I visited my local hi-fi dealer this weekend to let him know how happy I am with my system and see what was new. I asked him about people that come loaded with "specs" and he laughed. I told him that for me the only thing that was important was sound not specs. We went into the listening room and he played me two different systems and asked me which one , in my opinion, sounded better. After listening and switching back in forth I told him that as far as I was concerned system B sounded a lot richer and had more depth (they were both using the same B&W speakers). Then he proceeded to show me the specs on one system, A Macintosh and the other, an Arcam Integrated amp. While the Macintosh had a lot better specs, watts, S/N ratio, the Arcam had richer deeper sound. Conclusion: Like he said..it's your ears that should guide you not your brain ! He also told me that some people come in and equate price with performance which he said is another big mistake. He said he had just sold a Levonson system to a customer who paid over $25K for two monoblocks, a CD player and control AMP. He said "it's a good system but for the money he could have done a hell of a lot better" but then some people just can't get over the price has to equal performance issues. He's a great dealer and have never tried to sell me on anything he lets my ears do the listening..
I visited my local hi-fi dealer this weekend to let him know how happy I am with my system and see what was new. I asked him about people that come loaded with "specs" and he laughed. I told him that for me the only thing that was important was sound not specs. We went into the listening room and he played me two different systems and asked me which one , in my opinion, sounded better. After listening and switching back in forth I told him that as far as I was concerned system B sounded a lot richer and had more depth (they were both using the same B&W speakers). Then he proceeded to show me the specs on one system, A Macintosh and the other, an Arcam Integrated amp. While the Macintosh had a lot better specs, watts, S/N ratio, the Arcam had richer deeper sound. Conclusion: Like he said..it's your ears that should guide you not your brain ! He also told me that some people come in and equate price with performance which he said is another big mistake. He said he had just sold a Levonson system to a customer who paid over $25K for two monoblocks, a CD player and control AMP. He said "it's a good system but for the money he could have done a hell of a lot better" but then some people just can't get over the price has to equal performance issues. He's a great dealer and have never tried to sell me on anything he lets my ears do the listening..