Which country has the best hi fi industry in the world

[Macca]

I'd dispute that as the £400 one is probably at least ten years old, the tech has moved on now. The stuff is getting old and not so new, you end up replacing the crossovers etc. There is not a lot of money in speakers yes but an awful lot of design and costs and incidental staff costs, and buildings. Stuff that has to go in to designing the speaker. And you cant expect people to believe that someone like naim who have million pound development budgets probably, can't do something better with that than an odd jobber with a soldering iron and no decent design and testing budget. An awful lot goes into developing a hi fi amp I'm sure.

I'll let Jez answer that but you are really way off beam as to how it all actually goes down.

[Arkless Electronics]

Precisely!! So how exactly does that impact on Simon's notion of 'you get what you pay for'?

Marco.

When I worked for Musical Fidelity I saw a BOM with pricing to them for the parts for an A370 power amp (about £3K at the time, more like £5K in today's money) and it came to about £270 IIRC. MF were a medium to large company at the time and these were not made in huge quantities. Something made by a bigger company and selling for a lower price would be proportionately much less for the parts than this.

[Marco]

I'll let Jez answer that but you are really way off beam as to how it all actually goes down.

Indeed. The poor boy has much to learn!!

Marco.

[Dynamics]

Good! Then, we'll arrange that sometime, sooner rather than later



Sorry, don't get what you mean....

However, have you considered the notion that the gourmet type burger place might simply be selling the same burgers as the van outside B&Q, and fooling their customers into thinking that it's "gourmet", simply because they're eating it in posh surroundings?

Also, what if you know a top chef, and he regularly invites you round to his place for a meal, either free of charge or costing you half the price of what the same meal would be in his restaurant? Does that make the meal any less good than it would be if you'd paid much more for exactly the same thing, eaten in his fancy restaurant?

Now consider replacing the meal and the chef, with your relationship with a top audio designer, who has the ability to build superb hi-fi equipment, as well as anyone commercially, just like the chef could do with food, but like the chef, charges you what amounts to 'mates rates' (in comparison with a similar standard of commercial equipment), simply because he works from home and doesn't have many overheads...

Do you see where I'm going with this?? And some of us here have those types of friends!

Marco.

No it comes with fat oozing out, stale bun. I get some nice Stilton on the gourmet place, nice salad, fresh baked bread. I can expect this for £1. That's the question you aren't asking. What is real world. What can I expect. If I went to the gourmet place and got the burger dripping fat and paid £7, I don't go back. Neither does anyone else. Now they charge £1'like the burger van outside b and q. Now if I want a £1 quick burger just on the go, I go to gourmet burger or the van

If the chef cooks me a meal at home for a fraction of the price of his restaurant and he does it a lot, he should get charging me and others what he does in his restaurant if he is smart and he will if he can. People don't do stuff for free, and if they do as friends then I doubt there skills are as involved as a firm who has the design skills of a bigger player, certainly on things like amps and speakers. But I'd give it some ruidemnetary items might be the same. But we are talking about systems here. Complex hi fi you can't make in a shed. Friends don't design speakers that take huge costs to implement in the confines of a commercial market. If I gave a friend the opportunity to design a pc and op system, it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as Apple or Microsoft. He or she don't have the budgets.

[Marco]

Yes but arkless don't have the development budget to produce the same quality I'd doubt, relative of say of a naim or arcam etc, the staff, The bigger premises, the hr and health and safety costs etc.

Simon, no offence intended, but you're a dealer's wet dream and simply asking to be fleeced!

Sadly, you've been completely brainwashed by the whole concept of how retail hi-fi works. That is also painfully obvious from the contents of your last post, so I'll bow out now and leave you to it.

Marco.

[Arkless Electronics]

I'll let Jez answer that but you are really way off beam as to how it all actually goes down.

I'll just say I own at least double the test gear etc that Musical Fidelity and Alchemist Products (for whom I was Chief Engineer) had between them.... And that it's very often someone like myself, with their own facilities and a one man band, who actually does all the design work at circuit level on lots of big name equipment.
I was once " head-hunted" by a specialist technical recruitment agency on behalf of a well known Salisbury based manufacturer.... How I laughed

[Dynamics]

Not really I dont think and you can think they fleece me but all that matters to me is the hi fi is worth its value to me. I don't need to buy the greasy burger to know the gourmet one will be better. The chef who has designed the flavours, that's maybe taking it too far for a burger, but you know what I mean.

What do you reckon on what we compare amp wise with mine. Anyone in Sussex want to get involved.

[Arkless Electronics]

Simon, no offence intended, but you're a dealer's wet dream and simply asking to be fleeced!

Sadly, you've been completely brainwashed by the whole concept of how retail hi-fi works. That is also painfully obvious from the contents of your last post, so I'll bow out now and leave you to it.

Marco.

His lack of understanding of how the whole industry works, how products are designed and by whom, the relationship between manufacturers and the magazines... I could go on at length but I think I'll join you on bowing out of this one while I'm feeling calm

[Macca]

. But we are talking about systems here. Complex hi fi you can't make in a shed. Friends don't design speakers that take huge costs to implement in the confines of a commercial market. If I gave a friend the opportunity to design a pc and op system, it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as Apple or Microsoft. He or she don't have the budgets.

Yes you can very much make it in a shed. You can get speaker designs for nothing on the internet, Amplifier circuits also. You don't need an R&D department and a million pound budget. Most of the R&D in hifi is spent trying work out how to do the same thing for less money.

[struth]

I'll just say I own at least double the test gear etc that Musical Fidelity and Alchemist Products (for whom I was Chief Engineer) had between them.... And that it's very often someone like myself, with their own facilities and a one man band, who actually does all the design work at circuit level on lots of big name equipment.
I was once " head-hunted" by a specialist technical recruitment agency on behalf of a well known Salisbury based manufacturer.... How I laughed

Naim names then or was it Maplins