The best way, IMO, to build a really fine audio system is to completely ignore the nonsense from peddlers, self-aggrandizing poseurs, and self-proclaimed audiophiles about what "Hi-end" means, and what is the minimum $$$ outlay required to reach that exalted plane of existence. Sample gear, listen for yourself, and find the gear that speaks to you. Learn some acoustic and treat your room. And forget about what anyone else thinks.
I think you'll find that you can build a far better system, at a far more reasonable price, today (well, when the supply chain gets unfutzed) than in years past. So if you want "Hi End, sniff, sniff," yeah it's going up. If you want high quality gear and great sound, you have far more to choose from now than 50 years ago when I started out, with a much greater value/$$$ ratio.
Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt the financial one upmanship, carry on...
"To answer this thread the cost of hi-fi has never increased like the prize of butter in Canada.... From 3 dollars few years ago to 9 canadian dollars at regular price...."
I did a shop with my wife today and it's quite clear that there has been a considerable rise in prices recently.
Yesterday I went out for a meal and noticed that the prices had risen by about 15% in under 3 months. In some cases - cooking oil, margarine, and tinned peas etc it's more like 30%.
My cousin recently told me that the price for replacing a front door with a PVC one is now £1200.
On the other hand my employer has recently said that we are to get a wage rise of, wait for it, 0.95%.
Oh well, I guess someone has to pay for the costs of the lockdowns, and it's not going to be the global banks, is it?
The banking system is by definition a conspiracy against the very notion of what money could be : a concrete map of the cycle of goods creation, from their creation to their recycling destruction...
The trick was to make a map with an apparent value higher than reality itself....Simple mathematics help much here....
Money is about to be nowadays more than ever a universal anonymus enslavement instead of a personal liberation...
And zombies think that no conspirations exist for sure because they sleep on their own for sure ...
Similarly people are brainswashed about new products publicity and forget about mighty low cost acoustic knowledge and devices... Is it a conspiracy? 😁😊
Yes AND no.....
«A glass of water means more and has more value than all bitcoins »-Anonymus Smith
«Conspiracy is like evil , his only trick is to be hidden in plain sight»-Anonymus Exorcist who is also a reader of Orwell and Huxley
«Magicians know there is not so much a conspiration than a defect of attention» Anonymus attentive student
Want to see what one hi-fi retailer thinks it can get you to spend money on? I am NOT making this up, the following were pictured in today’s email from The Music Room:
- Roller Hero Tubility Belt, a leather (looking, at least) utility belt that has loops to hold small signal and power output tubes. Yours for the low, low price of $799.
- Kitty Kable Riser. This 4-pk. of cable risers not only serves its’ obvious function, but also wards off pesky felines. Only $1,199.
- Best of all: TMR (yes, The Music Room invented this product, and claims to have patended it) Maxcavator 99.9999 Pure Silver 6-Piece Audiophile Earwax Removal Kit. If the kit’s $2,759 price tag seems a little high, remember: it includes six utensils, and they are not made of that inferior .999 pure silver, but the real deal: 4-9’s silver. After using the kit’s utensils, you will finally hear music reproduced in full fidelity. Does the kit come with a money-back guarantee? ;-)
The FED doesn't print money. Banks are not Ponzi schemes or conspiracy theories thought up by the (Rotchchilds"Jews" ). Damn forum is being infiltrated by NeoNazis and skin heads.
The FED doesn’t print money. Banks are not Ponzi schemes or conspiracy theories thought up by the (Rotchchilds"Jews" ). Damn forum is being infiltrated by NeoNazis and skin heads.
Mixing irrationally antisemitic stance even with Hitler "extract" against jews with world economy and Central Banks will not change a reality that has nothing to do with the Jewish people...There is no infiltration of skinheads here save for comic book reader...
By the way the first Central Bankers meeting were created to force and planned for Germany payments for the first world war immediately after it...This has nothing to do with the Jews...
Are you one comic book reader?
