Oligarch audio? bite the hand that feeds you me thinks!

[Elliot G.]

maybe they are just trying to show a balanced view after all the blowback on this forum

that's the funniest thing you have ever written

 

[cjfrbw]

Are there therapists for poor, abused oligarchs who feel that everybody hates them undeservedly for their money? Or do they thrill at every little flash of veblens grandiosity that makes the plebs blush green with envy? The flash of a Rolex crown, the Lambo in the driveway, the pillared manse, the phallic flash of a gargantuan, edifice stereo system, the babes, the jet setting. All but the babe part, I guess, because audiophilia is generally babe poison. Rock 'n Roll star is good, though.

 

[microstrip]

I know a friend in Hong Kong whose family runs a real estate developer and is oligarch rich. He is also an excellent cellist himself, and clearly not musically illiterate. He has been a very reliable Wilson customer, always being one of the first if not the first to buy any flagship Wilson speakers. One time, when a group of us visited him, we were amazed to find him listening to a pair of Gallo Nucleus Reference speakers, placed in front of his massive Wilsons. He then confided that he only turns the Wilsons on when certain (oligarch grade) audiophile friends come to visit, otherwise, he listens to the Gallo speakers.

Well, every hobby has its sad miseries - your story could probably be an interesting case study. Did your group try to help this audiophile to tune and enjoy his original system?

The relation between musicians and audiophiles is studied by audio scholars - it seems that most of the time they are exclusive activities. But audiophile marketing loves putting a grand piano, a cello or a guitar in the listening room photos!

 

[KeithR]

I do believe that the best designers build what they can to the best of their ability , available technology and thier knowledge and experience.
I can speak about Oliver Gobel who never considers the price when he is designing anything. I have asked for lower priced entry level speakers and his answer was I can build something smaller with a lesser footprint however this does not mean that it will significantly or less expensive than the models we have. He will not compromise on the materials or parts so therefore the price is only the end result of the design and build. Maybe there are companies that will build anything to any price point, I see companies with 100's of products , perhaps questioning thier motivation and goals is something some may want to do, not me , everyone can do what they think is right for their business, however personally I have tried to walk away from those companies that want to be all things to all people. I don't believe that is possible and in doing so value becomes lost.

My guess is he, like many smaller hifi manufacturers, find it better to make a few dozen Uber expensive items than a more modest hifi price point at 10x that. Magico to their credit brought out the A series which has killed it. Wilson has always sold Sophia’s and Sabrina’s as brand entry points. Gobel is short sighted and will ways be niche as a result. Scale is tough.

 

[adrianywu]

Reading this thread, two things kept popping up for me.

The first is something called the Veblen Effect, which is the phenomena where when something is priced higher, we humans tend to think it also has greater value, which is often not true (and sometimes it is...). The example given when I first read about this was college tuition. Colleges found that when they lowered prices to get more enrollment, enrollment fell off. They found that if they raised prices then enrollment increased. They learned they had to have a good story about why the price was so high/going up, but that was all.

The second thing that came up was the whole thing about what is needed in a high end audio component for it to be considered high end. This question was first put to me 30 years ago so I've had a lot of time to think about it:

High end audio is driven by intention, not price.

What this means is that if something is carefully engineered, it can sound better or perform better (depending entirely on which metric is more important to you) than something costing several times more. This might happen because a product is priced to a formula rather than what the market will bear or it might simply be engineered better (which might cost more in R&D but might be cheaper in production). If a designer's intention is to do the best he can with the best components he can get, it may or may not be more expensive. IOW price really has nothing to do with it which is not the same as saying it will be cheap- it might be very expensive. Until you know a lot more about the product and the designer's intention, there really isn't any way to know.

A third thing pops up for me upon writing this. The best in any human endeavor tend to be best because they love it, not because they want to make money. If they got rich doing it so much the better.

Yes, I think this is also very similar to the placebo effect in medicine. Research has found the following factors that influence the likelihood for a positive placebo effect: 1. The cost of the treatment; the more expensive the better. 2. Pain. The more painful the better. 3. Convenience: The more cumbersome, the better. 4. The claim: The more outrageous the claim, the better.
It seems counterintuitive, but it also makes sense. If the treatment is expensive, inconvenient and painful, it must work well otherwise people would not pursue it, so the thinking goes. As for the last point, the more fantastical the claim, the more people believe it, because they reckon the science must be so advanced that it seems unbelievable to mere mortals.
We see this all the time with certain homeopathic treatments, "health supplements", unproven tests etc. that seem completely idiotic and nonsensical to medical professionals and yet have a large following amongst the lay public.

 

[Elliot G.]

My guess is he, like many smaller hifi manufacturers, find it better to make a few dozen Uber expensive items than a more modest hifi price point at 10x that. Magico to their credit brought out the A series which has killed it. Wilson has always sold Sophia’s and Sabrina’s as brand entry points. Gobel is short sighted and will ways be niche as a result. Scale is tough.

not short sighted only a small company sticking to what they know how to do and believing in that.

 

[Elliot G.]

not short sighted only a small company sticking to what they know how to do and believing in that.

Göbel High End factory tour - www.TheAudioBeat.com

 

[cjfrbw]

What about the story of a Wilson guy who had his huge system with a WATCH center channel, and non audiophile guests thought all the sound was coming from the center channel. That one always cracked me up.
"When are you going to turn on the whole thing?"

That happened to me with panels, which some people don't even know are speakers, and a guy thought the sound was all from the home theater center channel.

 

[JackD201]

What about the story of a Wilson guy who had his huge system with a WATCH center channel, and non audiophile guests thought all the sound was coming from the center channel. That one always cracked me up.
"When are you going to turn on the whole thing?"

That happened to me with panels, which some people don't even know are speakers, and a guy thought the sound was all from the home theater center channel.

At shows it is routine for guests to check out our corner barrier type traps thinking they are speakers