| Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
| Loudspeakers Amplification Digital Sources | |
Analog Sources Accessories Featured | |
Music Columns Retired Columns | |
Show Reports | |
Features Latest News Community | |
Resources Subscriptions |
© 2024 StereophileAVTech Media Americas Inc., USA
All rights reserved
Exactly the point. "Value" is a purely subjective notion in that it is unique for every person. As there is no law compelling anyone to buy The Lars amplifier, its success or failure in the free market will determine whether enough feel its value is supported by its price or not.
It's worth rereading Art Dudley's thoughts at http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/listening_78/ .
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Stop it Ariel, you're turning me on ! !
Cool, now we have the Hi Fi equivalent of moral relativism!
I would say that I do disagree a little with your premise, JA....in the Hi Fi hobby context.
Sometimes, I think we give unequal propositions equal consideration. Insisting we call a ridiculous product legitimate is not always a valid demand.
Just as creationism does not deserve equal time with evolution in a scientific context, the 100,000 dollar LARS does not pass muster, to me, as being an innocent bystander in the value debate. Overpriced crap is overpriced crap, and browbeating a person who questions the value of a component with a reply like "value is decided by the idiots with too much money and not you" is not exactly a correct answer amongst us enthusiasts who are interested in performance.
If someone claims a product fails the value test, he should be willing to explain why, and someone taking the opposite position should also have more to offer than "it's worth what they charge because they can charge that." We are about performance, right? If not, then welcome to the "Which Fendi purse is best" forums.
"The LARS is worth 100 large because that's what its price tag says." That's a Hi Fi argument?
You really think that?
Give Welsh HiFi some credit; at least he had some actual reasons for his opinion!
Arguing about value is a prefectly valid thing in this hobby.
Worthy of a thread - "Hi Fi products that offer poor value."
That should make for a civil discussion!
The initial flaw in your logic is morals are not flexible while value is. Shouldn't take a genius to figure that out.
Odd that you would comment on "browbeating". No one browbeat anyone unless you consider Alan's opening salvo in which he both insulted me without cause or provocation and started yet again another repitition of the same lunatic ideas he had disproven to him on numerous occasions. Did he really think something had changed in the discussion while he was "away"?
"Value is decided by the idiots with too much money and not you", was never stated and so that pretty much takes care of the entirity of your post.
That too was never stated and not even implied in this thread though I believe it was suggested in the review of the Lars. Therefore, your claim as to what has been said is neither factual nor realistic.
Nope! once again, not true. You've started your weekend early, Boooodha! The price of a transformer is not a reflection on the entire high end audio industry. If Alan doesn't care for the product, he doesn't have to buy it.
If you, like Alan, can't simply read what is in front of you, then you have nothing to say and you need to be ignored.
That's not what I said. What I said is that the concept of value is purely subjective. It is not transportable from one person to another. In that context and in a free-market economy, something is only over-priced if there is no-one who will buy it at the advertised price. Jan's instancing the prices of guitars is exactly right. An inexpensive instrument that is difficult to play and fights me has zero value; a very expensive instrument that allows me to transcend my own limitations, that sings every time I pick it up, has enormous value to me. The paradox is that the cheap factory-built instrument probably has a higher profit margin than the artisanal handmade instrument. (See my review of "Eric Clapton's Guitar" at http://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/506Bstph.html - you need to scroll down the page.)
Except that as was revealed in the last thread on this same subject, his analysis of what it cost to make something was woefully lacking, in my informed opinion.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
I do find this audio Stockholm Syndrome we are supposed to toe the line with to be fatiguing.
John
Interesting that you feel i have no idea about manufacturing costs.
With all due respect, one of us works in a manufacturing facility building audio products, one of us is a magazine editor.
Just because I work in an area of audio that is not hifi it does not mean i do not understand manufacturing costs. I will bring up the argument the point ive made before, Mark Levinson hifi amps and Crown proaudio amps are made in the same factory on the same lines by the same people, they use the same manufacturing techniques. Why should the Levinson sell for ten times the Crown amp ? its the same grade of components inside its just the case and a few cosmetic things that change.
When will soemone actual;ly step up and make the value argument on real numbers rather than continually trying to discredit my knowledge. I do know what im talking about and until someone can make a solid techincal argument against my numbers i believe I am correct.
