View Full Version : Is todays audio less or more expensive/Do we get more for our money?
This month was a big month for us electronically speaking.
First I bought a new 160 gig ipod classic,then replaced my old Alpine car stereo for a Kenwood with bluetooth and Ipod docking cable then a new laptop.Oh and a new coffee maker.
And I started thinking about all the electronics I have bought over my life time and some of the prices my Dad paid over the years.
The Alpine was over $400.00 in 1997 it had a 1 bit DAC and was the top Deck at 40 watts peek X4 12 watts RMS X4.It had a wireless remote.
In 1984 a Blaupunkt AM/FM cassette with remote on a wire. $1,400.00 !
The new Kenwood 24 bit DAC CD, AM/FM Sirus,blue tooth,wireless remote,ipod interface. 50 wattsX4 peek 22 x 4 RMS. $200.00.
I just picked up a laptop that is less than half the price I paid just under 4 years ago and the specs/build quality are way better.
55 inch Hitachi T.V. in 93 7,000.00 vs. 65 inch Mitsubishi T.V. $1,200.00.
I could go on and on but unless you are buying boutique gear that has and always will be outrageously expensive this is the best time ever to buy electronics.
I would like to pole this.
Do think audio is a better bargain today than years past?
Reid Malenfant
05-06-2011, 19:29
I do tend to agree but with some exceptions ;) Things are no longer built to last much longer than the guarantee period, remember this is a consumer society so we must consume & keep consuming. If they built things to last then all our countries would have been fooked up before now!
Technology has improved though by a huge margin & the consequence is things have gotten cheaper :)
The credit crunch did me a favour as i picked up my Krell transport (built like a tank :eyebrows:) for £547 delivered... When new (late 90s) it was about £11,000 :eek:
I do tend to agree but with some exceptions ;) Things are no longer built to last much longer than the guarantee period, remember this is a consumer society so we must consume & keep consuming. If they built things to last then all our countries would have been fooked up before now!
Technology has improved though by a huge margin & the consequence is things have gotten cheaper :)
The credit crunch did me a favour as i picked up my Krell transport (built like a tank :eyebrows:) for £547 delivered... When new (late 90s) it was about £11,000 :eek:
Yes, but the price is so low you can buy 3 of them or more,and I disagree
My wifes Kennwood car stereo is 2 years old and still rocks,my Mitsubishi TV is at least 3 years old and is on all day, Think about how much my last one cost me I could almost by 7 bigger T.V.'s with a better picture to boot.
Reid Malenfant
05-06-2011, 19:48
You can disagree if you like Jeff :) When the kit has done 10 years of day in, day out work let me know will you :eyebrows:
I have an Elektrolux vacumm cleaner here that is older than me fella! It has never had the brushes changed or any servicing what so ever & it still works perfectly...
I was born in 1966 ;) Modern cleaners like Dysons etc appear to crap out after less than 3 years, so tell me how come a vacuum cleaner can last over 45 years that was built that long ago & yet with better technology these days they last far less :scratch:
Jac Hawk
05-06-2011, 19:54
To be honest I think it depends on what you're buying, mass produced electronics generally i would say are more affordable, TV's, PC's, DVD players etc. the list goes on and on. However as soon as you start looking at things that are a little more exotic prices really sky rocket, for instance, i bought a cartridge for my TT about 2 or 3 weeks ago, it's a Nagaoka MP15 with a spare MP11 stylus and was bought new in 1989 for £29.95, i paid £34.00 for it, but a new similar model cartridge the MP150 would cost me over £200, now look at CD player i had a Sony can't remember the model but it was budget model back in 1988 it cost me over £100, where as nowadays i can pick up a cheap CD player new for about £30. Anything that isn't mainstream has always carried a premium price tag, i think usually if it can be mass produced and sold in huge quantities then nowadays things are cheaper than what they were 15 or 20 years ago, however as soon as you look at a more specialised equipment the prices i suppose are comparable to the past.
You can disagree if you like Jeff :) When the kit has done 10 years of day in, day out work let me know will you :eyebrows:
I have an Elektrolux vacumm cleaner here that is older than me fella! It has never had the brushes changed or any servicing what so ever & it still works perfectly...
I was born in 1966 ;) Modern cleaners like Dysons etc appear to crap out after less than 3 years, so tell me how come a vacuum cleaner can last over 45 years that was built that long ago & yet with better technology these days they last far less :scratch:
Now we have something to talk about.
I am a Head Custodian in Californias 3rd largest school district.
Our vacuum cleaners do 8 hours a night 5 nights a week and pick up things yours never will,unless your home is filled kids, paper clips,staples,paper,broken pencils ect...
The vacuum cleaners you for-mentioned are cheap plastic gimmicky crap.
