How big a rip off is high end audio?

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matthewpiano:It almost stops being about the music and centres on the ability to say 'Look how expensive and high end my hi-fi is. I even spent £500 on an interconnect.'

£500 is half a month's wages for me most months. It could comfortably feed us for two months, including eating out/getting takeaway a couple of times.

£500 is just over half way up the price scale for Chord interconnects.

High-end would be more like the Siltech Signature 'Forbes Lake' interconnects (a few thousand dollars a metre) or Audioquest Everest speaker cable at $20,000 for a 2m pair.

(The WHF Ultimate Guide back in January 2009 partnered a Meridian/Sooloos server based system with a pair of £18,000 speaker cables!)
 
chebby:
matthewpiano:It almost stops being about the music and centres on the ability to say 'Look how expensive and high end my hi-fi is. I even spent £500 on an interconnect.'

£500 is half a month's wages for me most months. It could comfortably feed us for two months, including eating out/getting takeaway a couple of times.

£500 is just over half way up the price scale for Chord interconnects.

High-end would be more like the Siltech Signature 'Forbes Lake' interconnects (a few thousand dollars a metre) or Audioquest Everest speaker cable at $20,000 for a 2m pair.

(The WHF Ultimate Guide back in January 2009 partnered a Meridian/Sooloos server based system with pair of £18,000 speaker cables!)

IMO those sort of prices are obscene. Even if I had that sort of money I can't imagine being able to justify it. I'm sure its all great stuff but lets live in the real world. £500 for a cable is high end.
 
matthewpiano:High end is, in my opinion, a state of mind and whether it is worth the considerable outlay is down to whether it brings you what you are looking for. The law of diminishing returns sets in pretty quickly in hi-fi and I believe it is very very easy to spend more money and end up with a less interesting and less involving sound - even though it might be more technically 'correct'. If someone has the money to buy ultra expensive gear, and they feel they are gaining sufficiently from that spend, I am very happy for them. To me, however, it almost takes the fun out of hi-fi, in the same way that money has destroyed football. It almost stops being about the music and centres on the ability to say 'Look how expensive and high end my hi-fi is.

I listened to these 180000$ MBL's Xtreme on a show, they were very informative but where was the soul, the music?

I wouldn't want these in the house if they were for free, i would sell them.
 
Ooh, its a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge rip off!
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Andrew Everard:It's very simple: if you think the performance justifies the price, buy it; if you don't, don't.

Yes, indeed.

However when you reach a certain price level the law of sound per pound become useless! Double the cash never ever going to give you double the preformance.

I hate it when people post about high-end owner have more money than sense becasue, normally, most of us are not rich! It's all about buying HiFi rather than something else! (if you know what I mean?). The like of new millionair will spend £20K on B&O without demo, that's not for the passion for music but it's a statement to say that "I have arrive"

BTW, The Klipsch P39-F happen to be on my list to try-buy pair of speakers but they are too large for my room at a present time.
 
You are very fortunate to be living in Europe or the US. Here in South Africa, we pay more than twice what you pay for hi-fi equipment. It's just pure greed by the local distributors of course but there's very little we can do about it other than import directly. But that has a host of other problems such as warranties, etc. Just thank your lucky stars that you are so much more fortunate than us poor souls living on the southern tip of Africa!
 
jaxwired: the record spot:Just so long as when you're spending that $5k on new speakers, you're also planning on upgrading some of the rest as well. I've hear that thing about "speakers making the biggest difference", but you might want to upgrade to a £600 CDP if that myth's your bag!
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But to be honest, while I do think I've got plenty of upgrade room left in the amp department, I'm skeptical that CDPs get much better than this cheap NAD. I see and hear little evidence of it. So my system will probably evolve to be a more expensive pre/power and speakers and my source will continue to be this cheap NAD. It sounds pretty great to me (now that it's working again, LOL).

I had a NAD 542 CD player and enjoyed it but my Cyrus CD8x is much better. I think you would be surprised by the difference. Of course there are silly prices for very high-end hi-fi but when I visited high end show in Paris some of the expensive kit does sound so much cleaner than mid-range hi-fi.
 
angelface59:

I had a NAD 542 CD player and enjoyed it but my Cyrus CD8x is much better. I think you would be surprised by the difference. Of course there are silly prices for very high-end hi-fi but when I visited high end show in Paris some of the expensive kit does sound so much cleaner than mid-range hi-fi.

I hope you're right! I'd love to get even better sound. I'll keep an open mind and keep searching for improvements...
 
angelface59:.........but when I visited high end show in Paris some of the expensive kit does sound so much cleaner than mid-range hi-fi.

My experience is more or less the opposite. In various demos; Linn, Moon, Krell and also just chancing it and having a look round a dealer whilst a highend system is playing, most recently Krell with Tannoy and Moon with ProAc, I have been totally underwhelmed. Considering the money involved, only the Krell setup without the Tannoys (cant remember the speakers) sounded really good. The rest did not work at all at background volumes and when on song were way too loud for a normal domestic environment.

Don't get me wrong, If I had the cash I would try a really high end system, but I dont know even then if I could justify the expense.
 
idc:
Don't get me wrong, If I had the cash I would try a really high end system, but I dont know even then if I could justify the expense.

Indeed, better off spending money on lots more CD's and LP's.

.
 
Don't knock it til you've tried it.

To some, money isn't an issue so why wouldn't you spend money on a passion?
 
