[Sarchi]

NOTE: This has nothing specifically to do with boomana's thread/rant, or even with head-fi.org or headphone audio per se. It's a general observation.

I've just been noticing recently the tendency in internet audio circles to value products based on their retail pricing. The ultra expensive stuff has to be the best, and if you can't afford it, you can't appreciate it. While that may seem fine, there are many other factors in evaluating an audio product than just how much it sells for. This attitude just seems to lead to all kinds of snobbery and (many) false conclusions, especially for newbies trying to make some sense of it all.

I didn't see this as much 8-10 years ago, when magazines like Listener (and the internet to a great extent) seemed to be working to level the playing field in this hobby. Now it seems to have come back full circle and it seems to me we are back on the industry tit being fed a LOT of B.S.

JM2CAYMMYBBB

 

[krmathis]

In most cases you get what you pay for.
But of cause its too simple to generalize a product just based on its retail price. Cause there are expensive products who don't perform "that" well, and cheap products who perform very well...

But price usually give you a pinpoint of how the product performs.

 

[Sarchi]

I guess it's the cheapskate in me, but even before I got into DIY, I almost always bought used gear. This allowed me to try out and resell a lot of different gear without a big depreciation hit.

I have a deep suspicion of ultra-pricey gear in general, especially consumer grade electronics.

Those are my biases. But even objectively, I've heard more than a few mega-systems that just sounded lousy. (speaker-fi I mean) I think there is a limit to how far you can try to take the illusion of concert hall audio in a normal sized domestic space. Past that limit it can start to go rapidly downhill.

 

[evilking]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis; But price usually give you a pinpoint of how the product performs.

I rarely find this to be true.

"How the product performs" is the problem. It doesn't matter if it's high-end if I don't like the sound. So price is usually irrelavent.


EK

 

[Agnostic]

I think here on Head-Fi there are only a few people who actually have this irrational view on audio gear. Regretfully they are a quite vocal minority lately.

It's a pity if new visitors to Heaf-Fi who are looking for advice and information are sometimes exposed to less than rational arguments on what to get and what to spend money on.

I think it's very possible to get great sound quality not to mention a lot of enjoyment (which should be the point ultimately) without a huge budget. It just takes some good research, patience and a thorough search of the Head-Fi forums; and sometimes a healthy instinct on what info to ignore as well.

 

[Kirosia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by evilking /img/forum/go_quote.gif "How the product performs" is the problem. It doesn't matter if it's high-end if I don't like the sound. So price is usually irrelavent.

I think he's referring to actual fidelity. I.e. I may prefer the sound signature of ksc-35 over the HD650, but the latter still has higher fidelity, in the technical sense.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think he's referring to actual fidelity. I.e. I may prefer the sound signature of ksc-35 over the HD650, but the latter still has higher fidelity, in the technical sense.

Yes, thats what I mean.
Cause some might like the sound signature of the Apple iBud's (or whatever) over anything else they have heard out there. But there are a greater chance that a certain person will like the sound signature of a "high fidelity" product than the general $10 one.

There are also the aspects which are not related to sound quality. Example the actual material and build quality.

 

[marvin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarchi /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've just been noticing recently the tendency in internet audio circles to value products based on their retail pricing.

It's like that in every hobby where the differences between serviceable gear are subjective and marginal.

 

[markl]

It's funny, but I see the opposite trend. I think there are a lot of wishful thinkers out there who will themselves to believe they can get something for nothing, and don't try to tell them otherwise or you'll be called a snob, elitist, audio-fool with a feeble mind who will buy anything.

These are mostly newbs with limited budgets, and therefore have a psychological incentive to believe an amp in a mint tin (the one they can afford at the moment) is every bit as good as the top-of-the-line Singlepower when it isn't. I often find that many of these people who make these kinds of claims have never even heard the expensive product (or even anything like it) they claim is worthless. OTOH, so many of them are also so green, they wouldn't be in an ideal position to recognize great sound when they heard it. Compared to what? Many of them are still at the "OMG teh BASE!" stage of audio development.

The good news is that as they get experience in the hobby, learn what to listen for, become more discerning listeners, and as their budgets increase as they get gainful employment, they can start to scale up, and will be making these kinds of arguments less and less.