Goethe was one of the first to analyse the Ponzi scheme and the hyperinflation crisis behind fiat money in the "second Faust".... He criticize John Law the English man behind fiat money not the Jews....It is not Mein Kempf here but the second Faust and the I.Q. of some neo nazi and Goethe are not the same...
By the way are these authors in this article i proposed as an example of serious people equating Bank politic with Ponzi , picked on the internet, are they also neo-nazi?
For some superman or marvel comic book fans here perhaps...
But for intelligent men they are not...
The Guggenheim group cited in this article here control 340 billions in asset are they neo-nazi?
it is ONLY an example...Of serious people criticizing some hyper inflative stupid politic behind central banks at particular moment in times like nowadays....
Go out of marvel comic book ....
Start to read...Not the New-york times or any other Us newspapers... Guess why?
No not because they are owned by the jews but because they are own by three multinational corporate investing groups...Like big pharma...
When the banks need money, they issue bonds. The FED purchase the bonds, but since the FED doesn’t have any cash, they have to print money out of thin air.
I understand there is a need to expand the money supply when the is a growth in population or goods. But lately it's been too much printing.
I always enjoy how people in this forum result to name calling and labeling when someone posts an opinion they don't agree with. Just ignore it and move on.
Not all opinions are equal, especially opinions espoused by NeoNazis, skinheads and conspiracy theorists. I'm tired of reading these antisemitic, racist, conspiracy addled comments and sitting by as if they're normal conversations. They aren't. The FED is not some nefarious organization out to rule the universe.
No, and Pierpont -Morgan was a very kind uncontrolling man.... 😁😊
All other opinions are neo nazi one for sure....
And there is NO RELATION between the actual world health crisis and money and no relation at all with the three biggest financials corporations in the world...
Saying that is being a neo nazi.... I will not say it at all .....
To return to the original premise of this thread, I would make a few observations. When I was young (early 20s) fifty years ago, I had a component system that was primarily a vinyl 2channel with a R2R as well. It was a time of great releases in the late 60s, early 70s. My cohort of friends loved music and thought my modest system at the time was terrific. We enjoyed the music, loud and often.
No one complained about room treatments or cabling. There was no worry about the soundstage, etc. We lived and reveled in the music. It was perhaps Mid Fi by the standards of the day. The cost was with the reach of my SGT when in the Army.
Fast forward to today. I own a reasonable system, probably the cost of a Honda Accord when it was assembled. Does it please me more than my first one? Not really. I get that it is better, but it gives me no more joy than the first one.
High end has become the quest for the last 2% of performance and those chasing often lose sight of the music in their quest. I would suggest that a satisfactory system can be assembled and enjoyed by the average person. To me, all the fuss is like watching a Ferrari owner and a Bentley owner argue about why their car is better.
For the financial guys here, marginal cost versus marginal return. High end is way too far out there for me on exorbitant cost versus very small returns.
Good hi fi has never been cheaper, esoteric hi fi has never been more expensive. It's the way all consumer goods are going, good practical clothes dirt cheap, brand name trainers made of the same material, in the same factory by the same people are well mental. Pay your money take your choice.
I get that it is better, but it gives me no more joy than the first one.
When you’re in your early twenties, it is much easier to enjoy just about everything. It being Friday was reason enough to have a party and throw caution to the wind. Everything was funny. You had girlfriends who were also in their early twenties. Who at 70 wouldn’t want to be in that situation again?
When you’re 60 or 70 a lot of the things you enjoyed 50 years earlier are no longer possible. Putting together a good stereo and really enjoying listening to music is a good way to spend part of your later years. Trying to enjoy what you enjoyed when you were 20 would not end well.
If music doesn’t engage you, maybe something else will. Don’t waste time. You’re just about out of it.
ghdprentice, right on. Economics and economic policy are difficult to understand thoroughly, and sometimes even appear counter-intuitive. And virtually every "simple" cause and effect is wrong. Suffice it to say that even the "pro's" like yourself get it wrong some of the time. But it sure helps to know what you are talking about!
