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Would You Pay to Listen?

Imaging the best sounding system you've ever heard. My question is, would you pay (say on an hourly basis) to listen to that system. You bring the music, friends, refreshments, etc. and you have the use of a state-of-the-art system in a professionally designed acoustic space.

Possible reasons to pay to hear such a system:

- unlike the local audio salon, you could listen without the pressure of a salesman trying to sell you equipment

- you could use it as a reference to your home system

- you could use it as a refuge, a place away from the spouse and kids where you could truly experience dedicated listening

To be honest, I'm not sure I would pay for such a service, but then again if it were cheap enough, occasionally, maybe I would. What's your thoughts?
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Showing 1 response by abstract7

abstract7
541 posts
 
I probably would not. We have an audiophile society and rotate through listening to each other's systems. All the systems are high end--some very high end. All the systems sound excellent, none of them sound perfect. Some do certain things better than others--it's really an education to hear the different systems and the pros and cons of each. The only way I would pay for listening is it would have to be higher end than what we typically listen to and for me to go back as a repeat customer they would have to change the equipment on a regular basis, so that I could hear the differences of really top notch systems. That said, it's unlikely it would be very affordable, because it would have to support a limited number of groups for probably $150k worth of equipment and $70k worth of room. It takes a lot of listening sessions and high prices to pay off that kind of investment. I once figured out that watching a movie in our home theater was the most expensive showing of a movie I had ever seen--$10 for seeing a movie is a bargain.
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