The fact is that in audio as in all things in life, there is a correlation between price and performance. There is no mysterious Bermuda Triangle force field or portal to another dimension in which audio products alone magically do not follow all the same rules as everything else.

Obviously, not every dollar spent automatically gives you something "better", there are exceptions all over the place. But if you were to plot the price vs. performance curve of every single audio product on the market, you would observe a more or less general trend of increasing performance with price.

Sorry, but it's true.

 

[vcoheda]

i am total agreement with markl.

my uniform experience in this hobby thus far has been that sound has gotten better as price has gone up. this applies to headphones, amps, sources, and even cables. now i am quite certain that at some point, things do not get better but only different. however, i do not believe i have reached that point and from what i can gather, most of the people on this site have not reached it as well.

so i do believe - up to a point - that you get what you pay for, and unfortunately more expensive often times does mean better.

 

[craiglester]

I kind of think of the price performance ratio as similar to a logarithmic curve..

A small increase in spending *can* yield a large increase over the basic standard of audio quality.. eg.. KSc75 over the free ear buds you get witn an Mp3 player..

But the further you go along the curve, the less of a *percieved* increase in quality you'll get for your money.

It's also based very much on the individuals perception of what is good value. Some people wouldn't think twice about spending $500 on a pair of headphones, simply because they can afford it. Some people would consider that a LOT of money, and would probably have much higher expectations for them.

*not aimed at anyone* - I do find it kind of absurd that people post stuff like, I want to buy a pair of headphones and i have $2000 to spend, what should I get?. Seriously, who spends $2000 on something they don't know anything about. ? Do some research people! And of course everyone here says, oh you need a blah blah blah, and it's ALWAYS over their budget? wha?

I say get whatever you can afford, don't get in debt for a pair of headphones, you know ( I know most wouldn't but some will I'm sure).. spend the money on your missus or kids, or if you don't have them, send your mom some flowers

 

[Sarchi]

Mark, I fully appreciate your comments as they relate to headphone audio -- admittedly, a fairly new endeavour for me. My remarks pertain to speaker-fi, and to the high-end audio industry as a whole.

Point being, newbs usually don't even know what the goal is, much less how to go about attaining it. Being audiophiles, we generally subscribe to the concepts laid out many eons ago, by writers like J.Gordon Holt and Harry Pearson. We are trying to recreate a live concert experience in a domestic setting. From that grand plateau, things get murky..... is it a rock concert we aim to recreate? A small club jazz performance? Full symphony? And then the sensibilities have to start kicking in, constrained by budget, room, and other considerations. I'm just saying that there are many ways to approach the goal (headphone listening being just one), and it isn't realistic to suggest that throwing money at it will be the only, or best solution. Audio journalists (to pick on one group) tend to fall into this line of reasoning, and I think it does a disservice to us all. Maybe the whole Randi thing is a nice little wake up call...again, it's not "the answer" and I'm making some fairly broad generalizations about trends I've been noticing.

 

[nalth]

To put it short: The law of diminishing returns applies in this case too and each one of us needs to decide how high up the hifi-ladder one wants/needs/can climb...

 

[pne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarchi /img/forum/go_quote.gif NOTE: This has nothing specifically to do with boomana's thread/rant, or even with head-fi.org or headphone audio per se. It's a general observation. I've just been noticing recently the tendency in internet audio circles to value products based on their retail pricing. The ultra expensive stuff has to be the best, and if you can't afford it, you can't appreciate it. While that may seem fine, there are many other factors in evaluating an audio product than just how much it sells for. This attitude just seems to lead to all kinds of snobbery and (many) false conclusions, especially for newbies trying to make some sense of it all. I didn't see this as much 8-10 years ago, when magazines like Listener (and the internet to a great extent) seemed to be working to level the playing field in this hobby. Now it seems to have come back full circle and it seems to me we are back on the industry tit being fed a LOT of B.S. JM2CAYMMYBBB

you're not allowed to say tit on head-fi.

 

[slwiser]

Go to a meet not a mini and see where everyone groups. They always group around the most expensive stuff, showing little if any interest in anything else. This has been my experience. So who would actually know if a less expensive setup matched one of those ultra expensive setups? Those that group give short-shift to some otherwise fine audio experiences.