View Full Version : Has the world of Hi-Fi gone mad?
After spending nearly two hours in a dentist chair this morning, having expensive root canal surgery performed on me, I thought I would cheer myself up by having a look at the latest Hi-Fi comics.
The latest issue Hi Fi News is a retrospective look at this year's new toys. I was astonished to read of speakers costing £140,000 a pair and of the latest Krell monoblock amplifiers that cost £44,000 a pair.
Now lets add say £12,000 for decent 'high-end' preamplifier and the same again for a CD player (say the Nagra or (a cheap!) Mark Levinson) and we arrive at a CD only system for £208,000!
Things could be worse: to play LPs one could use an SME 30/12 turntable and arm (£24,000) with the top of the range Koetsu 'Urushi' cartridge (£15,000!), plus of course, an Audio Research Reference 'Phono 2' preamp (£15,000) bringing the grand total up to £238,000! :eek:
And to make matters even more bizzare, HFN are now 'measuring' LPs! :doh:
Think I ought to stop looking at Hi-Fi 'pornazines'
My heart skipped a beat when I discovered that the latest 'budget' Linn LP12 costs two and a half grand, and that's with manual speed change, plus the lid is a £140 option :stalks:
I may be a bit behind the times though coz I can remember LP12's selling for £499.99, but that was a long time ago :lolsign:
hifi_dave
27-10-2011, 14:27
Thing is, very little of this gear will be sold in the UK. I'd be surprised if more than a couple of pairs of each are bought in the UK, as the market is the Far East, where this sort of gear is appreciated and the customers have serious wealth.
In this country, the 'wealthy' have better things to spend their money on.
Another thing - do you ever look at these megabuck products and wonder why they are so expensive ? With a little insider knowledge, it is often difficult (impossible) to justify the price when you tally up the price of the components..:scratch:
It's all relative. My system probably cost in the region of £12-£14k. Yet without a doubt every single one of my "normal" friends would consider me stark raving mad if they knew the value of my kit. To them Hi End is anything over £300 and probably wouldn't even believe me if I said that any HiFi actually costs more than £1k
Lodgesound
27-10-2011, 15:05
Agree Barry.......it is all WHOPPINGLY overpriced - the manufacturers must just laugh when calculating the RRP's......must go something like.....
"Well it cost us around 2 grand to manufacture including the R&D so if we add two zeros onto that plus 50 grand for good measure then people will think it's incredible....
Lodgesound
27-10-2011, 15:07
Sorry but most of the high end gear I see does not even begin to live up to or justify it's price tags.....
aquapiranha
27-10-2011, 15:39
People with the money to buy the top end stuff 'expect' it to cost loads, otherwise how would they be able to brag in forums? :lol: In my experience cost often has little to do with performance when it comes to hi-fi, and I have heard cheapo gear sound as good as expensive gear, and both expensive and cheap equipment that sounded pants.
EDIT. I saw a pair of speakers for sale a while ago, I won't mention the brand, but they used a driver form Fostex that cost around £250 a pair. The price of the speakers was approaching £4K. Now, most people wouldn't know how to build a pair of speakers, and I am not the type to be impressed by fancy veneer or boutique badges, and could build something similar for peanuts when compared to that manufacturer but not everyone can and so will pay the money.
jazzpiano
27-10-2011, 16:06
Totally agree. What happened to the law of diminishing returns? I guess hi-fi means different things to different people. Sometimes either a status symbol or neurosis. As an example of both, decades ago when I worked at an audio shop (delightfully holed-up in a back room setting up Regas and replacing blown drivers on Polk speakers) we had a wealthy local exec who'd come in every few weeks and exchange mega-thousand dollar equipment for other mega-thousand dollar equipment. He owned one record: the audiophile-approved 1812 Overture, complete with real canons. He judged all equipment by how realistically he felt the canons sounded. Finally, one day my work mate couldn't take it anymore and told him: "Harold, you could die having only heard one record!" Thankfully they had the kind of relationship where he could be blunt. But alas, no response, no change.
Barry:doh:
He judged all equipment by how realistically he felt the canons sounded.
Even more daft if he hadn't even heard the actual canons for himself in "real life"! Still, it takes all sorts, and he wasn't hurting anyone, so as long as he was happy I suppose that is all that matters!
