I was happy to read Art Dudley's "As We See It," this month, titled "Skin deep." To recall, Dudley complained about the ridiculous prices becoming increasingly common in the world of audio. He concluded, "We are crippled not so much by fraud as by a bit of greed, a bit of sloppy, cost-ineffective engineering, and a lack of willingness on the part of us all to speak up and say, I'm sorry, but an interconnect is not, under any conditions, worth as much as a new car. For me, that lack of willingness ends today."
Earlier in this piece Dudley wrote, "it's time to call bullshit on some of this stuff."
Great! I hope many other Stereophile writers follow suit. I also think that Stereophile should do a story on why prices have been increasing.
However, I was also disappointed to read Dudley's review of the Oswalds Mill Audio Mini speaker in this same month's Listener column. He gives a positive review to this $18,000 speaker that according to its officially given specifications is down by 3db at 60Hz.
I say that all $18,000 speakers that start to roll off around 60Hz do NOT deserve a recommendation. Loosing the bass below 60Hz is too big a problem to warrant a recommendation at this very high price point. Indeed, Revel, PSB, and Monitor and I imagine other brands all have great sounding speakers that have bass well below this level and sell below $1,800! That is $1,800 and not $18,000.
Perhaps Dudley wrote his column before he wrote the "As We See It" piece.
However this may be, I hope all the Stereophile writers start questioning many of the ridiculous component prices out there.
Robert
I was happy to read Art Dudley's "As We See It," this month, titled "Skin deep." To recall, Dudley complained about the ridiculous prices becoming increasingly common in the world of audio. He concluded, "We are crippled not so much by fraud as by a bit of greed, a bit of sloppy, cost-ineffective engineering, and a lack of willingness on the part of us all to speak up and say, I'm sorry, but an interconnect is not, under any conditions, worth as much as a new car. For me, that lack of willingness ends today."
Earlier in this piece Dudley wrote, "it's time to call bullshit on some of this stuff."
Great! I hope many other Stereophile writers follow suit. I also think that Stereophile should do a story on why prices have been increasing.
However, I was also disappointed to read Dudley's review of the Oswalds Mill Audio Mini speaker in this same month's Listener column. He gives a positive review to this $18,000 speaker that according to its officially given specifications is down by 3db at 60Hz.
I say that all $18,000 speakers that start to roll off around 60Hz do NOT deserve a recommendation. Loosing the bass below 60Hz is too big a problem to warrant a recommendation at this very high price point. Indeed, Revel, PSB, and Monitor and I imagine other brands all have great sounding speakers that have bass well below this level and sell below $1,800! That is $1,800 and not $18,000.
Perhaps Dudley wrote his column before he wrote the "As We See It" piece.
However this may be, I hope all the Stereophile writers start questioning many of the ridiculous component prices out there.
Robert