If you want to think cables make a huge difference in sound fine...but why pay up to $70,000 for speaker wire?
You can buy 38 lbs of 99.99% bullion silver for $10,000 or 4000 lbs of 99.99% bullion copper.
Buying a pair of 12 foot $5,000 wire is obserd it costs like $30 to make and WBT connectors are also highly inexpensive to make too.
Why do you guys shell out money on a clear fact that you guys are insecure about using low priced stuff and these people know that and take advantage of that.
Yeah, both. The first protects your money and/or your freedom, and the second keeps you breathing. Those are not easy university programs to be accepted into or easy degrees to obtain, certification/licensing is not easy to achieve either, and achieving expertise in those fields can be a long road that not everyone completes. The good ones are typically worth every cent they charge.
@mitch2 I meant no disrespect to those professionals. Your post only corroborates what I was really trying to say which is: what they charge is not a “sum of the parts” scenario (for the reasons you stated) and neither are many products.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Just say I’m a troll, when in reality, I’m just trying to create awareness that I don’t think people have as much as they think they do. Belden probably spent 100 times the amount on researching and developing Belden Brilliance than another nitch company did with theirs, because they’re nearly an S & P 500 company. I don’t see them charging 100,000%+ margins to recuperate research and development. In fact, they charge a small amount, and going by capacitance and inductance which no other company lists, I’m going to assume they are of the best. Most of these companies are mom and pop stores, and their research and development is pale in comparison to the money belden spends of research and development. I just fail to see, how people justify their purchases based on paying $3,500+ per 10 feet of wire in margins due to what? Research and development? because "they sound good"?, which is subjective, and 100% of the time, it’s just because they look pretty, and have pretty wiring schematics, and since they charge a lot, they must be high quality.
I’m not a troll. So if you don’t have an argument to refute mine besides saying troll,; then don’t. Because I’m simply just bored, and trying to bring awareness to this.
If you think I’m right, and if you are one who cringes on using lamp power cable to hook up ones components, because I can relate. Why not just simply use Belden for everything including power cable?, simply because I feel better, too, having "high quality" in between my components, and I can relate to OCD. And I’m assuming the best is a company who deals with NASA. Even if it weren’t, I’d choose something bulk that was high quality, because I don’t believe the hype either. It doesn’t mean I don’t like nice things.
Not only is belden probably the best, but if the best was $10 a foot, I’d still buy it. But at some point in time, even if you have the money, you’ve got to draw a line in the sand, between you, and corporate greed. I don’t care if you’re a millionaire; it’s still annoying to be taken advantage of.
I fail to see how if you’re rich, that you can’t be taken advantage of, lol. And while you’re at it, because you can afford to spend $70k on wire, why not buy a $500 latte, or a $1,000 12" subway meatball sandwich, because in terms of margins, that’s still much lower than cost to build hifi wiring. glupson2,649 posts10-23-2019 9:15pm
"...why pay up to $70,000 for speaker wire?"
Just because one can.
"How do you guys let yourself taken advantage of?"
How often are people who can afford $70 000 speaker cables actually taken advantage of?
$70 000 cables are an investment with much better return than $350 lattes. Cables are expected to last more than 200 days, assuming you drink just one coffee a day. If you invested in lattes, at the end of those 200 days, you would be left with nothing tangible while you could resell cables for, let’s say, $20 000.
If you ate one $1000 sandwich followed by one $350 latte a day, $70 000 cables would become a bargain even sooner. In less than two months.
Along the way, you may get the satisfaction from knowing you have tried it (almost) all. Kind of like being a tourist and wanting to go to yet another place you have never been to. No real use for it, but people do it every day and brag about it.
Of course it is possible to be taken advantage of if you are rich. I just suspect that it will be done by one’s acquired family members more often than by a cable salesperson.
Being taken advantage of does not depend on some cable salesperson’s trustworthiness. It depends on buyer’s gullibility. Salesperson has relatively little to do with it.
Back to your initial question about why people buy what you may consider "expensive cables". Because they often look better than cheap ones. Simply for the looks.
I’m just saying, that it’s a herd like mentality. That if several people are willing to pay $1,000-50,000 for wiring that companies will sprout up to take advantage of consumers fears that they aren’t hearing the music and movies the way they supposed to. If no one would shell out $30,000 for the high end Audioquests Dragon Zero and Bass, they wouldn’t disappear like how your favorite fast food company would disappear if they had to cut margins 99%. They would be out of business in 1 week. But if the hifi crowd refused to spend money on anything that weren’t 100% margins or less - there would still be AudioQuest Dragon Zero and Bass, they’d just charge $300 instead of $30,000. They can afford to not have these margins. For the ignorant audiophile ( no offense - just a lack of knowledge and information and understanding of whats going on), they don’t know this. And would many companies close doors? Probably. But do you need 1,000+ wiring companies? Or just a few good ones. Because if you guys weren’t willing to fork over your wallet for "hearing beyond just the notes" of music, the hifi cables wouldn’t disappear, they’d just be affordable. Because where there is a market, there 100% of the time nearly there is a product.