Barry this is the very reason why I rarely buy hifi mags anymore
One of the things that get me is the constant upgrade or change of model I know for a manufacurer this means surival but apart from DACS have we really moved that much further
jazzpiano
27-10-2011, 16:37
Good points Alex and John. It's his dollar and if he's having fun... It just gets a little hard to relate sometimes. Kind of like the record buyer who has to have the 'pink' label because they only pressed 10 of those versus the standard 'black' issue. But, you get to choose and we've probably all made choices at times based on something superficial. Thanks again.
Barry :)
The ultra high end market is thriving because the people who have enough money to last their life times need something to spend it on as the interest rates mean savings incur virtually no interest!
Last time I read that there are 52 billionaires living in the UK, £250k on a hi-fi system is petty cash to these people, why the mags review such gear is beyond me, better to review affordable I think?
Kind of like the record buyer who has to have the 'pink' label
Barry :)
That'll be me then.
:o
hifi_dave
27-10-2011, 16:45
It's OK to have something to aspire to and £4K - £10K speakers sell fairly regularly but when you add a nought or even more to that price, it is ridiculous. You cannot begin to justify it in sound for your Pound or even what your money buys in terms of components.
jazzpiano
27-10-2011, 17:23
It's all good Dave. I once had to have an original Bud Powell record because I liked the cover illustration - had nothing to do with the music.
Barry:mental:
Reid Malenfant
27-10-2011, 17:35
That'll be me then.
:o
I think I'm just as bad when it comes to certain record lables ;)
It's all good Dave. I once had to have an original Bud Powell record because I liked the cover illustration - had nothing to do with the music.
Barry:mental:
I had to buy all Fax +49-69/450464 (http://www.discogs.com/label/Fax+%2B49-69%2F450464) original ltd edition CD releases as the re-issues just weren't good enough :eyebrows:
:whistle:
But it's all about the music no?
The Grand Wazoo
27-10-2011, 17:37
Peanuts Barry, mere peanuts.
Why slum it with £140k speakers when you can shell out $2million on some Transmission Audio Ultimate speakers, $650k on a Pivetta Opera amp and the same again on an AV DesignHaus Dereneville VPM 2010-1 turntable?
............yes, the world of Hi-Fi has gone mad.
Reid Malenfant
27-10-2011, 17:49
Hey Chris, you neglected to mention that the power amps are supplied with those speakers :)
As if it makes much difference :mental: Crazy speakers that need a room the size of a small gymnasium :eek:
The Grand Wazoo
27-10-2011, 18:37
Oh right, well that's saved us a bit then - we've got $650k spare to get a preamp with!
Perhaps we should open out this thread by asking the question "what is the most expensive system one can put together that includes vinyl, CD, cassette, open reel replay and a radio tuner?".
For more expensive speakers you can take a look here:
http://www.higherfi.com/spkrlist/speakerlist.htm
TT's:
http://www.higherfi.com/ttlist/ttlist.htm
Amps:
http://www.higherfi.com/amplist/amplist.htm
and some strange looking speakers:
http://www.higherfi.com/oddspeakers/index.html
These might fit most living rooms:
http://www.higherfi.com/oddspeakers/JasonSui_n38.jpg
http://www.higherfi.com/oddspeakers/woofers.jpg
Reid Malenfant
27-10-2011, 19:21
Oh right, well that's saved us a bit then - we've got $650k spare to get a preamp with!
:lolsign:
The Grand Wazoo
27-10-2011, 19:37
If we buy that lot d'you reckon they'll chuck in a set of cheapo interconnects & some 79 strand just to get us going?
bobbasrah
28-10-2011, 10:35
Voyeurism?
Selling the dream is what made Top Gear etc so successfull, but it did nothing for Veyron sales I suspect. Made Clarkson a nice living though.
Are these magazines not just selling the same dream?
It’s always been like this.
A friend of mine said to me a while ago if you spend more than a couple of grand on a Hi Fi these days you need therapy. I think I agree with him.
It doesn’t matter what you can demonstrate through measurement and listening comparisons people are always going to buy the hype, the status, the kit.
