Are you manufacturer's paying attention?

-which is why I think if comparisons are made, then keep the prices comensurate too. If a particular amplifier performs out of its price catagory, *then* find out what it does compare to. Would it be the bang for the buck amplifier then? What if it cost $5000 but sounds better then one that's 10K? What do all the people who can't even afford 3K do? My guess is they will think the $5K amp is overpriced too.

But the fact of the matter is these disparities exist. There *are* amplifiers out there that outperform other amps that cost several times more.

The comes the issue: how do you compare them? There's an awful lot of amps out there. Usually the best place to test an amp is in the home, as IMMV. Actually, audiophiles have been lied to for so long (every comapny in the world saying they make the best equipment in the world) that all audiophiles have to test the gear in their homes, since if the dealer's or manufacturer's lips are moving, he's probably lying. Its gonna take a log time for everyone to listen to each product in the home to get anywhere.

So what's being said here? That we can't trust the magazines anymore? I think the truth of the matter is that the magazines serve to alert us to the presence of a particular product, but that the real homework is always on the shoulders of the buyer!

Not a lot the manufacturers can do about that. Like any other sport, this one has a lot of politics.

We've tried really hard to keep prices down over the years, one of the more obvious being we just don't price our gear to the same formula that a lot of manufacturers do.

Despite that, the market has consistantly told us that it prefers to pay a little more if the end result is better sound. Unfortunately, there is also the phenomena that a more expensive amplifier is perceived to be better for no other reason then the cost.

Eventually the market figures out that the more expensive amplifier is not always better out of sheer price alone. It is finding that out about one of our close competitors right now.

There is also the 'you get what you pay for' issue. I doubt there is a single under-$2000-amp out there that is really something that would be called world class and state of the art. We would all like to make amps that cheap, I imagine, but the facts are that such an amp has to really have some corners cut to be worth making.