Prove me wrong rather than just trying to discredit me.
Alan
When did it happen that actually reading and understanding what you've read became the thing you do not bother to do?
Alan has bashed the Lars for the price of its transformer as if that were the only component in an amplifier. Boodha! claims it is an "unmitigated rip off". Neither person seems to have read the Dudley review.
Do you really think the Crown and the ML amplifiers are identical in all ways? You employ no "real numbers" just your speculations that they are identical. Until you show actual "real numbers' to justify what you say, there would seem to be no argument the amplifiers are equal in anyway.
That is absolutely PATHOLOGICAL . You are nothing more than a HYPOCRITE Jan Vigne
YOU attack my marriage in a thread about politics, when my marriage has nothing to do with the topic of the thread, and you have the GALL to complain????
EGREGIOUS JERK!
You could not have even talked to Gandhi without condescension and trying to beat him down with your hubris. You are nothing more than an obsessive forum bully and the moderators let you get away with it. I tried to be your friend on this forum and even complimented you on your knowledge of audio. You obviously don't give a shit about friendship on this forum, and you see kindness as a weakness.
Your joy obviously comes from being an obsessive forum bully, and a dime a dozen jerk.
No, because it is not transportable, ie, is different for everyone.
Yes, but only for him and his unique set of values.
I know you're not this obtuse, Buddha. There can be no agreement because the concept of value is different for everyone. You seem to be saying that "value" is an absolute factor, but it can't be because it must purely subjective.
I thought it clear that I was talking about value _to me_ and that "value" is not transportable. Neither me, as a musician with my 10,000 hours under my belt, nor the tyro who will be satisfied by _anything_ that makes a sound, is "wrong" when judged in the context of our respective value systems.
My point is that the concept of "right" and "wrong" when applied to people's value systems is inappropriate. To me, the $10,000 handmade guitar is a good value, the cheap, factory-built instrument has zero value; to the beginner, the $10,000 instrument is a rip-off but the cheap guitar has immense value. We are both right.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
For the second time, I did not attack your marriage. I took your faulty logic and turned it around on you. You tried to blame me for Media Matters using the very words of Repubs to show who and what the Repubs are. Which I compared to you blaming your wife for finding someone else's panties in your coat pocket.
You don't blame someone else for catching you at being your own worst enemy and you don't blame MM for using the Repubs own words to show who they are. I never claimed you were cheating on your wife but with these constant outbursts of yours, I'm beginning to think you feel guilty for something. And I know you don't feel guilty for your political views or for trying to discredit me or MM with your lousy logic.
I know logic is not your strong suite, Mark, but figure this one out and get over yourself. What I posted did have something to do with the topic you introduced to the thread. You started the BS with Media Matters. I had not quoted MM in that thread and MM had nothing to do with the thread. Yet you dragged it into the thread trying to score points. Now it hasn't worked and you want to cry about it.
What LS posted had absolutlely nothing to do with the thread. What he posted is vulgar and offensive and was posted without provocation other than LS does that sort of thing and appareantly the new moderator thinks South Park humor is fitting for a public forum. Anyone with even a small bit of sense can see how you got the tables turned on your attempt at discrediting me; you introduced an unrelated issue to the thread and then blamed me for what MM does when they catch R's being idiots. All I did was give a more graphic example of how illogical your thinking is and the arrogance of anyone who tries to pull a stunt like that.
Get over yourself, guy. You didn't have good answers to the questions you were being asked and this is how you choose to deal with being beaten at your own game.
I won't go any further than saying someone who posts, "I work to support MY family. MY earnings are for MY family, MY bills are MY responsibility, MY choices and judgement are MY responsibility, MY achievements are due to MY hard work... ", shouldn't be invoking Ghandi in any way.
If you carry this to another thread, especially one concerning audio - should that ever become a topic on this forum, then, Mark, you are merely showing how childish and immature you can be. I'll repeat one more time, the righties demanded this forum be turned over to them for their political comments. What did you expect the lefties were going to do when you began spouting the Repub lies and BS? I use facts to back up what I post, you use none. You refuse to accept facts and instead you try to play the Repub game of discrediting any source that shows a R in a bad light even when it can be proven it is exactly what the R said or did. That you have no use for facts doesn't change the fact into something it is not. No more than your complaints here change the fact of what you attempted to achieve and how it was turned back on you.
