lament if you see such a dark and extreme situation, you seem to be looking only at the internet and magazine approach of high-end. I think your view refers some true points, but is exaggerated and mixes the good with the bad thinks. Besides, my dealer tells me that happily most of his good high-end customers are not regular readers of magazines and internet forums. Some go to shows, where they approach sellers and all of them visit several times his shop. Then they listen and discuss financial details if they are pleased …
You are distorting the common view on analogue – many people just say that the best analogue is better than CD. And I find normal Audio Research fans find tubes superior – Dartzeel fans find solid state superior.
You just defined the Audiophile target “The ability to reproduce music as closely to the original event as possible.” The problem is that “as closely to the original event as possible” can have different interpretations. Considering the measurements, even very experienced and expert members of this forum have said why they are not currently the solution to fully describe equipment performance to consumers.
Audiophiles are not happy with the prices, but are happy with the performance of their systems.
I will not comment on your exercise of futurology – but I have read exactly the same things ten years ago. Any dealer I know says that the main problem is not lack of interest of the 30 year old generation who approach their shops, it is the economical situation of these young people (and older) that stops them from buying.
May be many will find me too optimist – but I was recently delivered an Audio Research REF150 and I have been listening to it using my old Quad ESL63. And I am really happy with the musical experiences that the best of the High End industry makes possible today.
Orb
I have owned rather pricey electronics. I would (likely will) buy the same electronics again.. What I find alarming is the constant price increase as if there is no limit... Where does it end? Do you really believe that these products are superior to those costing less? Consistently or is it a game of you price it to what the market can bear? and it is clear it can bear a lot .. Don't you think that this pricing strategy turns away prospective audiophiles? Do you really think that these products contribute to better, less expensive products..really? This helps High End Audio grow? Do you think there is research and development in this product that justify these prices? Really? As long as we audiophiles find ways to justify these costs there will be more of these products ... not real progress in Music reproduction ...
I am still waiting for my 100K cable ... Do we want to bet when it will come?
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As long as there are Middle-Eastern princes, Chinese industrialists, Russian...import/export men?...there will be $150K preamps and the promise of $100k cables. And there will be a few very well-heeled American audiophiles operating a bit below that level, convincing themselves that it is still about the music.
Meanwhile, midfi is working the home theater market, stereo is reduced to an iPod in a docking station and the quality music playback industry had largely taken its eye off the ball and lost the attention of an entire generation. And someone thinks this is not bad for the hobby? Yeah, I know, it's not the marketing of quality gear, it's the shift to movies and gaming. Nonsense. I just got done spending 2 years working around people in their 20s. They listen to plenty of music. They have a broader knowledge and broader tastes than most of us did and listen to music from early in our generation until now. Did you listen to 40-year-old music when you were 20? I sure didn't. The problem is not a lack of people who love music or a lack of interest in quality playback (good headphones sell like hotcakes). The problem is that the industry isn't meeting the market. They're taking the easy, lazy way out by making huge margins off the few instead of delivering real value to the many.
It won't last. It's a short-term strategy that is doomed.
Tim
so you've done extensive listening to preamps in the current marketplace over $15k and have a good idea of how they sound. please tell us about it, with details.
or is that just a shot without anything to back it up?
Frantz,
I think where we differ on this is that for me high end does not necessarily mean insane prices but can still be from a mid priced product up to say $50k, and above this price point we have either the very good but expensive company statement product, or something that I agree does happen a fair amount where the company-someone just names their price because they can.
But those that are naming their price do not really bother me, because someone can find as good engineering and sound quality in a reference product from someone else that is cheaper, it is down to the individual.
You know it was interesting in the recent series of Top Gear, they covered a company remaking E-Type Jaguars and the retail price was around £500k and built in a less than ideal work environment, which Jeremy Clarkson commented on this is way too expensive and they are naming their price.
After all the new MClaren is £130k and the fastest car they have had round their circuit (ignoring I think it is the Atom, which is a very light open wheel circuit racing type machine).