I can’t condemn the excessively rich who instruct a Hi Fi consultant to build them the best sounding system cost no object. By the time the room had been built, or an existing one treated and the kit has been professionally set up I expect they get a stunning sounding system.
What I find weirder is people like us who should be reasonably knowledgeable on the subject who pay silly amounts of money on equipment that most probably doesn’t give any sonic improvement over something at a fraction of the cost.
Excluding the house I’ve probably spent more money and time on Hi Fi than anything else I own.
I could probably have spent a year walking around the borders of the Ionian and Aegean seas with that money and had change to buy a perfectly acceptable stereo.
I definitely need therapy!
worthingpagan
30-10-2011, 12:02
ahhh, but how much more money has been spent on alcohol??? :lol:
Last year at the Melbourne hifi show there were plenty of instances of dealers being accosted with comments like "for the money your asking I don't think it's the least bit impressive at all!"
Came home perfectly happy that very little had beaten my home setup.
Hal55
Beobloke
10-09-2012, 09:50
Interesting comments...
So, are we saying that if, hypothetically speaking, you woke up one morning and found yourself richer to the tune of £100 million or so thanks to the Euromillions lottery, none of you would have ANY interest in some of this fantastically priced stuff?
Canetoad
10-09-2012, 10:37
Correct! Having plenty of money doesn't mean it's OK to waste it. Spend it helping somebody who needs it instead. :)
So, are we saying that if, hypothetically speaking, you woke up one morning and found yourself richer to the tune of £100 million or so thanks to the Euromillions lottery, none of you would have ANY interest in some of this fantastically priced stuff?
Only if to my ears it sounded HUGELY better than what I've already got (and I mean HUGELY, to the extent that it made it sound broken)!
If so, then, yes. If equipment has been designed in a 'no-compromise' way, where the bulk of the money has been spent under the hood, where it matters most, as opposed to pointless frippery, and if it has been designed for the RIGHT reasons, then if I could afford it, I'd be very interested. Otherwise, for me, all it would be is nonsensical audiophile jewellery.
I'm not interested in owning 'desirable badges' or 'sexy' looks, just for the sake of it, with equipment. If I were to buy some of the kit being discussed then, quite simply, it would have to fulfil its primary function (reproducing recorded music), to my ears, to a massively higher sonic standard than anything else I've heard, to date. I'm fortunate to be very comfortable with my position in life, so don't need to 'show off' my material possessions to anyone, in order to gain kudos.
The fact is, even if I were to win millions on the Lottery; I wouldn't suddenly abandon my principles overnight, and start liking things that I've never liked and consider as crass. Therefore, I'd no sooner buy a piece of hugely expensive 'audiophile jewellery', than I would a mock Tudor mansion in some God-awful modern housing complex, and adorn it inside with bling, like footballers do! That would be tasteless and rather vulgar, just like a gold Rolex, or perhaps something from Absolute Sounds. One has certain standards to maintain...
Sadly, as hifi dave correctly pointed out, most of this uber-expensive nonsense is very low on SPPV, simply because it's aimed at those with more money than sense; not those who know how to get the biggest bang for their buck, even when they're not short of bucks to spend in the first place! ;)
Marco.
A friend of mine said to me a while ago if you spend more than a couple of grand on a Hi Fi these days you need therapy.
Hmm, one of those sweeping statements that doesn't fit me, for starters. My system is worth about the same as my car cost new. The difference is (and I've actually shocked my friends by saying this) that I'd lose the car in a trice rather than sacrifice any of my system. Even if I had to hurtle down the motorway in a Smart car with the lawnmower engine. So it may be expensive but it was my hard-earned graft and provides me with more joy than any other inanimate object I can think of.
Hmm, one of those sweeping statements that doesn't fit me, for starters.
Me neither. I'm afraid that it's just one of the rather ill-considered statements that John spouts, from time to time, designed to poke/wind-up the 'enemy'! ;)
A couple of grand is fine, if that's all you can afford and/or is necessary to produce the sound you want, say, when one is building a DIY computer audio set-up, or a modest separates system, but not when you have to pay for uber-engineered and designed commercially or bespoke-made high-end audio equipment from top manufacturers (the kind which does offer high SPPV!) :cool:
Same here: my system and music collection are my most prized material possessions. They'd be the last things I'd give up if I ever had to sell stuff to survive!