Try considering for once the consequences of your own actions. You asked for it and you got it when you were allowed to rant on about politics. You tried to be slick and you slipped and fell on your ass. I did nothing more than allow you to dig your own grave. If you can't pick yourself up and think about what has happened, consider the facts and move on, maybe you don't need to be on a grown up forum like this. I don't carry grudges until someone like LS, dup or Ethan has proven what they are about, then I know what to expect from someone with that mentality. Get over this incident and discuss audio in a rational manner. Until you can back up what you say about politics, you might want to avoid discussing them. Crying and getting pissed isn't going to change anything for the better.
Have you noticed you tend to say this quite frequently on this forum? Why do you suppose that is?
> Just because I work in an area of audio that is not hifi it does not mean i do not understand
> manufacturing costs. I will bring up the argument the point ive made before, Mark Levinson hifi amps
> and Crown proaudio amps are made in the same factory on the same lines by the same people, they use
> the same manufacturing techniques. Why should the Levinson sell for ten times the Crown amp ? its the
> same grade of components inside its just the case and a few cosmetic things that change.
Crown and Mark Levinson are sold into 2 different markets. Nobody who buys a Crown will have anything to do with a Mark Levinson because of the poor technical performance for price and similarly nobody who buys a Mark Levinson will have anything to do with Crown because of the poor audiophile performance. The consumers in the two markets have substantially different values/beliefs when it comes to evaluating the attractiveness of audio hardware.
In addition, the non-manufacturing costs of selling into the audiophile market and the professional audio market are signficantly different. Also, the classical supply and demand curve to maximise revenue posted by Ariel does not apply to luxury goods like audiophile hardware because a high price tends to add value. For example, if your LARS amplifier was sold for $10 000 rather than $100 000 there is every chance it would result in less units getting sold and not more.
We should quit wasting time with the LARS amp.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The LARS pales next to the value of the Pivetta Opera One amp.
Only 650,000 dineros for two channels of bliss.
650K of audio "value."
I bi-amp, so it'll be a million three for me.
I like the ultra Hi Fi wheels on that baby. I bet it rocks....and rolls!
So, are we talking Hi Fi or fashion today?
15 million dollar bra, anyone?
High value performance!
It has the bra forums all atwitter, a titillating value.
JA, my point was....at some point, we leave the realm of Hi Fi and enter the realm of affectation.
I'm sure you guys think the Hard Rock's guitar display is made up of high value stuff....but to me, it's an austentatious crap display.
However....
Here's a 2 million dollar guitar. It must make you play like Hendrix!
Find the hidden fallacy.
As a hobbiest, I will continue to assert we have the right to question value without the forum harpy flying in to insist "whatever they can get for it" is a valid statement about an enthusiast product. No room in Hi Fi for that astounding level of stupidity.
JV
Now it all becomes clear.
The big difference between us is that im judging products on a variety of parameters, sound quality, engineering, design, build quality, tehcnology etc and believe they all need to be in reasonable proportion to create a good value product. I have enough knowledge and confidence to make this determination unilaterally.
You however believe the LARS is worth $100,000 because Art Dudley said so and therefore you do not need to have your own thoughts, you can just follow along with the herd and hide behind the collective kool aid wall.
Alan
Andy
Run that one again ?
A higher price adds value ?????
It might add image and an air of exclusivity, but value ??
I think what he means is....
At 5K, the amp would become lost in the swirl of similarly priced products.
At 100k it becomes special and desirable to a certain type of person.
Talking to people in Hi Fi, I have heard numerous tales of an item selling poorly until the price was increased.
Same for used cars!
> A higher price adds value ?????
Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What professionals find valuable about audio hardware is rather different to what audiophiles find valuable. A high price for audiophile equipment generally makes it a more attractive luxury product to audiophiles but much less so to professionals who are generally looking for the most cost effective product to satisfy a largely technical requirement.
> It might add image and an air of exclusivity, but value ??
For luxury goods a more positive image and an air of exclusivity is adding value to the product. The companies that market these luxury goods invest significant sums of money building the brand image.
