Has Hi-Fi become incredibly bad value for money?
The reason I ask is that I have recently been looking around at DACs to run my sonos through. To get something that is of about the same standard of my current set up I was looking at the Cyrus DAC xp and Cyrus list this on their website at £2,500.
Fun though the DAC is it may have to wait a while as I am also currently pricing up a new kitchen. I had a browse around on the web yesterday and I can get a new double oven, hob, cooker hood, dishwasher, fridge and freezer for just over £3,000. These are all Bosch products so I am not exactly going for the cheapest products here.
When you stack them up side by side the amount of metal you end up with for the DAC does seem a bit laughable and kind of hard to justify as a purchase option.
This got me thinking about hi fi prices in general so I had a look back at the old reviews of my integrated amp (a roksan Caspian). In 1997 this retailed for £695, today the comparable amp costs £1,450. That represents an increase of 109%. If you take a look at the RPI table for the same period the general inflation increase is 38%, why has this happened? The new amp is cosmetically almost identical to the original and has the same features and functions.
Is there a hi fi industry price index? This could be interesting as I have only picked out one product in my example.
I fear I may have become too domesticated over the last decade or so.
The reason I ask is that I have recently been looking around at DACs to run my sonos through. To get something that is of about the same standard of my current set up I was looking at the Cyrus DAC xp and Cyrus list this on their website at £2,500.
Fun though the DAC is it may have to wait a while as I am also currently pricing up a new kitchen. I had a browse around on the web yesterday and I can get a new double oven, hob, cooker hood, dishwasher, fridge and freezer for just over £3,000. These are all Bosch products so I am not exactly going for the cheapest products here.
When you stack them up side by side the amount of metal you end up with for the DAC does seem a bit laughable and kind of hard to justify as a purchase option.
This got me thinking about hi fi prices in general so I had a look back at the old reviews of my integrated amp (a roksan Caspian). In 1997 this retailed for £695, today the comparable amp costs £1,450. That represents an increase of 109%. If you take a look at the RPI table for the same period the general inflation increase is 38%, why has this happened? The new amp is cosmetically almost identical to the original and has the same features and functions.
Is there a hi fi industry price index? This could be interesting as I have only picked out one product in my example.
I fear I may have become too domesticated over the last decade or so.