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.
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.
"...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".
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.
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!
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.
"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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
$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.
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?
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.
@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, 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.
You know what I don't get? Is everyone called me a troll, when in reality, no one really said or could refute that $1,000+ cables are using like $10 worth of copper, $10 worth of silver, and really fancy $3 worth of cable jackets, and expensive fancy connectors that cost like $1 to make.
Why not respond to that.
The same can be said of MANY products. Even more abstract is how services are valued. Ever used the services of a lawyer or doctor?
You know what I don't get? Is everyone called me a troll, when in reality, no one really said or could refute that $1,000+ cables are using like $10 worth of copper, $10 worth of silver, and really fancy $3 worth of cable jackets, and expensive fancy connectors that cost like $1 to make.
Why not respond to that. Don't call me a troll, if you can't refute the cost to build, and the cost of sale.
Why not? If you have already built the perfect listening room with the perfect speakers and an amp to drive them, and upgraded all your programming material to the best mastering.... then why not...
I guess because there are much better holes to throw money into - vintage Italian sport cars for example.
Honestly some cables are not worth their price, but if I have money that I don't need, and I have expensive system, I will buy why not?Mike Lavigne has a good explanation about this topic.Mike is Agon member.
Time for the moderators to step in and (1) simply lock down this crap thread and similar crap ones. If they do not, it's identification by association - full stop.
Really, are we so insecure that every dissenting opinion should be stomped out like the first zombie in an apocalypse?
While I couldn't care less what others spend on cables, and I am all about capitalism and pricing based on what the market will bear, I agree with the OP that some cable manufacturers have elevated their product and brand to the point where owning their cables approaches more of a validation of social standing than a good value. But hey, that is simply considered good marketing in many other industries. People will vote with their wallets so why worry about it?
I used to work in 94107, that's by PacBell in San Francisco. The guys at Monster Cable used to come in all the time laughing about their new "Turbo" this and and whatever wonder marketing scheme they could come up with. Of course it all sounded the same. That was, what, 25 years ago and nothing has changed. There is a guy I went to High School with that has had a High End shop forever. One day I was there talking to him and these guys came in complaining about how some megabuck cables they had bought were "Too bright". He gave me a look like it was time for me to get lost while he tried to finesse the know nothing types that had more money than brains.
Now everybody has a right to spend their money in a fashion that they see fit. It's nobody's business, not really. The Diamond industry for instance makes zillions selling what is a rather common mineral through tight control and marketing. HiFi marketers have every right to fleece a public begging to be taken. The market is there after all.
That doesn't mean that those that point out the obvious are somehow misguided or "trolls".
I use zip cord myself. I've tried lots of fancy pants cables in the 40+ years that I've been doing this . That covers many hundreds of amplifiers. Imagination is a hearty part of this hobby. Imagination is good.
Well said kqvkq9. I have been an audio enthusiast for many years. Now that I'm retired I find that the factor of diminishing returns plays a big part in the selection of gear and cables. It is my concern that when it becomes more about the high price attached than about value and great sound, the few manufactures out there that make very good sounding and performing equipment, at a reasonable price, will decide the best way to market and sell their equipment is to add a ghastly high price tag - not so good for those of us who can't afford the price of a luxury auto or small house to spend on a nice audio system.
Geez, what intolerance. If you don't like the thread, nobody forces you to read it. I seriously doubt that all audiophiles are so closed minded that attacking the poster is considered good form. The original thought, that this hobby is loaded with pricey fluff is certainly valid. Yes, it could have been phrased better, no question but good heavens, no room for dissent or we go running for the moderators? Really?
In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion, often for the troll's amusement.."
As previously commented on, don't feed the troll.
Time for the moderators to step in and (1) simply lock down this crap thread and similar crap ones. If they do not, it's identification by association - full stop. (2) Trolls hide behind that central plank of cowardly anonymity provided by forum monikers and a laissez-fair administration by the moderators above. Trolling can be addressed by an initial stern cease and desist warning by the website moderators for subject matter thst fits the internet troll definition above, a second trolling occurrence creates a six-month forum ban for the troll , and a third strike in trolling is a lifetime ban.
The
problem is that components with no scientific or engineering
explanation are being sold for enormous sums of money to people who do
not understand the need for proper listening tests
... and this is a "problem" for who, exactly? You? Why should this trouble you so? Why can't each audiophile decide for himself what a "proper" listening test is?
Not everybody is equipped with the same hearing ability.
Roughly true, but the issue is not whether you hear a difference, it is whether you think you hear a difference when you really are a victim of confirmation bias.
Assuming the OP is really a troll, he is making fun of such victims.
Another troll trait, if I can be so bold, is the use of a moniker that appears absolutely legit, as if the troll really is an audio nut or audio insider. You know, a moniker like say audiopro, hififreak or....funaudiofun
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