The Insane World of High End Audio! Is it All a Scam?

I have some gear at different price categories. 

Without A/B-ing such items in the same room, you wouldn't be able to tell what exactly you paid for or not.

The cheapman youtube guy probably doesn't have any point of reference or clue, except catering to his subscribers, i.e., other angry cheapaudiomen who got hyper-capitalism's short end of the stick. 

There's also a lot of junk sold at astronomical prices... that just looks good. Many expensiveaudiomen pay for such looks.

How do you get to the bottom of it with cheapaudiomen such as Randy, Mahgister, etc?

Conduct an experiment by taking cost out of the equation.

Let us suppose 'you know who' set 2 preamps in front of them and said, "You won a free giveaway, Both are free, but you can only pick one"

Preamp 1: Yamaha C5000, price 10k

Preamp 2: Schiit Kara. price 800 dollars

Both of them work well and sound good. But, if you open the chassis on both, one of them will start to not just look like an engineering masterpiece, but, a flippin work of art. Did it actually cost them a lot to make it, that they have to price it at 10k? Probably close, whole lot of cost and soundmaster's specialized labor sunk into it, different ethos applied. The other will look like a competent design that functions quite well, bang maxed for buck. The average guy over 65 with hearing degradation will probably not even hear too much of a difference.

But, what do you think they'd pick when both are free now, i.e. cost has been taken out of the equation? Such an experiment will reveal many truths about the cheapaudiomen.

 

 

learned is that audiophiles yearn for affirmation of our choices.  Randy gave it to his audience in this video, thus building loyalty to his "brand." I find that distasteful, but likely effective. Each to their own. That's what interested me on the topic, and of course, I may be wrong and anyone can disagree.

I’ll probably just stick with my example. There are ’value hunters’ at different price brackets.

This is a high value item @ 800 dollars.

This is ALSO a high value item, at 10k dollars.

 

 

Would a 10k value hunter open the chassis on a dartzeel priced at 120k and deem, "this is scam pricing". Perhaps, so...A guy who can afford to spend 120k may not be a moron, in every case. But, cheapaudioman doesn’t get to stand on his pedestal and say everything above his 800 dollar wallet size is scam pricing. It is quite silly.

Take a real good look at something and how much effort, aptitude, cost went into it before it’s deemed a scam price or not (whether it is a sonic upgrade or otherwise). For the guy sitting in his WAF approved living room, it won’t be for sure.

 

Randy has a point. With the "audiophile" discourse being dominated by stratospherically priced items, why does anybody wonder that there are few young people coming in?

He also has a point that at best marginally better sounding items in the 10K and up range, per component, nota bene, are considered entry level for "audiophile" systems. This is normalized by the general awareness of the ridiculously priced items.

And while in the 1970s the differences between a 0.1/1/10K electronics component were more pronounced, nowadays the differences are much less. Differences in recording styles (assuming same quality) is greater than differences in component sound. Yes, I tested that with $250 vs $5K DAC.

I for one would welcome if discussions, magazine articles and audio show would reflect the actual market place in terms of units moved. Lots of <1K components, a decent selection of 1-10K, and above 10K very little. Maybe one item above 100K. The endless 1M system rooms are both tiring as they are offensive, and typically are not sounding great anyway.

Of course, everybody can spend money on whatever they want. I prefer doing it on a variety of music that I play on a midlevel system (see my virtual system).

@gdaddy1 We installed hardwood floors throughout the house, and the music room has a carpet over the wood floor. plus furniture for sound treatment, and selected panels (DYI, btw).

@audioguy85  I could open up the higher end stuff made by Technics, Yamaha, etc and do a back to back comparison of his 'boutique' (low iq engineering/scam priced junk made by some guy in his garage) sold by OCD dealer.

The OCD MIKEY GUY IS ANNOYONG as all heck. Looks down on All kinds of quality gear, such as marantz, Macintosh, Yamaha, etc...only raves about the boutique crap he sells, and Noone ever heard of, of which costs crazy amounts of dough.

Some ’boutique’ euro backwater crap brand he touts never had any design/manufacturing clout..I would bet my hat that all of it is subcontracted to China and the final 2 screws get tightened down in Europe.. to make audiophiles feel real special that they got something ’made in europe’ or something. I would rather buy chifi instead in such instances, give credit where its due.

The upper echelon Technics, Marantz, Yamaha, Sony, etc will be made in Japan and have some high iq engineering.. apparently it’s not special/elusive enough for some low iq OCD used car dealer.

I’ve watched a few of his videos. I think he’s just looking for clicks. The scam is his content to get subscribers using clickbait titles. He’s a good entertainer though.

Understandable

The most stunning thing i ever experienced in audio, is the huge modification induced by the room materials composition not only the walls, floors, cellings composition, but the furniture... And the geometry and topology of the room...

 

Ok... starting to sound just a tad wacky now...a bit shun mooky...a bit crystalline kookalicious...maybe some stalactites and stalagmites are next in this acoustics intervention, eh? 

More than that i was flabbergasted by the effect of small resonators made of cheap materials had on my sound experience... I created 100 of them... I call them "mechanical room equaliser"

 

 

I sure know what a tuned resonator is, higher end studios tend to use them as they can be made more discreet....had one in  a former house, found something more broadband and better in recent times.

When you said you had a 100 Itty bitty ones that served as a "mechanical room equalizer", it started to sound a lil kookalicious.

On the same note, the effect of one can be clearly measured.  I suppose you didn't get that far or did you? Or did the effect of a cluster 100 whatever...of them do a number on ya?

You tuned a 100 resonators by ear??

Tubes... straws..all acting in unison??? serving as a mechanical room equalizer all tuned by ear????? Holmes, let us grab a hold of reality together for a minute...and you go ahead, follow some of this diy video on how to build a helmholtz resonator. Start cutting some wood, start with 1

Take some measurements and figure out what ’equalizing’ you may even need, to begin with...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUsyeBkNVEI

I had 100 because i conducted experiments for many years with no cost materials from tube 8 feet high and large and straws and all dimensions in between I tuned them by ears...

So you moved a 100 resonators around, tuned them all...they interact/complicate things, exacerbate other resonances or not, comb filter or whatever.....but, you placed a 100 resonators all in their ideal lil spots by ear??? not a single measurement involved.... 

Well, Mah, the bards shall sing of your acoustics genius for many generations, hereafter (starting with me... ). 

I modified my small speakers on the same principle guiding way...

I designed 100 not as a task...

I begun with one...

I observed the result...

Then i designed few others...

I discovered that location matter not just size...

Because a room is itself a resonator...

@hilde45 

A tad sad indeed that an entirely different topic about cheap audio/expensive audio fell victim for the MAH LOOP

Fall in line with the program now or perish...

Let us now hold hands, put our heads down and open the loop

FOR

MAH = 1 : 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

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"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

"mechanical, electrical, especially acoustical informed controls over our ears/brain/speakers/room relation.."

times 1million....

END

I didn't "close the thread." 

I gave my opinion that the thread seems exhausted -- it is going around in circles, Mahgister style. Just my opinion, but of course all one has to do is look at your posts here and in many other places to see you saying -- just my opinion -- the same things again and again. Just my opinion.

I'm allowed to express my opinion on a forum -- that is all I'm doing.

Maybe others here will continue to engage, read your posts, hear your message. I am exhausted and that is my opinion about the thread, too.

Just my opinion.