I'm guessing though you prefer to maintain the level of stupidity where you can still make up shit to suit your fancy whether it ever existed or not. Boodha!, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to know when you are sober and when you are not.
Though I'm getting the feeling that indecision will soon end.
Once again, nothing in what has been posted would suggest anthing you've said exists actually does exist. You've judged all of hifi based upon what you assume to be a single transformer in what has been deemed possibly "the best amp" AD has heard. Not a thing you've posted has had a single thing to do with "a variety of parameters, sound quality, engineering, design, build quality, tehcnology etc". In fact, you seem to have totally ignored such values. Not a thing you've posted has had a thing to do with "real world numbers".
I cannot defend what exists only in the mind of a few lunatics nor am I going to attempt to do so because, no matter what I say, you'll say I said something different and that you are right no matter what you have not proven. When you come up with real world examples of how the Crown and the Mark Levinson are identical amplifiers, we can begin a discussion. When you can prove the Crown and the ML have identical "sound quality, engineering, design, build quality, tehcnology etc", we can begin a conversation. You simply repeating the same tired old BS that you've pushed onto this forum for the past few years has nothing to do with any of that. What you claim I said, is not what I've said. What you claim you've proven, doesn't exist - never has. Until you get a firmer grasp on a real world ability to converse, there is no point in wasting my time with your BS.
Keep it up, Alan, the crazier you sound, the easier it is to prove just how crazy you are.
So in your expert opinion, anyone who believes that LARS amps and Nordost cables are not great value for money is a lunatic.
Then yep, im totally mad and should be locked away
In my opinion, anyone who cannot read and comprehend what is on the page, discuss the issue with real world facts and numbers instead of hyperbole and make believe and who prefers to intentionally distort another's words is on their way to lunacy, yes. When you repeat the same factless ideas at every opportunity - such as judging the entire audio industry on the price of one transformer you assume is used in one amplifier, an amplifier that happens to have been declared "possibly the best" or declaring the entire audio industry operates at a 1,000 to 5,000% mark up - and without end, then you've packed your bags and bought the maps. Should you make your argument based upon personal insults to all who might point out your affliction rather than arguing actual facts which you can verify, then you're in the taxi and headed to the station.
Alan, IMO, you have already purchased a one way ticket on the bullet train and settled into your seat. Look to your right and say hello to Boooha! when you meet - he'll be the one wearing the aluminium hat. Tell him how much it should have cost based on parts alone.
How about just for once instead of attacking my numbers and saying i have no idea why dont you demonstrate how incorrect I am by showing us an example with facts ( not opinions ) of how the high prices are justified.
Any high end product, just list out costs with the mark up.
Alan
I was out to dinner with Andy Payor once and he was talking about his turntable.
Over 40 grand in straight up parts alone, without factoring in the cost of labor, design, assembly, product support after the sale, etc. (I think retail was 55 grand, and then creeped up?)
He said that after he factored in all his costs, it wasn't worth making the table.
So, I would hesitate to paint everyone with a brush as broad as the LARS or extreme cables tempts one to use!
Welsh....
What high end speakers (or other gear) seem to offer acceptable "value" to you?
Any?
Buddha
There is a lot of high end gear that i would deem as reasonable value. Krell for example generally seem to be good value, Magico products are so well made and hi tech they justify the prices. Strangely Turntables are one area where you can see the intrinsic value of the material, look at a Clearaudio or VPI for $10,000 and I can fully appreciate where the money has gone.
Esoteric products look like good value, the smaller US companies Van Alstine, Salk etc great value.
Thinking about it, its primarily the cable companies and amplifier companies that have the poor value factor.
Alan
Alan, do you know how much it costs to have a cable made to spec?
Is it expensive to request a cable with your particular design parameters? Or are cable manufacturers able to produce just about anything you request with a cost proportionate to the materials used and the complexity of the design?
Given all the variations of Mogami cable (for example) that are similarly priced I have trouble accepting that making high-end cables is any big deal from a manufacturing perspective.
Elk
I purchase custom 4 pair twisted 18 AWG cable that has individual shield, overall shield, aromoured braiding and is made of low smoke zero halogen material. This cable can withstand being crushed, buried or being exposed to 1000 degrees ( yep 1000 not 100 ) of heat for 3 hours.