Now what do you have to say to that glupson? Lol. In good fun.
If those companies close doors, where would the workers go?
You are working with the premise that people who buy "expensive" cables do not want to pay. Some people do.
Actually, I would bet that nobody who buys such cables minds paying for them. It is not that cable companies are going door to door and are making people buy cables at gunpoint. Buyers come to them.
Just do not buy "expensive" cables and you have done your part in rectifying this horrible injustice in the Universe. At some point, we will all follow and sleazy companies will be out of business. The future is yours although in the present you are a little too radical.
The same thing goes for eveything in audio. Speakers? The really good ones uses 3rd party drivers. The crossovers, drivers and cabinets cost to build cost under $500 for even the 200 lb monsters. Do the best speaker drivers that costs a few dollars to make deserve to be $100-250? Heck yeah, that’s research and development. But the cost of designing a speaker and the crossover designs...people design these in their garages and basements for free for free. They don’t deserve 5,000%+ margins. If people weren’t willing to shell out $50,000 for Accuton Driver based speakers? They’d drop to $2,500, and they’d still make bank. The cost to build a speaker is cheap, and only the drivers deserve a high price for research and development, but the best speakers in the world shouldn’t cost more than $3,500. But, I get you have these quad diamond tweeter and quad diamond midrange 1,000 lb monoliths, those are probably $10k. Would the market shrink from. 1,000+ companies to like 5 or 6? Just like the TV industry? Yeah, and it’d still work with many people making a lot of money. When there’s a market, there’s a product. Same for receivers, processors and amplifiers. That all cost under $100 to make.
You guys looking for the high end, screw yourselves out of it, by be willing to pay these companies products in their weight in Gold. Sometimes literally, lol.
Glupson - I do believe that was a ridiculous rebuttal, lol.
You just said you think people are willing to be ripped of and like it.
If you asked people if they would be willing to get their wiring for 99% off? 99% of people would say the affirmative, H*** Yeah.
You’re socialized entitlement based theory of giving cable companies gifts to "feel better" I do believe is ridiculous.
5 or 6 companies that charge no more than $300 for 10 foot wiring, and that would be crazy exotic speaker wiring and the best of the best, they’d still make hand over fist since they’d cost $30 to make, and that’s 1,000% margins.
I think 99% of the audio world would say they are okay with this.
And the fact that people are willing to knock on doors to get these ridiculously priced wiring is the exact fact of why they charge these prices. Because people are willing to do this.
I think I've made a pretty solid, air tight argument for affordable audio.
I think you're in the minority in opposing my theory.
In fact, I think people will find what you're saying is ridiculous. No offense. Just giving you a heads up.
Would the market shrink fro. 1,000+ companies to like 5 or 6?
Would you really want that? How about shrinking from 5-6 to 1-2?
"The cost to build a speaker is cheap..............but the best speakers in the world shouldn’t cost more than $3,500."
Did you include the price of a garage, tools, all the wasted material while you are perfecting a skill, time, injuries? For some of us, buying a finished speaker is the cheapest option. Even at whatever price you deem exorbitant.
Same for recievers, processors, and amplifiers.
On top of that all, what else would people do with their money? Invest to make more that they are not allowed to spend so they do not support the greed of some cable company?
Spread the wealth, man. Do not let it concentrate in hands of a select few. Buy cables from different companies.
Glupson - I made a compelling argument on price gauging and margin rip offs, and you're fighting for margins?
Do you own a audio company?
The market wouldn't shrink from 5 to 6 speaker wiring or loud speaker companies. I'm sure there'd still be 10+, and not 2.
You're fighting for margins when the industry would still put out Grade A+ stuff. It wouldn't change things. You'd still have exotic wiring and exotic speakers.
"Did you include the price of a garage, tools, all the wasted material while you are perfecting a skill, time, injuries? For some of us, buying a finished speaker is the cheapest option. Even at whatever price you deem exorbitant."
Are you serious? You backed up margins of speaker companies? By saying that a garage, tools and waste materials amount to 50,000+% margins?
