State of the industry - Roy Gregory Editorial

Let's take the Prius/ Porsche analogy mentioned upthread. If the only way you could get into motoring as a hobby was to start with a Porsche, there wouldn't be many playing the game. Of course, the question that motoring enthusiasts ask isn't "how can I buy a Porsche?" (at least, not in the early days for most), ithet's "how can I get more fun out of my Prius budget?" Right now, I don't see the message getting through that there's better sound available outside of the mainstream for not that much more money. I appreciate this is What's Best Forum, and wealth is more normal here than in the wider population, but let's not kids ourselves. If 20k is the bare minimum price of admission to whatever this hobby is, then it's no wonder we think it's in decline!

Porsche off the lot are unusable at the high end outside of a few tracks nobody lives in.
Unless your spiel is sitting around in a garage making engine noises and swapping out parts.
Let's take a moment to remember what made a Porsche a Porsche on even a rough track.

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There was a point in Western civilization where gas lamps still required a gaslighter to go around in every community and inside every home. Electric light being very much at a point of infancy. Even better early attempts were inefficient and hard to reclaim materials from. At times this lead to enormous expenses when raw materials were drawn down. Still, someone had to keep throwing men and money at their own ideas. Only a few drove this future into being through self-funded successes from previous ventures. It was those who stepped outside the sophistication of previous era to roughen their wardrobe and polish the edges off their approach.
 
I keep looking at New Post hoping someone is talking about something exciting. This threads feels the path Audionirvana went down before it failed.
 
Here, IMO, is one aspect of the current state of the industry: Jay's Audio Lab discussing differences between $40K and $40 power cords. There are separate videos of actual comparisons. He pulls up a whole bunch of expensive fancy cords that he has tried, and then one from Amazon for $9.99. At 14:00 or so, he discusses the forum chat about the value of these types of comparison videos over YouTube. He has many followers and offers a refreshing take on the industry. He is clearly an alternative to the mainstream, and people seem to be watching. I think he tried to join here but might have been cancelled. The industry needs more voices, IMO, especially if trying to capture the attention of new people, some of whom don't want to spend the big bucks.

7,800 views and 250 comments in 48 hours. This guy has reach.

 
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Here, IMO, is one aspect of the current state of the industry: Jay's Audio Lab discussing differences between $40K and $40 power cords. There are separate videos of actual comparisons. He pulls up a whole bunch of expensive fancy cords that he has tried, and then one from Amazon for $9.99. At 14:00 or so, he discusses the forum chat about the value of these types of comparison videos over YouTube. He has many followers and offers a refreshing take on the industry. He is clearly an alternative to the mainstream, and people seem to be watching. I think he tried to join here but might have been cancelled. The industry needs more voices, IMO, especially if trying to capture the attention of new people, some of whom don't want to spend the big bucks.

He seems pretty active on Audio Shark. Why was he cancelled here?
 
Here, IMO, is one aspect of the current state of the industry: Jay's Audio Lab discussing differences between $40K and $40 power cords. There are separate videos of actual comparisons. He pulls up a whole bunch of expensive fancy cords that he has tried, and then one from Amazon for $9.99. At 14:00 or so, he discusses the forum chat about the value of these types of comparison videos over YouTube. He has many followers and offers a refreshing take on the industry. He is clearly an alternative to the mainstream, and people seem to be watching. I think he tried to join here but might have been cancelled. The industry needs more voices, IMO, especially if trying to capture the attention of new people, some of whom don't want to spend the big bucks.

7,800 views and 250 comments in 48 hours. This guy has reach.

I think this is one of Jay's better presentations.

Another guy who I like to listen to is OCD HiFi Guy. I'm including the link below, because I think it pertains to the subject of this thread (hopefully.)

HiFi Guy is mostly just funny, but there are true nuggets of gold to be found even though he repeats himself too much, contradicts himself too much and is clearly trying to sell product. He's running a business, what do you expect?

 
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There's a Schiit DAC for $50, yes? I guarantee the vast majority of newbies to the hobby would be fine w that over a $50k DAC as well.
 