Marco.
hifi_dave
10-09-2012, 13:52
I can understand spending £10 - 20K on a Hi-Fi system but some of the equipment available now is obscenely priced - £200K for speakers and £180K for a pair of mono-blocks, as featured in recent issues of Hi-Fi News.
£10-20k, even a bit more, is 'justifiable', but when you start hitting six figures, for a full system, or worse for a single piece of kit, all you are is a cash-cow for someone's pension fund, or a 'key jangler' out to impress (or make) friends!! ;)
Marco.
Lets face it,99% of the population would think anything over a grand is to much.
I personally think anything over 2 grand for a car is mad.
I personally think anything over 2 grand for a car is mad.
:rolleyes:
S'ok, he's a cyclist! :D
Marco.
Haselsh1
10-09-2012, 15:38
I can understand spending £10 - 20K on a Hi-Fi system but some of the equipment available now is obscenely priced - £200K for speakers and £180K for a pair of mono-blocks, as featured in recent issues of Hi-Fi News.
200k and 180k...! Imagine the profit margin on that at 100%...??? I need to get back into the business.
200k and 180k...! Imagine the profit margin on that at 100%...???
More like 500%!!
Marco.
i'm not sure i could shell out anything over 2 grand for a component unless i was absolutely sure that what i was getting i couldn't get anywhere else for cheaper, and when you take into account the virtues of DIY, vintage, and the used market i doubt i could make a decision I was happy with.
If I win the Lottery (or perhaps sell a couple of properties I own) then I'll be happy to 'slum it' with a pair of these, placed in situ, inside a similar type of room:
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/9501/poshtannoypicture.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/841/poshtannoypicture.jpg/)
...then open a bottle of 1976 Château Lafite Rothschild, and be very happy indeed, sipping it, wearing my smoking jacket and listening to some Chopin! ;)
Marco.
WOStantonCS100
10-09-2012, 18:09
Every man must decide where his own limits are; not let others decide.
Having said that, 20 to 30 grand in my pocket at one time? Before I could really think about it I would be cleaning out my local record shops (and some not so local).
Some cracking cars out there for £2,000 and less.
What is the point of spending more.
Unless image is a big issue it seems a waste to me.
Some cracking cars out there for £2,000 and less.
What is the point of spending more.
I don't disagree that there are great cars to be had at that price, but not if you want both performance and economy. That takes the latest technology. Unless you get a bike.
Of course if that is important to the buyer.
I'am just happy with a basic car for that does the a-b stuff reliably.
Daniel75
10-09-2012, 19:11
I wouldnt pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for speakers made of gold and all that bling bollocks. I would spend quite a lot though - If I could:-) And then spend my time annoying people on internet forums. With same facial expression like this dude :eyebrows:
http://kenricksound.com/blogimages/reyaudio8.jpg
Beobloke
11-09-2012, 09:26
If I win the Lottery (or perhaps sell a couple of properties I own) then I'll be happy to 'slum it' with a pair of these,
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/9501/poshtannoypicture.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/841/poshtannoypicture.jpg/)
.
So, hang on, you're banging on about SPPV and then you state that you fancy a pair of expensive wooden boxes with a driver that has a paper cone and foam surround??!!
:scratch:
:D
Well, they're cheaper than £200k Wilson Alexandria XLFs, and most certainly the gentleman's choice! ;)
Marco.
kininigin
11-09-2012, 10:26
For me atm,i'm comfortable spending about £500 or so,on an individual item.
If i had the opportunity to spend vast amounts on hi fi,then £10,000 would probably be enough (give or take a couple of K) for me to get what i want.
If i didn't have an expensive hobby (snowboarding) in the last few years i could of had around £10,000 to play with,not sure what i would have went for though.I definitely would have the technics fully tricked out and maybe some big active atc's,pmc's or adam's and then some top end croft pre's?
I like to strike a balance in my life with the things i enjoy,so not going too extreme one way or the other,provides me with what i need.Yes i could spend large amounts on hi fi,but that would mean that i'm working full time to pay for it and not going on holiday and a holiday to me is spending 6 months in the mountains :D
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