I'm saying that these companies like B&W, Revel, etc, should cost a premium for drivers, but since what they design any idiot can do it in a garage? Somehow warrants the margins? You can buy a a kit from Madisound.com right now with 3 way berrilyum scan speak kits for $3,500, and get someone to build it for $1,000. Right now you can do that. And those are similar drivers used in the Anat Reference 2, except newer and better and Illuminator Beryllium based.
Or, as what should happen now, is a company spends $1,750 whole sale 50% margins on drivers, spend $500 to put it together and build the cabinets, and charge $6,000.
By the way, that's an extreme example. Those are some of the most expensive drivers in the world.
Many $10,000+ speakers use $50 3rd party tweeters, etc.
"If you asked people if they would be willing to get their wiring for 99% off? 99% of people would say the affirmative, H*** Yeah."
"And the fact that people are willing to knock on doors to get these ridiculously priced wiring is the exact fact of why they charge these prices. Because people are willing to do this."
So, are they willing to pay ridiculous prices or not?
By the way, I did not mention that people are willing to be ripped off and like it. You, again, placed your incorrect interpretation as my words. You may not be willing to accept it, but what you consider a "rip-off" is not what everybody considers a rip-off. Some people just want to buy expensive cables.
There is definitely a place for affordable audio in the world. It exists. It is all over the place. Of course, what is "affordable audio" is another question. For some, $70 000 speaker cables are just that.
You can call people idiots, but not everyone can build a speaker in the garage. Many do not even have an interest in doing it to spite someone who is trying to make a living by producing something we can use.
"By saying that a garage, tools and waste materials amount to 50,000+% margins?"
You forgot the other two, easily the most expensive things I listed. Time and injuries. They are worth whatever someone is willing to pay. For the buyer, it is not about margins, it is about final price.
While you are at margins, do you happen to have some info about margins for Celine Trapeze? How about pricier models? You would not even need a garage to try to reproduce it. You could, in theory, do it on the kitchen table. Now, go to your wife, sister, neighbor, and tell her that you will do it for her instead of paying Celine. Let us know the response you get.
Okay, lol, I feel like your being funny and egging me on now, lol.
In the purest intentions, $30,000 speaker wire for $300, with 1,000% margins, $100,000 speakers for $4,000 with 1,000% margins, and processors and amplifiers for no more than $1,000 for 1,000+% margins would be not only good for the market with the volume over high margins low sales, would not only still be very profitable for 7 or 8 companies (we don’t need more - it’s either the best, or it isn’t), but high end audio would be available to the $50,000 a year salesman who works 50+ hours a week, and who would love to listen to all the notes of the music, the "way music is supposed to be heard" in terms of notes, etc.
And if you want to just "buy expensive" components, then spend the money you’d save on buying hi fi components at a 99% reduction to buying for other people who would like it. I’m sure the expensive thrill would be more thrilling this way.
It’s making the hobby not fair by being cavalier and saying "I want expensive". Everyone else is screwed by willing to pay these components weight in literally gold.
It’ll still look and feel and sound expensive, I assure you! With out all the light wallet, and the wife getting mad at you!
Nothing would change!
And buying for the sake of expensive?
Take the money you’d save by buying the less expensive gear which would be the same, and invest it in the stock market like Belden, lol, or Harmon Kardon.
Buying something for the sake of saying I bought something expensive is ridiculous.
These companies will still exist! You don’t need to pay these high prices! These items will still be there!
Glupson - you don’t have to build these speakers yourselves.
I’m saying they are making 10,000%+ margins on speaker sales.
If people wouldn’t pay it, they’d drop to 500%. And at that price, nothing would cost more than $5,000 from any companies.
Put simply, a speaker company should exist that sells factory direct Scan- Speak, Accuton, Seas, Audio Technology and Dayton speakers.
They could make 300% margins, and still make tons and tons and tons of money.
Those are the main speaker driver companies used in $10,000+ speakers.
SVSound used a Scan Speak d3004 in a cheap speaker, and I’m assuming the speaker industry threatened them in to not doing it, because within a month or 2 it was withdrawn, and a cheaper alternative was put out.
The d3004-6600 is widely considered one of the greatest tweeters ever invented or conceived.
They got "backlash" from it, and wow, what a surprise, they changed it.
"...high end audio would be available to the $50,000 a year salesman who works 50+ hours a week, and who would love to listen to all the notes of the music, the "way music is supposed to be heard" in terms of notes, etc."
That would depend on his other expenses and disposable income, not on his absolute income.
At the same time, there are many audio reproduction items in the lower price ranges and they still sound great. Most of them are.
$70 000 speaker cables are rare as are $250 000 speakers. Quite good under-$1000 amplifiers exist together with decent $1500 speakers. I have no idea if that particular salesman would find them "too expensive" or "just right".