I think we can both agree on that.
The vacuum cleaners in our schools can be 30 years old on average!
It is rare we buy a new one as all the parts for this model have been available for ever and even though bushings and bearings,fans get blasted with dirt and playground sand they go 3 to 4 years minimum with out much repair.In one year these vacuums average 2,080 hours a year!
Your vacuum at home will never see that kind of use.
The Eureka Sanitare is a commercial upright,and last year they started getting there motors made in China and the soft plastic base plate incasing the above motor body has blasted though in sometimes as little as 3 months!
Our District has been rebuilding there old motor bodys and found a Orick motor that fits,It is still the best vacuum cleaner will last like you old Electrolux it costs far less today than it did 5 years ago too.
Here: http://www.vcdiscounter.com/sc684f.html
I paid $ 360.00 for one I got my Mom over 10 years ago.
Now it's $165.95 an I'm sure they will get the motor thing sorted out soon.
Reid Malenfant
05-06-2011, 20:40
:lolsign: Jeff, use ya noggin m8.. If it was cheap plastic crap as you call it howcome it is older than me & still working? ;)
For you Americans 'noggin' = brain
:lolsign: Jeff, use ya noggin m8.. If it was cheap plastic crap as you call it howcome it is older than me & still working? ;)
For you Americans 'noggin' = brain
I was not referring to the Electrolux as cheap plastic crap.
I said the for-mentioned ones you listed the Electolux out living.
I too was born in 1966 and grew up with Electrolux a fine vacuum that actually saved my life due to it's build quality as I was about 3 years old and was sucking up water from the dogs water bowl with the metal wand and my Dad ran and unplugged it. It shows the isolation that vacuum has between motor and dirt a key reason I'm still here.
In Hindi,Punjabi and Urdu NOGGIN means snake (Cobra) in the male Naggina is a female cobra.
Reid Malenfant
05-06-2011, 20:50
:lolsign: You nutcase :eyebrows: Yeah, i can understand your dads quick intervention :eek:
WOStantonCS100
05-06-2011, 21:44
All the things I can depend on around here are from the '70s and earlier or were built by me or I ponied up and spent serious cash on. This would include vehicles as well.
Vacuum cleaners on 8 hours a night, 5 days a week?
EIGHT HOURS? :¬)
Thats a third of the day, 70% of the year. Surely not?
Vacuum cleaners on 8 hours a night, 5 days a week?
EIGHT HOURS? :¬)
Thats a third of the day, 70% of the year. Surely not?
Most of what we do in an 8 hour shift is vacuuming,vacuum 38 1,000 sqft.
classrooms a night and see how long it runs.
School settings are the hardest to clean of any including a hospital.
After the kids leave you have a crew that comes in and it's like cleaning after a party you where not invited to.
If one thing is 100% certain we get a lot less for our money these days.
As someone mentioned earlier in this thread things are built to last their warranty & nothing more. A great example of where the past 'failed' business are things like kettles & toasters. These things used to be bomb-proof and once you had purchased one you should expect 20+yrs out of it. This simply is NOT the case anymore. One exception I can think of are Miele appliances, which are still built to last 25 years! Forget any new CD player (transport) in existence lasting this long aside from the ultra-high end.
If one thing is 100% certain we get a lot less for our money these days.
As someone mentioned earlier in this thread things are built to last their warranty & nothing more. A great example of where the past 'failed' business are things like kettles & toasters. These things used to be bomb-proof and once you had purchased one you should expect 20+yrs out of it. This simply is NOT the case anymore. One exception I can think of are Miele appliances, which are still built to last 25 years! Forget any new CD player (transport) in existence lasting this long aside from the ultra-high end.
You can still get good kettles that will last forever,17 piece Cuisinart chefs set with life time warranty $249.99. Macy's one of the U.S. luxury stores.
http://www1.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=198526&CategoryID=7560#fn=sp%3D1%26spc%3D178
And Phillips still makes great CD drives.
I truly believe there are some great deals to be had right now due to small children and women working long hours for slave wages in mostly china.
I believe Sam Walton has reshaped the world and it's economy,the world is becoming Walmartized.
Can developed country s produce there own goods any more and still compete in the world?
Ha ha ha sarcasm from an American? :P
Speaking of Philips mechs I'm amused that Philips' top-end CD-Pro2 mech had to be updated to accept CD/RW yet their old, superior swingarm mechs read them no sweat despite being designed decades before CD/RW even existed.
Ha ha ha sarcasm from an American? :P
Speaking of Philips mechs I'm amused that Philips' top-end CD-Pro2 mech had to be updated to accept CD/RW yet their old, superior swingarm mechs read them no sweat despite being designed decades before CD/RW even existed.