It happens in all hobbies.
But if someone wants to purchase a product with a price based on what the seller just came up with, rather than say compared to an Audio Research statement Ref-40 Anniversary or their LS27 or Ref5/Kef Blade/Devialet D-Premier/Revel Studio/etc, then this does not mean the audio industry as a whole is out to charge anything it can.
As I mentioned, there are many competitive reference audio products that are at the price brackets of either the LS27 and Ref5, and this is not a bad thing IMO as one does not need to go out and buy a $150k preamp as an example.
In same way does it really matter there is or will be $100k cables, after all there are plenty of cheap ones and still well bespoke manufacturers ones substantially cheaper than this; as an example Yter manufacturer the actual whole cable; from initially creating the alloy to the end product cable core-sheathing-termination and these are not insane priced cables.
Looks like we will differ on how to handle the "name a price" excessive audio products, but hopefully agree that there are competitive priced reference products a consumer can purchase if they want to.
Cheers
Orb
It's a question, Mike. As I understand it, ideally a preamp takes the line level signal from the source, increases it, usually provides volume control, and sends the raised signal on to the amplifiers, adding or subtracting nothing audible but volume in the process. This can be accomplished, audibly, for a few hundred dollars (or less), and has been, many times. In my hypothetical question, I've given the task a very generous budget of $1000. So, what value does the $15k preamp add? Does it drive noise and distortion even further below the audible threshold? Beauty? Build quality? The smooth feel of the volume pot? Versatile multiple-input switching? EQ? Room compensation? It's not a simple question but it is a valid one: Where's the last $14K?
And to give you a direct answer to your question, no I haven't done extensive listening to preamps over $15k. But if I could hear them, they would disqualify themselves by definition. Thus the question.
Tim
What you've done is basically describe "a straight wire with gain" Tim. Unfortunately, things aren't that simple and no, having identical inputs and outputs with having different gain is by definition, wrong. 1 is not equal to 2. It remains an ideal and no manufacturer has ever claimed to have achieved it regardless of price or topology.
Tim,
This type of extreme position is very comfortable, and irrefutable by others as we do not expect you to assemble a list of all the preamplifiers you can hear and those you can not hear (then we would have something to write about). Can I assume that you also think that any electronics, cables, speakers that you can hear would also disqualify themselves by definition?
BTW, your point sends us back to what hear (in italic) means for you.
Agree. I have not come across any preamp that just 100% disappears, at any volume, at any level, with any recording...grain, inability to crank loudly to match the dynamics of the recording, lack of detail, slight blur in the upper bass or mids, or noise floor, there's always something...no perfection. But i have heard preamps recently come close enough, they really made me question if the manufacturer had finally managed to make an "invisible preamp". And the ones that most impressed me were expensive...i'm not going to get into a ground up cost analysis of whether it should cost 9500 or 13,500 or 17,500 or 20,000. All i know, is the handful of preamps i have heard that challenged me to "hear them" all were bloody expensive without exception. (Tidal Prescenio, CJ GAT, ARC Ref 5, Evo 2). And in my own personal experience, i have owned/heard/auditioned plenty of amps costing far, far less...and none of them compared...they all had grain, limitations, uneven tonal balance, something that identified them as being in the chain.
Yes, it is a rather extreme answer to the equally comfortable, by its extreme expectations, implication that I'm not qualified to question the value of $15k preamps unless I have heard them all. Of courseh I am, and that question, to put it another way, is that the preamp has a specific purpose in the signal chain, and that purpose can be met, at the current state of the art, for a very small fraction of $15K: Where is the rest of the value? The Lexicon processor Amir announced the other day was $11k. But it makes most audiophile preamps look like rather blunt instruments. Most of them are much, much closer to the "wire with gain" ethos. So where is the value? Is it in the build quality, the look, the badge, the box, the human interface....or is there something in the sound that is very different from a $1K preamp that measures nearly perfectly? If that's the answer, the next question is does the $15k preamp measure differently? No? Then let's close our eyes and compare it to a reference (the $1k preamp that measures nearly perfectly would be a good choice), and see if we can actually hear what cannot be measured -- not formally, not statistically...personally. That anyone, regardless of personal resources, buys a piece of electronic equipment at 15 times the price of an objective reference without going through such an exercise is mind-boggling to me. 150 times? Insane.