"Sample gear, listen for yourself, and find the gear that speaks to you. Learn some acoustic and treat your room. And forget about what anyone else thinks.
I think you'll find that you can build a far better system, at a far more reasonable price, today (well, when the supply chain gets unfutzed) than in years past. So if you want "Hi End, sniff, sniff," yeah it's going up."
The media is perhaps responsible for this "print money" thing. It has been noted here that central banks do not actually "print" the currency you have. Each country has their own physical issuer of notes and coin. I think that it is the Treasury in America, which may contract the function out to a specialized outfit. Whatever, I dunno.
Central banks control (in theory, via a few methods) the money supply. Cash and coins are a very small fraction of the money supply, perhaps a single digit percentage of the total. Like anyone, I’d have to look it up (possibly on the Fed page somewhere I referenced previously, for America), and its included in what is known as the M1 part of the money supply.
Spent 3 weeks in Poland with my Ukrainian Jewish wife helping with refugees from her home land of Ukraine.
This same type of disinformation by Russia led to the invasion. You know the Ukrainian Neo Nazis that had over run the Government of a duly elected president that had 80% of the vote and is a Jew himself.
No bank are not a Ponzi scheme, yes there is corruption in the system, no it is not run by Jews, yes stereo gear can be expensive. And Governments do print money and often based on short term fixes for sagging economy's.
I recall the story of Idi Amin Dada the brutal dictator of Uganda being told by his Finance Minister that Uganda was Bankrupt, broke, had no money and Idi responded with "Well then print more money".
Sometimes I think the folks in DC subscribe to this financial model.
"When you’re in your early twenties, it is much easier to enjoy just about everything. It being Friday was reason enough to have a party and throw caution to the wind. Everything was funny. You had girlfriends who were also in their early twenties. Who at 70 wouldn’t want to be in that situation again?
Each to his/her own. I for one don't feel I enjoy music any less now than I did when I was in my twenties. As for all the raging hormones and emotional drama that go along with Nature's drive for procreation, I don't miss that either. I no longer have the energy to sustain such wildness/chaos and wouldn't choose to if I could. Ultimately I've found peace more beguiling.
The issue is not being framed correctly and is being viewed mainly from the point of view of the domestic market. But I remember reading an interview with a large cable manufacturer who said that some of his overseas distributors (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Singapore) asked him to introduce a new cable line priced significantly higher than his current flagship model, because they could sell that exclusivity.
The range of products and the range of prices differs significantly from brand to brand. How much they sell overseas and where they sell overseas varies significantly too. So it's best just to ignore the headline-grabbing nosebleed prices because they are not being pitched, and were never pitched, at the likes of you and me.
Inflation and government over-spending is harming everyone. Even SpaceX had to raise their prices of a Falcon 9 launch from $62 million to $67 million. Fuel and shipping costs, raw materials, and of course labor (if you can find people to work) are all adding up to 7% (maybe more) inflation. I noted audio speakers jumped 20% at the first of the year, some by more.
It is the price of admission if you want to get the best you can for whatever budget you set.
The only good thing is that technology continues to improve. Speakers today at any price sound better than similarly valued speakers from 20 years ago. And integrated circuits, discrete components, etc., have a much higher quality as well.
So, at the end of the day, we live in whatever times we live in and made our choices based on price, performance, and our budgets. And we can hope some manufacturers will occasionally run a few "specials".
As others note in the high end, that may mean buying lightly used and well cared for products to get the most bang for your bucks.
I do hate it. I was all set to buy some new speakers instead of tackling the job of replacing the crossovers (capacitors) in my vintage ones, but now, that job is looking more palatable and more logical and saving the money for a better DAC.
This one article about the PONZI financial global scheme did not come from the neo nazi either..
Educate yourself... The writer teach economy in London...
Then some MUST refrain themselves by ignorance to insult others members of this thread with neo-nazi or anti semitic scapegoating or strawman accusation here...