Neil did you click the link.
We have the same set mixed with chef mate made by Tramitina now 7 years old and other chefs brands Capholon, Anolon, but our oldest pot is a 6 qt. Renaware used as a poch pot in a 24 hour restaurant that was in Lake Tahoe from the 50's This pot is pre patent and I took it to L.A. to get the handles replaced and the factory was shocked to see one pre patented .I was a part time 2nd job cook during from 1999 to 2002 at a new restaurant the owner of the family tree opened here and used the old black with carbon poach pot from being on the burnner all the time and just being run through the dish washer every day.
Before I left I soaked the old pot in lye and scrubbed it clean then on a trip to L.A. got replacement handles from Reinaware. And took it back to him.
He said,Jeff I have had that pot since way before my daughter was born and it was used long before I bought the family tree,it was black with burned on carbon then, I really want you to have that old pot as I know it won't end up at the dump when I'm gone.He 70 then is still around and has since sold his restaurant and retired.
But I think of Dana everytime I cook in it,it has 3 plys of stainless steel and was made in 1941 and will be given to my son Conner some day.
http://www.renaware.com/Our+Company/A+Family+Business/Our+Roots/default.aspx
Don't you believe Miele are as good as they were. 9 years ago I bought a Miele washing machine; went wrong in the second week. It was repaired and went on for 6 more years then the electronics went wrong. The new control board more than £400:doh:. It is the electronics that let you down, even if the build quality is there.
Buy cheap, buy twice :eek:
Our 20 year old Kenwood food processor finally died last year and we bought a cheap one from our local supermarket. It said "Made in China" on the base.
Plugged it in, put the grater blade in, then fed a piece of Cheddar cheese in, the blade did one revolution and then stopped because the motor shaft had snapped. CHEESE for goodness sake!!!!
Had a Vax cleaner which lasted a fair while until the motor gave up and bought a new Vax to replace it. The latest crop is again made in China and it doesn't suck up half the liquid the old one did, the detergent constantly leaks out the blessed thing so you have no control over the flow at all :( The annoying part of this is that Vax have saved a huge amount for money from far east manufacture, but the RRP isn't any lower for a grossly inferior product :steam:
The name of the game is 'decontenting'. Manufacturers have for some time been aware that perceived quality and low price is what drives sales volumes.
During a recession, the problem is exacerbated in that quality takes a very strong second place to low price. Basically, the number of consumers buying primarily on quality rather than price is negligable and are ignored in product planning. Retailers support the trend because a more expensive product that is ostensibly similar to a cheaper model will not sell, despite having superior quality, performance and long-term reliability.
Parts prices can be set at a very, very high level (£400 for a washing machine controller - WTF??? cost to manufacturer must be less than 10% of that!). Where is the incentive to deliver high quality? poor quality = lower cost to manufacturer, increased replacement sales as well as additional after-sales revenue. The manufacturer lays of their warranty risk by providing a short warranty and earning extra revenues through extended warranties.
I have bought three Miele vacumms, and I can tell you that the quality of the casings, plastic moldings and internals aren't a patch on the one I bought 12 years ago.
Luckily the Sale of Goods act in the UK ignores the manufacturer's warranty period as the determinent of their liability for fixing their junk - if you think that a fridge should last three years then the manufacturer is liable for repairs out of warranty period at no cost. You will be blocked at every turn bu manufacturers and retailers, but stick to your guns and you will win.
Regards,
Alex
After the kids leave you have a crew that comes in and it's like cleaning after a party you where not invited to.
Haha!
Buy cheap, buy twice
Agreed - the poor man pays twice!
In the case of audio equipment, that can be multiplied quite a few times :¬)
In these days of globalisation, products tend to be built to to achieve a price, rather than built to achieve a specification.
As consumers, I think we're all guilty of perpetuating this by gravitating towards lower price products and only 'seeing' the sticker price, not the long term cost. OK, that's a generalisation and some will pay for high quality but these buyers are very much in the minority.
I think it's safe to target first or near-first generation products as they tend to be of battleship build quality. I'm thinking of the Sony SCD-1 SACD player and BDP-S1 Blu-ray players in particular. Also high end sub-brands like Teac Esoteric, Pioneer Elite etc., which are built to last. Not to forget that they tend to be better looked after in the first place.
Not all first-generation products are as good as what follows
I had a Sony CDP-101 from new, which was the first CD player on the market in the UK. It was built like a tank, and it had seven separate circuit boards stuffed with discrete components and ICs and weighed a ton.
Reliability of my sample was very poor, and it worked about 50% of the time. I think it spent more time in Sony's repair centre than it did at my home. I laugh when I hear the revisionists saying that it sounds better than current players - their audio memory is definitely playing tricks on them as the sound was compressed, two-dimensional and cold.