Electronics? Assuming that my reference is flat and has noise and distortion measurements that are state of the art, yes, that's a pretty safe assumption. Transducers? We're not there yet.
Tim
Well this is a difference of opinion that won't be reconciled on this forum, because 'how much is too much' is a question for the individual. The question is ineffable because it has two components: price and value. As the Sage of Omaha nicely summarized "Price is what you pay, value is what you receive." If you can afford it, and the quality you perceive between higher and lower priced gear is meaningful to you, then by definition, it is worth it to you.
I find it interesting that folks seem to be split into two camps. The first insists that all equipment can be valued by measurements and wants to define a measurement of price beyond which there is no added value. The second is equally committed to the idea that measurements can not capture the entire sound picture and are willing to spend more to achieve their perception of improved sound.
It's pretty clear where my prejudices lie, in part because there are things about the hobby you can't value. My family knows my listening space is special to me and I always enjoy listening with them. One evening this week, my eldest son. the baritone sax player joined me. We spent the entire evening spinning Pepper Adams, Harry Carney and many sides of Gerry Mulligan. During the course of the evening, he discovered Art Farmer, one of my favorite trumpeters and I learned about saxophone technique and mouthpieces. We shared our common passion for music and I got to spend time with my teenage son. If you have kids (especially teenagers), then you know the experience was priceless!
I find it interesting that folks seem to be split into two camps. The first insists that all equipment can be valued by measurements and wants to define a measurement of price beyond which there is no added value. The second is equally committed to the idea that measurements can not capture the entire sound picture and are willing to spend more to achieve their perception of improved sound.
It's pretty clear where my prejudices lie, in part because there are things about the hobby you can't value. My family knows my listening space is special to me and I always enjoy listening with them. One evening this week, my eldest son. the baritone sax player joined me. We spent the entire evening spinning Pepper Adams, Harry Carney and many sides of Gerry Mulligan. During the course of the evening, he discovered Art Farmer, one of my favorite trumpeters and I learned about saxophone technique and mouthpieces. We shared our common passion for music and I got to spend time with my teenage son. If you have kids (especially teenagers), then you know the experience was priceless!
Tim-You are over-simplifying the role of the preamp into a yes/no, black/white, right/wrong type of logic that really doesn’t work so well in the real world. As much as you and some other people would love to believe that measurements can tell you everything about how a component sounds, it’s just not so. I have heard several preamps that have “perfect” measurements but sounded anything but perfect. There are detail/information retrieval differences, tonality differences, soundstage differences, ability to sound three-dimensional, and the list goes on. Measurements can point you in the right direction, but they are not the final arbiter of how something will sound in your home.
As for cost, some people would like to believe that the quality of the resistors, capacitors, volume controls, switches, and power transformers makes no differences to the final sound quality. If it’s in the signal path, it affects the final sound quality. High quality/great sounding parts are typically expensive and they drive the cost up. If you want to read a good treatise on the cost of manufacturing high-end products and how much of every dollar you spend actually goes into the product itself, go to www.altavistaaudio.com and read the article that Mike Elliott wrote. It’s sad, but true.
As for cost, some people would like to believe that the quality of the resistors, capacitors, volume controls, switches, and power transformers makes no differences to the final sound quality. If it’s in the signal path, it affects the final sound quality. High quality/great sounding parts are typically expensive and they drive the cost up. If you want to read a good treatise on the cost of manufacturing high-end products and how much of every dollar you spend actually goes into the product itself, go to www.altavistaaudio.com and read the article that Mike Elliott wrote. It’s sad, but true.
Tim ,
No time I will pretend that you have to hear all of them - but that you class all those you have listened to (expecting you have listened to a significant number of them) . Please re-read my post.