JoelSim: Don't knock it til you've tried it. To some, money isn't an issue so why wouldn't you spend money on a passion?

I don't object to spending obscene amounts of money on HiFi. To the contrary, I fully encourage that practice. However, I do object to being ripped off. Two different things really. All 3 models are clearly grossly over priced, but even if the second model is worth 12k, there's just no way that the top model can justify an 8k premium.
 
jaxwired:
JoelSim: Don't knock it til you've tried it. To some, money isn't an issue so why wouldn't you spend money on a passion?

I don't object to spending obscene amounts of money on HiFi. To the contrary, I fully encourage that practice. However, I do object to being ripped off. Two different things really. All 3 models are clearly grossly over priced, but even if the second model is worth 12k, there's just no way that the top model can justify an 8k premium.

Why not?
 
JoelSim:Why not?

Simple, the two speakers are way too similar. They just cannot sound much different given their very similar construction. AND, if there is actually a big difference (which is extremely unlikely), then the 12k speakers are huge rip off. Since I would expect near speaker perfection for 12k, as would most rational people.

I mean, if I listen to the 12k pair and then listen to the 20k pair and say "man these make the smaller pair sound like rubbish", then give me a break, how can the smaller pair be worth anywhere near 12k?

Much more likely, they sound almost identical which means there is no quality or material justification for the price jump.
 
its all relative because the 12k speakers may sound considerably better than a pair of 8k speakers - only thing that really matters is it good value to you. some ppl would argue they can't tell the difference between a £200 pair and a £2k pair - lucky them just buy the £200 pair and save yourselves a whole lot of cash

i never buy anything unless i think its good value and would return it if it wasn't
 
There are many things involved in price, including the number you expect to sell. An Aston Martin isn't 5 times as good as a BMW 325i.
 
jaxwired:
JoelSim:Why not?

Simple, the two speakers are way too similar. They just cannot sound much different given their very similar construction. AND, if there is actually a big difference (which is extremely unlikely), then the 12k speakers are huge rip off. Since I would expect near speaker perfection for 12k, as would most rational people.

I mean, if I listen to the 12k pair and then listen to the 20k pair and say "man these make the smaller pair sound like rubbish", then give me a break, how can the smaller pair be worth anywhere near 12k?

Much more likely, they sound almost identical which means there is no quality or material justification for the price jump.

Exactly. Good post. The mark-up on high end gear must be immense.
 
Don Guess:jaxwired:
JoelSim:Why not?

Simple, the two speakers are way too similar. They just cannot sound much different given their very similar construction. AND, if there is actually a big difference (which is extremely unlikely), then the 12k speakers are huge rip off. Since I would expect near speaker perfection for 12k, as would most rational people.

I mean, if I listen to the 12k pair and then listen to the 20k pair and say "man these make the smaller pair sound like rubbish", then give me a break, how can the smaller pair be worth anywhere near 12k?

Much more likely, they sound almost identical which means there is no quality or material justification for the price jump.

Exactly. Good post. The mark-up on high end gear must be immense.

I think you'll find that the mark up on most things is similar, and that on high end gear, the hours put in are far more per product sold.
 
idc:
angelface59:.........but when I visited high end show in Paris some of the expensive kit does sound so much cleaner than mid-range hi-fi.

My experience is more or less the opposite. In various demos; Linn, Moon, Krell and also just chancing it and having a look round a dealer whilst a highend system is playing, most recently Krell with Tannoy and Moon with ProAc, I have been totally underwhelmed.

I am not surprise! Krell, moon with Tannoy and ProAc....sound like a soul-less set up that would put me to sleep too! (Linn is pretty involving though imo)
 
JoelSim:Don Guess:jaxwired:
JoelSim:Why not?

Simple, the two speakers are way too similar. They just cannot sound much different given their very similar construction. AND, if there is actually a big difference (which is extremely unlikely), then the 12k speakers are huge rip off. Since I would expect near speaker perfection for 12k, as would most rational people.

I mean, if I listen to the 12k pair and then listen to the 20k pair and say "man these make the smaller pair sound like rubbish", then give me a break, how can the smaller pair be worth anywhere near 12k?

Much more likely, they sound almost identical which means there is no quality or material justification for the price jump.

Exactly. Good post. The mark-up on high end gear must be immense.

I think you'll find that the mark up on most things is similar, and that on high end gear, the hours put in are far more per product sold.

I don't think so..

Are you trying to say that the margins for CA are the same as Goldmund?
 
Don Guess:JoelSim:Don Guess:jaxwired:
JoelSim:Why not?

Simple, the two speakers are way too similar. They just cannot sound much different given their very similar construction. AND, if there is actually a big difference (which is extremely unlikely), then the 12k speakers are huge rip off. Since I would expect near speaker perfection for 12k, as would most rational people.

I mean, if I listen to the 12k pair and then listen to the 20k pair and say "man these make the smaller pair sound like rubbish", then give me a break, how can the smaller pair be worth anywhere near 12k?

Much more likely, they sound almost identical which means there is no quality or material justification for the price jump.

Exactly. Good post. The mark-up on high end gear must be immense.

I think you'll find that the mark up on most things is similar, and that on high end gear, the hours put in are far more per product sold.

I don't think so..Are you trying to say that the margins for CA are the same as Goldmund?

Margin. yes. As a percentage of what's put in.
 
this is simple economics google it and youll understand why pms must be higher on highend gear
 
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