Out of Control

Yes, I agree prices are out of control in the sense that they do not necessarily represent the cost required to manufacture many of these products. But, this happens often, particularly with luxury items. Price is truly set by what buyers are willing to pay to own something. Apparently some are very much swayed by those who tell us that product A is the best available. Remember also that the High End Companies, whether large or small are often set up to thrive on the sale of a very small number of units. They are anything but mass market operations. That means they can do quite well in selling a small number of very highly priced (vastly overpriced?) units while putting a substantial amount of money into marketing (read Stereophile, Soundstage, etc.). That said, my participation on the 'net these last four years has led me to understand that there are many people who can accurately assess the sound qualities of any particular unit. I have also found that many non-audiophiles can do this easily as well. They may lack the audiophile "vocabulary" to describe what they hear, but they certainly hear it. In other words, many of us can at least agree on what it sounds like. We may not agree on whether that is good, or whether product A with its sonic signature is better than product B. There is another group however, perhaps which contains both audio enthusiasts as well as non-audio enthusiasts (note that I didn't call them Audiophiles), which have not yet figured out why one amp sounds "better" than another to audiophiles. These people either haven't heard the difference between these two amps or, if they have heard the difference, don't see the differences as important to the reproduction of the sound. I don't look down on these people. Who is to say that they don't enjoy the music as much as I do while (hopefully) they spend very little on sound equipment? However, there are those of us that don't need double blind testing to identify what we hear. I do suspect that if you forced all who claim to be audiophiles to participate in one well-designed double-blind test, you would find that they fall into three categories: those who definitely cannot tell the difference between products, those who definitely can, and those who sometimes can. If you played two well-known amps (or cables) in a double-blind test for me, using the same program material, I am sure that I, like many people here on Audiogon, would have little trouble in distinguishing the two. Even though we would be able to identify the differences, the listening panel would likely not agree on which sounds best. I agree that the most expensive products would often be found to be not the best for all the reasons given earlier. That is why when reading someone's estimation of a particular amp or cable, when they state it's much better than product B without stating why, I find it absolutely infuriating. It gives no information to simply state one product is better than another, since we all have our own biases. And if you can't state why or are afraid to do so, you need to keep your opinion to yourself.

If I might insinuate myself into this conversation between Pbb and Gregm, I would say that I don't object to double-blind testing. It certainly is a means to guard against the power of suggestion. However, I don't see that it much applies to listening evaluations of amps or any other audiophile equipment. Many of us are pretty sure of what we hear, so any double-blind test would be for the non-believers like Pbb rather than for us. However, I will gladly participate in any double-blind amp evaluation test that Pbb would like to set up. If he would just send the airline ticket to me so that I can be at the location of this test ... As far as the sound quality of power amps are concerned, two amps, both highly respected and of similar quality quite often sound very different, in other words easily recognizable from one another, using double-blind testing or not. I would agree that speakers show more sonic variation than amplifiers, but amplifiers are still easily discernable and identifiable from one another. I think that because amps "measure" much better than speakers, they are considered to be much more accurate reproducers of sound. And, if they are more accurate, they must sound the same, very similar, or at least so similar that few can tell the difference between two high quality amps. I think that the mistake here is that what is measured for either power amplifiers or speaker systems is not necessarily the final determinant of what the human ear can hear or all the aural information the human brain can process. Eighty to ninety percent of the measurements taken today for amplifiers (or speakers) they were measuring 50 years ago and while amplifiers have improved by orders of magnitude, they still don't sound live or anywhere near perfect, or even that much alike. So Pbb, let us know where the double-blind test is to be held.