Can I understand from your words that you consider that the 11k Lexicon processor has a fair price? Or was it referred just start a debate about how much is too much in AV processors?
BTW, yesterday was a particularly hot day, and I could not switch on my tube setup anymore as the room temperature was reaching 26º and I reconnected my vintage all Quad setup - CD67 player, the 66 preamplifier and the 606 mk2 to the same Quad ESL63 electrostatic speakers I was using. After I replaced the very cheap cables I initially used with some top exotic cables (to increase my expectation bias, surely
) I can enjoy music with this system, but it does not reach nearby the performance of my tube system. And I can assure you that amplifiers never reached near the clipping point, I always calibrate the system when using ELS63 as replacement panels are expensive.
So much to do, so little time....
I find that most people fall in a wide space between those two extremes; I know I do. I can see, feel, touch, imagine and embrace much value beyond measurements. I'd just like to see the manufacturers and sellers demonstrate or describe that value in realistic terms rather than attribute magical qualities to their products. And I personally will find that value and define a price beyond which there is no value to me.
I am. This world screams for some over-simplifying as a counterbalance to the manufacturers and fans who would overcomplicate and obscure everything until nothing is quantifiable and any claim at any price is as legitimate as any other, regardless of evidence. In that bizarre world, anyone who says so can hear anything - and apparently even develop products in - the darkness of the great unknown and as of yet undiscovered. It is absurd. Any boutique, or otherwise, manufacturer out there who can develop two or more products that sound the same is doing it with measurements; with predictable, repeatable, measurable processes. One SuperSonic XYZ is expected to sound like the next, and does. We are not talking about violins hand-carved from organic materials. Most of your builders know better. They just let you keep believing because it's good for business.
Sorry I wasn't clear, micro. Most of my post in response to your accurate "extreme position" remark was actually a response to a post by Mike.
Tim
I find that most people fall in a wide space between those two extremes; I know I do. I can see, feel, touch, imagine and embrace much value beyond measurements. I'd just like to see the manufacturers and sellers demonstrate or describe that value in realistic terms rather than attribute magical qualities to their products. And I personally will find that value and define a price beyond which there is no value to me.
I am. This world screams for some over-simplifying as a counterbalance to the manufacturers and fans who would overcomplicate and obscure everything until nothing is quantifiable and any claim at any price is as legitimate as any other, regardless of evidence. In that bizarre world, anyone who says so can hear anything - and apparently even develop products in - the darkness of the great unknown and as of yet undiscovered. It is absurd. Any boutique, or otherwise, manufacturer out there who can develop two or more products that sound the same is doing it with measurements; with predictable, repeatable, measurable processes. One SuperSonic XYZ is expected to sound like the next, and does. We are not talking about violins hand-carved from organic materials. Most of your builders know better. They just let you keep believing because it's good for business.
Sorry I wasn't clear, micro. Most of my post in response to your accurate "extreme position" remark was actually a response to a post by Mike.
Tim
We have to go back and see what a pre-amp actually does. In practical use, a preamp is used mainly for attenuation. Even the most basic attenuators have colorations. So I don't see where the claim that there are $1,000 pre-amps that get perfect replicas of the input signal comes from, even at unity gain (which would likely burn something up downstream with a 2v input or higher).
We do know that preamps with beefier output stages and power supplies can handle longer cable lengths with less degradation and also have the flexibility to drive different amplifiers with different input sensitivities. So let's look at these expensive preamps innards. Yup, beefy power supplies and output stages usually made up of expensive parts with tighter tolerances.
We do know that preamps with beefier output stages and power supplies can handle longer cable lengths with less degradation and also have the flexibility to drive different amplifiers with different input sensitivities. So let's look at these expensive preamps innards. Yup, beefy power supplies and output stages usually made up of expensive parts with tighter tolerances.
Every single part's got fluff. To believe they don't is just as self delusional as believing that something more expensive is automatically better.
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