Stratospheric audio gear prices

I posted this on the “Biggest audio hoaxes” thread. It seems appropriate to post it in response to your question here:

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I don’t know that this qualifies as a hoax. But my anecdote says a lot about the current state of the audio industry. 

A few years back, I was walking home from work and the route took me past an audio shop a few blocks away from where I lived at the time. I looked in the window and saw a pair of imposing speakers with a familiar footprint. Curious, I walked inside. 

I went straight over to them and examined them. A salesman came over and asked if I had any questions. I asked him to simply me what he knew about the speakers.

The salesperson said that were made by Shindo. He spent a considerable amount of time explaining how Shindo wanted to create a proprietary design based on classical speakers of the past. After some 5 minutes or so I interrupt and ask “This design is new and proprietary?” 

“Yes! Shindo has ...”

I interrupt again: “Well, the reason this speaker caught my eye outside is because the scale of the cabinet looked very familiar. It looks like my Altec 604C from the 1950s. It’s a speaker that’s more often than not frowned upon in most audio circles, and I was surprised to see something similar sitting on a shop floor with other very pricy speakers. When I got a closer look inside, I’m realizing that it IS an Altec 604C ...”

The salesperson said that I was mistaken. Undeterred, I pull out my cell phone and say “I’m absolutely certain this is a 604C or D driver. They are quite distinctive. Here’s a picture of my own”. 

I take note of the price. “$33,000? Well, this speaker is very pricy as well. At least for me. Why are they so expensive?” So he carries on about Shindo’s innovative crossover, but this time I don’t let him get as far. After 30 seconds or so, I ask “Could I see the crossover?” But they are inside the cabinet. 

”Could they be by any chance based on the same crossover design that Doug Sax of The Mastering Lab came up with for Bruce Botnick back in the 1960s? Could they be that crossover? Because I use those crossovers in my speakers as well.”

He starts to talk about the cabinet but I continue: “the cabinet is the same size as my own. That’s what caught my attention in the first place. They seem to be built to Altec specs. So, it seems that this speaker is little different from mine. However, my cost of acquisition and refurbishment (I had Jon Specter rebuild the crossover using audio grade Jansen caps, and the drivers re-coned by Gabriel Sound) was $3,500. You are asking $33,000. Granted, the cabinets are much more beautiful than my vintage 1950s design, but isn’t $29,500 an awful lot for a piece of furniture? Surely there must be something else?”

By this time our conversation has attracted a half dozen onlookers, and I spot a brochure about the Shindo Al-ni-co 604. 

“Well, Shindo seems to be somewhat transparent with the name they are using, but I’m still hard pressed to explain the huge price differential. Look, I have to leave, my wife has dinner ready. Could you do me a favor. Call Shindo and tell them about our conversation and ask them about the price differential? I’ll stop by next week to hear from you what they say”. 

I leave, shaking my head. The shop is a short 20 blocks away from Wall Street. I imagine some naive dude from Goldman Sacked or some such investment house, with more money than he (almost always a he) knows what to do with, walking in, getting seduced by the spiel and getting taken to the cleaners. 

I stop in next week. No answer from Shindo. The speakers were sold. 

simpletheater: I’m not gonna pay a lot for those cables! 😆

This industry needs someone with the same engineering and brand philosophy as the legendary David Hafler and Ed Laurent:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynaco :

“Today, Dynaco is best remembered for its highly regarded vacuum tube stereo amplifier, the Stereo 70 (ST 70). Introduced in 1959, the ST 70 was available as a kit (Dynakit) intended for assembly by the purchaser or as a complete factory-wired unit. The ST 70 used four EL34 output tubes, one GZ34/5AR4 rectifier tube, two 7199 input (driver) tubes, two output transformers, one power transformer, and a preassembled printed circuit board (PCB) containing the driver circuit. It produced 35 watts per channel. The driver circuit had a single 7199 pentode/triode tube per channel, and used the driver tube to handle both voltage amplification and phase splitting. The output transformers are an ultralinear design, whereby part of the primary winding is fed back to the output tube’s screen grid. This design reduced distortion and improved audio quality. 

A masterpiece of efficient circuit design, the ST 70 provided reliable, high-quality audio amplification at an affordable price. The popularity of the ST 70 contributed more than any other single product to continuing consumer interest in tube-based stereo amplifiers at a time of increasing market dominance by solid state audio products. Because of its excellent value for cost, Dynaco tube amplifiers were often referred to as "the poor man’s McIntosh”. More than 350,000 ST-70 amplifiers had been sold when production finally ceased, making the ST 70 the most popular tube power amplifier ever made. [citation needed]”

Hmmm. 350,000 is more than 30,000. 
Where did all the audio freaks go? 

simpletheatre: I would not. 

Sokogear: I agree on the LODR, and the cost of my gear amazingly happens to fall within your range of $20K to $25K.


To those who think people are untitled to spend as much as they want on this stuff, I vehemently disagree: on a finite planet with finite and continually depleting resources, it is … shortsighted and selfish to spend insane amounts of dollars on audio gear.

Pauly 

🙄

Where have you been? Kansas?  Don’t you know that communism is so that everybody can afford a chocolate eclair?*
Get with it, dude. 
theaudioatticvinylsundays.com
*I avoid chocolate eclairs only because I’m trying to avoid dying of diabetes like my dad did. 

Paula, it’s an iPhone spell check error, not a sign of early onset Alzheimer’s. 

Pauly not spell check Paula. 

Millercarbon, regarding your comment about forest, that’s an assertion you will have to back up with a citation.

I assert that you are flat out wrong. I can back that up. Here it is:


https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/library/brochures/docs/2000/ForestFactsMetric.pdf
and as any general Contractir will tell you, they quality of today’s lumber is significantly inferior to that of 100 years ago. When I did a energy retrofit of my 1850 townhouse, I made sure to re-use as much of the old growth wood in the home as possible.


As for everyone else who thinks it’s none of anyone’s business how much someone spends on something, that’s an ideologically grounded assertion that 98% of science disputes, and that Mother Earth herself is rejecting almost everywhere we look these days. I’ll cite but one example: decades ago, my family used to travel by auto from NJ to St Louis every year to visit my mom’s dad. We’d stop every 300 miles or so for gas, and at every stop we would wash dozens of bugs off the windshield. Last summer, I drove 300 miles from Newburgh NY to Buffalo.


Not. One. Bug.


Pollinating bees are in steep decline.


mankind has to learn to live within its means. That includes audio systems. Mother Earth doesn’t need us: she will simply replace us with another species.

Millercarbon, you are clueless and I’m not going to waste more energy on an individual so ideologically ossified in his value system that he can’t distinguish the difference - or chooses to conflate the two in order to confuse his followers - between liberals and democratic socialists.

You are likely to be shocked to find that I loathe liberals more than FAUX NEWS commentators. I loathe FAUX intellectuals more.