Often production and technology advances allow for superior performance to be delivered at a given price point thanks to a reduced bill of materials and I think that to adopt the position that defacto, older is better is misguided.
However older audio products have a couple of district advantages:
1) They are second hand, and therefore available at a lower price (at least until ebay numpties get carried away)
2) Audio products continue to get more and more expensive due to the changed business model in most of the audio industry, i.e. amortisation of cost over a vastly reduced production volume and chasing higher per-unit profit. The market is shrinking so fast that many manufacturers have lapsed back into cottage industry operations and any economies of scale are lost. Sadly many will go to the wall over the next five years or so...
All IMHO...
Alex
I was referring more to longevity than sound quality, admittedly. I agree that the CDP-101 did not sound good and my friend's unit was unreliable, too. The SCD-1 is a different matter, however, and very upgradeable.
Martin, Sorry if I misinterpreted you..
I also read about the 'fix' for the servo amp. Too late for me as I wrote this item off long ago!. As for sound, the CDP-101 was completely trounced by the Marantz CD65SE that replaced it, so I think it is funny that it's sound is being talked up in various forums. It is an interesting historical piece, but not really competitive sonically.
Regards,
Alex
Rare Bird
08-06-2011, 13:36
People are that use to listerning to modern DAC's, the sound signature is telling their brain it must be an upgrade, seemingly better sound.The older CDP's sound better to me (doesnt alter the fact the old ones do still need a bit of work on the items electronically) those 'CDP-101' are easy to fix now..
You ask Marco for instance if he would swap his old TDA1541' based spinner for anything modern i think you'll get a very big NO from him..
You ask Marco for instance if he would swap his old TDA1541' based spinner for anything modern i think you'll get a very big NO from him..
Indeed!! But only after some judicious modification with modern components.
The quality core ingredients are there (unlike on most modern CDPs), they just need a little 'gentle shove' ;)
Marco.
Andre,
OK.. accept that this is a taste and preferences issue, but I don't agree that this sounds like anything other than a first generation player - no magic in evidence here.
The CD65SE that replaced the CDP-101 is also now a 'classic' and uses Marco's beloved TDA1541 'crown' DAC, and it was a huge improvement. I still think the Sony wasn't very good sonically. The Sony had a 'grey' tonality that I felt sucked the colour out of music, but on the other hand it may have been the music I was listening to in 1984 that was at fault!. The Sony DAC was mono running at 88.2Khz, and alternated digital to analogue conversion between channels to get two channel output... this was certainly unusual, and driven by the costs of the chips at the time. The Philips 14bit x 4 players of the time also sounded quite a lot better... I had a Marantz CD45SE based on this chipset and it was quite good.
The Zanden Model 5000 Mk II DAC that is my digital reference (in a friend's system) also uses the TDA1541 without an oversampling filter. I think the TDA1541 tends to sound quite euphonic and has a discernible sonic imprint (not sure this is necessarily a good thing!).
I think the big difference is in filters and upsampling used nowadays rather than the performance of the dac itself. The Zanden doesn't have a digital filter chip at all, and sounds fantastic. The Sony also used a 'brick wall' analogue anti-aliasing filter with no oversampling, but a high-order filter of this sort has a definite sonic impact with quite severe phase shifts and I think this is what makes it sound as it does.
Regards,
Alex
P.S. Have a look at this site (http://www.adrian-kingston.com/CDP-101.htm) to learn more about the CDP-101.
Check out the component count of this! this must have been a loss-leader for Sony, even at £400 at the time....
http://www.adrian-kingston.com/images/CDP-101/img_8882_small2.jpg
To risk commenting without having read the rest of the thread, hopefully not repeating anything:
To answer the OPs question, yes and no!
Yes in that if the economies of scale were the same today as back then and labour costs in developed countries were the same (thinking here of small boutique audio companies) then things would be much cheaper in my opinion.
No because the industry has become much smaller and so the economies of scale don't apply, labour costs of boutique companies are much much higher unless they can outsource but perhaps loose quality and coupled to that, marketing BS has increased so much that prices are pushed higher and higher to appeal to a very rich life-style image and also to compensate for the small turnover..
I do think that you CAN get great quality sound these days for much much less compared to income than you used to but these items are normally kind of looked down upon or are lacking build quality. Class-D amps in cheap boxes for example.
Internal components like DAC chips are much more widely and cheaply available because of technological advances so now DIY is growing again but MORE IMPORTANTLY the information on how to make great stuff is now available to ALL via the internet, and freely exchanged and improved upon day after day..
For mainstream product I believe you do get value for money - there is little crap out there now. However, high end stuff there's no such thing as VFM
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