I pay $10 a meter
Why does a bit of twisted pair audio cable cost a lot more ? copper is copper and sheaths are sheaths
Again, i live in a world of high end custom designed audio products, its just that they are industrial not commercial.
I have custom cable assemblies made regularly that cost $10-$50, again its not complicated to make cable.
Alan
Can you just as easily spec more complicated cables and pay just for the additional materials cost and increased manufacturing costs?
Do you have a sense of what i would cost to build the anaconda sized speaker cables that many companies offer - the stuff with around two pounds of copper per foot and ten gauge connectors?
My expectation is that your cables often have to handle greater bandwidth and more sensitive signals than consumer audio.
Thanks, Alan!
This is exactly why I did not want to get this started again with you, Alan. No matter what is said to disprove your "ideas", no matter who says it or who presents the evidence to say you are wrong, no matter how many times "free market" and "value" are shown to be the workings elements of any consumer decision in a Nation such as the US, no matter what is said at all, you come back to adding up the cost of the parts. No matter how "parts is parts" has been proven to be a ridiculous starting point in any subjective judgement, you come back to add up the parts. And you have done this over and over and over for how long now? The conversation is unending with you simply because you have nothing upon which to base your ideas. You haven't mentioned parts cost yourself other than you assume a single amplifier to be using a transformer you say costs "X" amount. You've shown no proof that is the off the shelf transformer being used, you just insist we accept your guess as reality. You constantly return to three pieces of equipment and expect us to damn the entire industry as you have done for those three pieces. All the while you've done nothing to show they are not good values while simply ignoring the fact they have each been pronounced to be among the "best" there is to offer in their category. You have shown no inclination to judge a component on "a variety of parameters, sound quality, engineering, design, build quality, tehcnology etc". Even when these qualities are pointed out to you along with the less obvious costs of doing business in the high end audio market, you return to "just list out costs with the mark up".
And so I will not. I will not do the same thing over and over and over just to please you since there is no pleasing you. Instead I'll go back to another thread where you did exactly as you are doing here and exactly as you have done in numerous other threads where you repeat the same thing over and over and over not accepting anything other than your predetermined answer to be acceptable.
That thread ran to 20 pages of you citing three examples of gear, the LARS amplifier, the Nordost cables and the MF amplifier and you asking for the cost of parts alone. That was one thread out of how many where you have repeated the same tired, knocked down and knocked out hypothesis? All of those other threads ran 20+ pages. And in the end, after hundreds of pages of dozens of people telling you parts cost is not the issue here, you say, "just list out costs with the mark up".
There's no more to say to you, Alan. What you're doing is sheer lunacy and I refuse to go any further with this. Kindly, go to hell and stay there until you have something other than parts cost and how you are being raped when you are not buying something.
And to you, Ariel, who claimed I was being rude to Alan by not wanting to repeat his unending mythology of parts cost I want to say "fuck you". If you have been reading this forum and observing this forum for the past four years as you have claimed, you would have known of Alan's lunacy and you would not have encouraged him by posting ...
If you have a problem with me, deal with me and stop playing these silly "I am a moderator" BS antics you've been pulling this week. To encourage lunacy is to be a lunatic yourself. To be inconsistent in your words and deeds as a moderator is the essence of power madness. I do not find you to be anything more than that at this point other than you've been given a title and a tiny sliver of power to pull this crap without first having to check with JA. Shit runs downhill, Ariel, you got this job when the person before you threw his keys through the window of the store. I don't intend to be your cesspool of frustrations.
Leave me alone unless you have valid criticism to make and you need to begin with a PM and not placing me at the center of a public forum once again. Screw off, Ariel!
Wow, you are a very bitter twisted person JV
After 4 years as you say all you still have is your continual preaching that everything is worth the price because you say so and your only argument still is to bicker and call me a lunatic !!
Im not going to get into the attack stuff because although you post lots of angry nasty things you also do post lots of sensible technical things when your venom is in check.
Take care and I hope for your sake that Ariel does not take your attack to badly as i think most of us would react pretty negatively to such a polluted mean attack on our person.
Alan
There you go! Thank you! After four years of the exact same thing all you have to say is a lie and, "just list out costs with the mark up".
Pages