John Darko is a great presenter for reasonably priced gear and whole systems are way below 20k. I wish there were more like him.

Is this before or after the recent hyper inflation?
 
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There's a Schiit DAC for $50, yes? I guarantee the vast majority of newbies to the hobby would be fine w that over a $50k DAC as well.
And there are $100-$300 Dragonfly DACs from Audioquest that are quite good for the money.
 
Here, IMO, is one aspect of the current state of the industry: Jay's Audio Lab discussing differences between $40K and $40 power cords. There are separate videos of actual comparisons. He pulls up a whole bunch of expensive fancy cords that he has tried, and then one from Amazon for $9.99. At 14:00 or so, he discusses the forum chat about the value of these types of comparison videos over YouTube. He has many followers and offers a refreshing take on the industry. He is clearly an alternative to the mainstream, and people seem to be watching. I think he tried to join here but might have been cancelled. The industry needs more voices, IMO, especially if trying to capture the attention of new people, some of whom don't want to spend the big bucks.

7,800 views and 250 comments in 48 hours. This guy has reach.


Jay has an interesting business model but it’s different from a media company. He buys and resells stereo gear so he’s a hybrid between a dealer and a video channel.

He really doesn’t have much reach yet. John Darko and Steve Guttenberg have much more reach (220K+ each vs 10K for Jay).

I’m not knocking Jay but his channel is a different animal altogether.
 
For $10k. You could get
Sparial 3
Amber 3
L.T.A.
Blue jean cables
Now there an Amber 4 and Spatial 4 for a little more money.
 
There's a Schiit DAC for $50, yes? I guarantee the vast majority of newbies to the hobby would be fine w that over a $50k DAC as well.

More like $ 130, but your point is well made.

I don't get the complaints about no good sounding system under $ 20K, that's ridiculous.

And many youngsters are into headphones, yes? You can get very, very good sound via that, and for a lot less than $ 20K. Or is it not possibly high-end?

Only in the minds of grumpy old men who can't envision anything beyond traditional 2-channel, and who can't grasp that their way of doing things may not be the only "right" (whatever that means) one. And who then complain about the "demise of our hobby". Don't make me laugh.

Yet fortunately there are many open-minded posters here that do think headphones are a legit approach for high-end audio.
 
Making people aware that there is something better out there really has very little IMO to the price. Having been a retailer for most of my adult life the variety in people that walk through the doors or call on the phone showed me there is no singular way. The different channels available is a good thing and whether you like them or not does not change the fact that some people will be attracted to them and either like them or not. Audio particularly better audio ( however this is defined) has no sexy. It is not a have to have it thing. It's not like a car or a watch or other items that people can see and give the owner some status or prestige. We have found that different people are looking for different things in their home and most are not audiophiles or experts. They come across something they find and think WOW this is cool, great, fun, crazy or whatever. Some of them buy it some don't but the biggest thing that I like is they got exposure to it. Its like a first great experience I might have had with a restaurant or a car etc. The changing landscape moving us further from print to other media is something the audio industry has been really slow too. I'm really not sure why since our business is sound and to some degree images as well. Movies have cool soundtracks, and sporting events have energy that is derived partially by the atmosphere in the building. Audio really doesn't come to life in words especially when those words don't have a concrete meaning. We talk about subjective, personal, opinions, thoughts but no clear cut path and facts. I hope that the movement will continue and that more choices will come that allow more people , both experienced and new to see and hear what's available and to learn how to do it and perhaps how to do it better.
I do believe that these changes will make it better for all and more exposure and more participants makes for the better. More demand brings more and different choices and some of these hopefully will bring us all closer to the music.
 
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Why do you write that Audionirvana failed? There is active discussion on that forum.
Your right, they have a lot of really good cat jokes and discussion of stellar constellation and other space topics.
 
Your right, they have a lot of really good cat jokes and discussion of stellar constellation and other space topics.
Wow, why am I here when I could be having so much fun over there?
 
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40 pages of text. Time for visuals

Here is < 20k of Altec A5 and Marantz 300b or a 417a amp he uses them alternately


And here is over a million. Add the real estate

 
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