Sub speakers that are $1,000 should cost like $250-300 and get 1,000%+ margins. The same goes for other "cheaper" alternatives of processors and amplifiers. If a Dayton Audio (Parts Express brand) had their affordable $30-50 drivers used in speakers from a 300% margin speaker company, it’d rock the socks off anything over $1,500 that exists at like $300-$350 for a 3 way speaker. Again, speaking in bulk 50% wholesale large mass driver and crossover components and building materials. You can get 5 channel car audio amplifiers that puts out like 1,000 watts RMS for $200 on wholesale sights. I don’t see why they can’t have $300-400 versions of these on the home theater market.
Apparently the D3004-6600 was, too "neutral" and not "lively" enough, but good enough for the Anat Reference II at $100,000 which won awards for the best speaker ever at the time.
I forgot what thread it was here on audiogon, but people were mentioning what you are asking for. A couple of hundred dollar amplifiers with lots of power and, allegedly, very good sound. It might have not been five channel, though.
They can exist. And I don’t want to bring up the $10k amplifier challenge by Richard Clarke, but 10s of thousands or people are yet to identify amplifiers with the same gain and same frequency response as to sounding different.
If you want .001% THD instead or .01% and a higher dampening factor to take it to 11? Fine. But most people don’t care about taking it to 11 (Spinal Tap reference) and a $350 7 channel 1,000 watt rms factory direct amplifier can exist when a 6 channel car audio amplifier exists on 3rd party sites, so 2 people taking margins instead of 1 on the factory dirext, and cost to build margins, so if a car audio company with 3rd party sellers can sell 6 channel 1,000 watt RMS amplifiers for $200? I’m sure the factory direct audio world can do it, too. Especially since car amplifiers and home theater amplifiers are so similar.
The margins are what makes something a good deal or not to the buyer. If a company takes 300% margins on speakers, then you get more bang for your buck as it's $400 on $100 to build instead of you paying 3,000% on $100 so it's $3,100 to you. It's all the same product, it just equals more value with less margins, or as the money isn't invisibly and magically going to the speaker building company or wire building company instead of your pocket.
Lower margins = cheaper prices, and more bang for your buck on the same product
My post was about the thread that mentioned actual amplifier model. I forgot details but it does exist. Again, it might have not been 5-channel but it was probably not mentioned as the topic was not in that direction.
So, chances are that what you want exist. If it does, why do you care about other things?
Huh, I guess I need to emphasize that there is a subtype of people who are not focusing on the "best deal" or "bang for the buck". They are more focused on the final product. I suspect that those who buy very expensive cables fall into this category.
I do own a car. A 95,000 mile 2006 ford Taurus. Lol. It gets me around! The best deal and the best bang for the buck are the same terminology, lol, so both?
I’m just saying, the final product on all audio and non- audio wiring, speakers, amplifiers, processors and receivers would be the same thing.
Less margins in this case would still be same product.
Expensive would be cheaper prices if no one would pay these exorbitant prices, but the same product, if people weren’t willing to pay the big bucks of the companies taking 100,000%+ margins on wiring, and the other stuff. It wouldn’t degrade the quality. With less fish in the sea, with 4 or 5-10 wiring companies, there volume would go up instead of being spread around by like 1,000+ companies, so the same buyers to fewer companies, and the $25,000-$50,000-$250,000 people would buy the $300 AudioQuest Dragon Zero and Bass, so there would be more volume to deal with less margins. They wouldn’t be going out of business any time soon.
People always want to feel quality, irregardless if it’s $300. Whether that’s not much money to some people, or a lot. If it's exotic high end Quality at $300? Who cares about the price? As long as it’s super high quality.
Also, I don’t think you guys are idiots. Just careless with your money is all in the audio cult, lol.
Well, as much as I actually appreciate Taurus, it is far from the best deal or best bang for the buck for me. It is lacking a few things and has a few too many. I am not making it up, it is really like that. It ends up being similar situation with speakers, cables, etc. By the way, I wonder what a margin on that car was when new. It was surely less than 50000% but it also sold in much higher numbers than any of the speakers ever will. If you build the best-selling car, the game is different than if you build a very rare one. Margins are higher on exotics. Kind of like on $250 000 speakers.
"With less fish in the sea, with 4 or 5-10 wiring companies, there volume would go up instead of being spread around..."
Check the price of Albuterol inhalers. Unless something changed recently, there is only three manufacturers in the U.S.A. There used to be a few more. It used to cost $15 or so.