PONZI FINANCE AND GLOBAL LIQUIDITY MELTDOWN: LESSONS FROM MINSKY
And this very serious article will give to you the REASON why inflation tool are the main tool of central bank and their way to make the poor paying for the debt accumulated by the financial ponzi scheme of the rich people and the catastrophic politic of most politician corrupted by lobbies of big corporations .....
It is not Bill Gates who will pay for the hyperinflation crisis it is you and me...Thanks to the global Ponzi and fiscal evasion...
By the way this author is not neo nazi... Anti semitic? i dont know ... 😁😊
I will cite the conclusion :
«. It also makes clear that, once the mystique of the balance sheet is taken away, the choice facing a central bank during a crisis is a familiar one: to inflate or not.»
I agree with just about everything that tsacremento @ said.
If I may add the following.
I got into audio - we called them stereos back then - when I was 14 years old, in 1968. That was a very good year to get into audio, imho.
As a high school freshman, I mowed lawns, shoveled snow, washed dishes at restaurants, painted homes, weeded gardens, etc whatever odd jobs I could find. With the money earned from that, I was able to save enough money to buy a Dyna 70 and Dyna PAS kit and build my own amplifier and preamp, buy speakers and a tuner from Lafayette Radio, and a Garard turntable with a Pickering Cartridge. The whole shebang set me back less than $300.
That setup held up through college. In my 20s, I upgraded to a Dual 129 table with a Stanton Cartridge, and a pair of Altec 604Cs.
In my 30s, I wanted to seriously upgrade, but the budget of an artsy fartsy such as myself didn’t really permit it, even though this was still the mid-80s when audio inflation had not really kicked in yet. I solved the problem by always buying second hand or floor demonstration models.
I think that it is since the 00s that audio inflation started to severely ramp up, in lockstep with the increasing wealth gap. I guess audio companies saw that they could get rich quick ’n easy with marketing gimmicks / shenanigans in the face of the law of diminishing returns, rather than serve a wider public. Speakers for $600K? Are those speakers really 100 times better than a pair costing $6K?
To that point, many of you have heard the anecdote that I am about to repeat, but I never tire of it, so here we go again.
A few years back, I was walking home from work. I pass by an audio shop window in NoHo, NYC and see a pair of floor-standing speakers whose size and scale looked suspiciously familiar. I go inside to take a look.
The salesman comes up almost immediately and asks if I have any questions. I ask if I could find an LP on the shop floor that I was familiar with and listen to it on the speakers. We find Kind of Blue By Miles Davis and listen to the first track.
The salesman asks what I think. I say they sound great. I then say that the speakers seem similar to the Altec 604C. He said that I was mistaken. I got up and went to one of them and said "You are right. They don’t seem similar. They are in fact the 604Cs. I know because I have a pair myself, and the drivers are (as I am pointing to one) identical to this".
So the salesman then goes onto explain how Shindo - the company that "made" these speakers - did yadda yadda with a unique crossover design and after a few minutes I say "They are not perhaps by any chance based on the Mastering Lab crossover that Doug Sachs made (allegedly for Bruce Botnick of the Doors)?"
So the salesman goes on yadda yadfda about the special cabinet and I cut him off and say "Yes, they are gorgeous, but cabinets are not rocket science. Clearly Shindo followed then same geometry that Altec specified, as the dimensions are identical to my own".
"So, what I would like to know is the following. You are asking $34K for these speakers, and while they sound a little different from mine and do sound great, they do not sound in any meaningfully way better than mine, and as I paid only $3,500 for my pair, they absolutely don’t sound 10 times better. Why should anyone pay anywhere near $33K for these?"
At this point, I have attracted the attention of other customers, and so I give him my business card with my email address and I conclude "I have to get home for dinner. Could you please contact Shindo, send them my question and ask them to send a reply to that email address? Thank you!".
I leave, shaking my head and wonder to myself: some Wall Street guy is gonna walk in there, not knowing how to spend his money, and buy the damn things.
