Has the cost of HiFi gotten a bit too much?

@ghasley 

+1

I am naturally a skeptic. But was fortunate enough to go to a junior high school that also taught critical thinking. They made us find and read articles on the same subject from different papers and magazines and to evaluate the different viewpoints to assemble a “accurate” picture of reality. The differences in points of view helped ferrite the truth,

Some thing that has followed me through life. I took logic in college and became a scientist. My skepticism has remained… ferreting the truth. Living all over the world and understanding different points of view. I have to admit, I am pretty ashamed to be an American. As some as my European and Asian friends said, “Americans, some really smart people (fortunately me included in this group) and a whole lot of stupid ones.”. Unfortunately, true.

The Fed is unwinding it… Powell is really smart guy and knows what he is doing… and of course is completely independent of the president. I follow this stuff and have a Masters in Finance… having said that I don’t want to discuss it. It is not nearly as simple as it sounds. Abstracting stuff up to a couple variables and thinking you can draw a conclusions is idiotic. Like reading an amps rms watts and drawing a conclusion about what it sounds like. .

@gregdude

Having worked in high tech manufacturing and spent years working on mainland China… Chinese Manufacturing is just that. Chinese that have put together a business, hired Chinese workers to produce and sell a product. They are like us… try to avoid getting in trouble with their government… know the boundaries of how to avoid it… know when their government is lying to them… and work to support their families… enjoy going out to dinner if they can afford it. They also have a cultural way of interaction among themselves… more aggressive than we are. But they know our manor of interaction and treat us accordingly. I have also worked in supply chains and manufacturing in Japan, across Europe and Mexico, different cultures, but good people working within the distant confines of their government.

@bigtwin

+1. Good man

In general, I think high end audio has remained pretty cost level. In 1980 I bought a state of the art amp, a Threshold s500. I had to take out a loan. In todays dollars that is about $18,800. I recently bought a ARC 160s amp for $22K. The performance is not even remotely close… 40 years of progress… but I think it fits in a similar slot. There are many more expensive amps now. But that is because of differentiation in users and developing for better healed audiophiles.

All in all the sound quality level has advanced remarkably. I am sure I could buy an amp better than my Threshold s500 (actually if anyone owned one that has been reconditioned chime in) for $2K. If I am even close on this, it attests to the value of buying true audiophile stuff. I owned a Pass x350 for 15 years and got all but $500 back in trade.

@andy2

I appreciate your comment, but honestly no. I would recommend with a economics class, follow with a couple finance classes… graduate level. Then a few years of following details of inflation, GDP, PMI, Fed moves… in this setting it ends up in a big waste of time. I (or I doubt anyone) can begin to enlighten lay folks in a few paragraph posts. Any assertion would be followed by pages of background and caveats… I would be spending hours researching an appropriate way to summarize.

I worked as the economic and strategic advisor to the CEO of a global high tech company. I have invested in the stock and bond market over the last thirty years. I spent years following stocks and economic indicators both professionally and personally. This is not a useful topic for an audio forum.

The world of technology is a tribute to man’s ability to learn and contribute to those before him. So whether it be audio, financial or medical, the progress has been incredible. But those whom are ignorant and uneducated in the disciple but they feel they know better are the reasons civilizations fail. I am thinking of The Story Of Civilization (Will Durant). The complexity of the world (given by the hard working and well educated people starts to look like a conspiracy theory… because all must be obvious to the arm chair expert. As Will Durant. saw… civilizations rise like a spark and flame… but fizzle and die in ignorance.

My partner and I have five graduate degrees between us. We probably spend four or more hours learning each day (for me more) for the last 35 years… we know little… but quite a bit in several disciplines. Technology, finance, economics, philosophy, history, cognitive development… astronomy. Each day is an opportunity to learn more.