Okay. Hrm. Now I feel like we’re going around and around in circles. I do appreciate the fun debate, and I’m declaring my self the winner. Lol. Lower Margins = more volume and still profitable enough to exist Exotic = cheaper, since lower margins and still profitable since higher volume Less companies like leas fish in the seas and more to feed on little minnows, more volume, and appropriate prices.
It’s like the sleep number scam. A $1,500 C2 = same air base as all the mattresses and 2" of plastic like poly foam
A $5,700 iLE uses 6" of poly foam with the same air base.
3rd party foams. Less than a $50 cost to produce difference.
Polyurethane Foam = the cheapest foam to manufacture if I’m not mistaken?
Buy a 3" radium organic talalay latex topper for $400 from sleepez.fom Tempurpedic 3" topper for $300 from tempurpedic.com And a 6" cotton zippered mattress case for $200 $2,500 8" c2 now 14" now = better than the 6 inches or 12" of cheap polyurethane foam for $5,700.
And not to mention, air chambers are a scam. Unless the density or ILD (impression load deflection - The amount of weight or pressure required to compress the mattress to that extent of 25% or 1 inch) or density changes, it’s the same thing. It’s like a pool tube with cheap poly foam that you could build for like $200. Lol.
Use leggat and platt individual pocketed coils. All the $5,000 mattresses use those. sell those and the mattress cases are at mattresses.net or it’s called the Arizona Mattress store.
I’ve posted, too much in depth knowledge on industry stuff.
If less companies then prices go up? When there’s a whole, it’ll be filled. If things change, then a factory direct company will show up to change things. And if there is collusion? And they threaten the factory direct company? Then it’s legally wrong. With out factory direct internet? We’d be screwed.
We shouldn't be worried about less companies existing.
I assume unless there's collusion, they will compete like a fair market should.
I am not familiar with intricacies of mattress architecture but I do know that some are more comfortable to sleep on than others. I do not have statistics how expensive which one was but more comfortable are worth more to me, regardless of what manufacturer’s cost was. It is on me to decide how much it is worth to me.
Of course we are going around and around in circles. That is the whole point of the circle. It goes around and around.
It is not hard for you to declare victory. You make a premise, support it by skewed/assumed facts, change what I say and say it was what I said, predict what would happen although it rarely has happened in similar scenarios, and judge it all by yourself. How could you lose?
Good news for the rest of us is that those who do not mind paying $70 000 for a speaker cable, still have options.
Bad news for many is that albuterol story is actually true.
Excellent post and discussion. Sorry to see so many had their feelings hurt. Myself, I'll never throw down over $200 for a pair of speaker cables. Electronics and engineering, that's a different story all together. Randy-11: You da man brother....
elizabeth"Why does it matter to anyone, that expensive stuff exists? Cheap stuff does also. YOu have no need to buy expensive stuff unless you want to. So why care???"
It is because there are people who lack the skills, education, and experience to earn, acquire, and develop the wealth aka "expendable income" to purchase these products and so they have a need to criticize, attack, and insult that from which they feel they have been denied or excluded and they think they're values, standards, and preferences should be accepted, adopted, and embraced by all it is a very self centered, self absorbed, self righteous perception they have on many things.
From a purely economic standpoint it is great to see someone spend $70K on cables. That $70K is not sitting in a bank but distributed into the economy were it can be spent many more times over and do a lot of good. I know the bank can invest that $70K but I see the economic benefits as being greater when people spend.
let me get this straight; I work and therefore earn my income and don't have the intelligence, wherewithal to purchase whatever it is I want, audio or otherwise? Some would argue, a "zip cord" used for audio (speaker cables) would be a waste.
I think what I meant is, that $30,000 Audioquest Dragon Zero and Bass, would cost $300 if there weren’t suckers to pay $30k on $50 cost to build wiring.
I think you guys get embarrassed that you spend so much, or can’t stand the thought that you’re getting taken, that you somehow justify spending so much by the fact that "you can" and that you’re "financially secure" enough, that you don’t mind spending so much
It’s this simple= Speaker Wire get up to 100,000%+ mark ups. Speakers get up to 10,000%+ markup. People pay this, so it’s reserved for the elite. If people weren’t willing. The prices for the same product would drop 99%+. It’s that simple. And I’m not exaggerating.
You can justify it all you want.
You’re guys OCD that you aren’t hearing your music well enough force your insecurities to sip the kool aid and waste money.
This cult is hysterical. You guys actual defend 100,000% mark ups on Audioquest cabling.
I think 60 minutes should do a piece on the mark up scams, and the people who matter, the cool people, will laugh and laugh
Stop justifying your purchases, and "Liking" such scams.
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