The following week, I stop by. I have no response from Shindo. The speakers were sold.
Btw I subsequently learned that Shindo did in fact call them the 604 Alnico or something, so Shindo was not being entirely disingenuous. Why the salesperson did not share that information with me in the first place I do not know.
You can still buy on eBay the Altec 604C drivers for less than $2,000, the Mastering Lab crossovers for about $900, and have cabinets built for another $1,800, that’s less than $5K total.
Sigh.
As for thecarpathian @ attack on the audioguy85: I loathe what he said myself but do we have to go over the top with an attack? Just click the arrow in the upper right, click Report Comment, and hopefully the moderator will remove the offending comment.
For the higher price of gear i dont give a damn...Speakers may cost less than a tuna can soon....This global crisis is not ended... 😁
A war or hyperinflation is our choice now , what else? Is this not the evident proposed PROGRAMMED alternatives in the news?
I myself will not upgrade and dont need to....
Acoustic COST peanuts... Only much fun time to tune a room...
Then dont look at inflated price of gear buy an acoustic book and begin experiments... No cost... I used junk material myself...And my low cost system is not so far way behind ANYTHING at ANY price i ever listened to, thanks to acoustic science...The greatest HUGE upgrade come from learning acoustic method not from a new speakers or dac or anything else in most case....
And dont vote for left or right corrupted politicians....Dont listen TV and dont read official news...Buy books....
😁😊
«House without books is a cavern with no windows»-Anonymus Smith
«I never buy books i borrow them from my friend»-Groucho Marx 🤓
"Wait until the United States starts writing checks for $trillions to rebuild Ukraine. We will contribute 90% to rebuild Ukraine. We should send a bill to Russia. Perhaps tell Russia we will lift some of the sanctions if they pay to rebuild. As I see it, what does Ukraine have left after their buildings have been destroyed? We will pay 90% of the cost and allow our allies to take complete advantage of us.
What do the citizens of Ukraine have left to live in? How many years will they have to wait until they have a place to live? I think we need to send Putin the bill. If he doesn’t respond with action, then enforce even more sanctions."
larry5729, I’ll raise you one on that. I think the Ukraine War is really a conspiracy concocted by the Kremlin and the Pentagon. Both need to use up aging weapons system inventory and create an excuse to justify even more military spending (well, the Pentagon does at any rate). Why not start a little war in Central Europe, and test out some new toys while we are at it?
Please let me know if I can help you with the link feature they improved when Audiogon updated this site. IMO, linking long articles is a better option than loading up the thread pages with inserted articles. For example, here is a link to the Central Bank article you posted. Best regards.
Please let me know if I can help you with the link feature they improved when Audiogon updated this site. IMO, linking long articles is a better option than loading up the thread pages with inserted articles. For example, here is a link to the Central Bank article you posted. Best regards.
@mahgister- When you click on "Add your response" and begin posting your response in a thread, you will see a header just above where you are typing that provides options such as Bold, Italicized, Underlined...etc. Proceed to the right and just right of the Emoji option you will see what appears to be a chain link. Follow these steps:
Copy the web address (i.e., URL) of the article, post, video clip, etc. that you wish to share
Highlight a word or phrase within your post that you want to use to link the web address
Click on the chain link symbol shown in the header
Within the dialog box that opens, paste the URL in the box titled "URL" and click "OK"
The word or phrase you previously highlighted can then by toggled by readers to take them to the link you uploaded
What was the original question of this discussion?
I do believe that high end audio equipment has escalated in price above the levels of inflation that we are seeing. A lot of the more expensive equipment is cutting edge and requires higher quality components and fabrication. Small runs cost more and the materials that are being used are more exotic than in the past. It only makes sense that these items would be escalating in price ahead of inflation.
Off topic. I absolutely believe they will need to start mining asteroids to acquire the minerals required to green the world economy. We cannot pull out the required resources from this planet without making it an even bigger environmental disaster.
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.
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