dCS Vivaldi (US$ 110,000)

[Magick Man]

Now that's a first post.

loaded with nutritious vitamins and hokum too!

 

[customcoco]

loaded with nutritious vitamins and hokum too!

Indeed !!!

 

[Operakid]

So many of you guys on this forum hear it straight and tell it straight, unlike the traditional high end audio guys who mostly seem to believe any sales hyperbole that is dished out, including huge changes with break in.  The high end industry has been ruined by insanely expensive equipment built by hugely exaggerating dreamer manufacturers (not all of them, but way too high a percentage) who convince, or pay, reviewers to rave the products.  High end audio is hurting, and this has to be one of the reasons, while headphones are growing, even in the very high end.  

 

[customcoco]

Quote:

So many of you guys on this forum hear it straight and tell it straight, unlike the traditional high end audio guys who mostly seem to believe any sales hyperbole that is dished out, including huge changes with break in.  The high end industry has been ruined by insanely expensive equipment built by hugely exaggerating dreamer manufacturers (not all of them, but way too high a percentage) who convince, or pay, reviewers to rave the products.  High end audio is hurting, and this has to be one of the reasons, while headphones are growing, even in the very high end.  

You know, those kind of things also happen in Head-fidom.
 
I'm not entirely sure why high end (+ than 1000$) headphones are getting more popular, but they only represent a fraction of high end audio sales.

 

[Operakid]

Quote:

You know, those kind of things also happen in Head-fidom.
 
I'm not entirely sure why high end (+ than 1000$) headphones are getting more popular, but they only represent a fraction of high end audio sales.

Yes, it happens in Head-Fi, but the numbers/percentages are so different.  The high end guys really fall for the dumbest stories on tremendously expensive equipment while the Head-Fi guys much more relate things to music, more talk about music, and buy "sound" rather than "stories" to a much greater degree.  
 
I hope the headphone market does not go like the high-end audio market with flawed equipment at insane prices.  

 

[customcoco]

Quote:

Yes, it happens in Head-Fi, but the numbers/percentages are so different.  The high end guys really fall for the dumbest stories on tremendously expensive equipment while the Head-Fi guys much more relate things to music, more talk about music, and buy "sound" rather than "stories" to a much greater degree.  
 
I hope the headphone market does not go like the high-end audio market with flawed equipment at insane prices.  

The numbers are different indeed, but only because there are so few companies are specialized in head phones listening. The percentages should be (imo) just about the same in the end.

 

[Smeckles]

Quote:

Yes, it happens in Head-Fi, but the numbers/percentages are so different.  The high end guys really fall for the dumbest stories on tremendously expensive equipment while the Head-Fi guys much more relate things to music, more talk about music, and buy "sound" rather than "stories" to a much greater degree.  
 
I hope the headphone market does not go like the high-end audio market with flawed equipment at insane prices.  

I don't really understand your complaint here.  You realize at this level of equipment, people are not buying things unheard, don't you?  Any dealer selling these pieces is going to have an in-home audition with your equipment for you to listen to before you would purchase it.  If you like it, then you buy it; if you don't, back it goes.  It's part of the cost you're paying for.  If you're buying high cost gear and not auditioning it first, that's your problem, not the industry's.  But if someone likes a tweak or an unconventional gadget and that he hears it making a difference in his system and enjoys that, why do you think its  "falling for a dumb story"?
 
On the other hand, the margins in head-fi gear are usually not high enough to merit an in-home audition for many types of equipment, so some buyers get real remorse when gear they purchased (with no refund) does not live up to their expectations or hype they read online when it's with their own system or music choices.  That is also very real and an issue that head-fi needs to overcome.  So one branch of the industry gives auditions, and one (for the most part) does not:  which buyer is foolish again?
 
The comment that one group of people likes music or "sound" better than another based on the type system they listen to it on is just patently ridiculous, and honestly, minimizes everything else you've posted.  Money, or the absence of money, does not magically grant some one refined taste.  It seems like you're projecting your own fears or biases without realizing it.  Or do you?

 

[Operakid]

Smeckles, maybe you are not experienced enough in traditional high end audio to really understand just how incredibly powerful the press is in that market, and how dysfunctional that market really is, and how it has become more about equipment than music in large part.   
 
Beyond that, you really don't understand my thread.  I'm not saying lack of money means better taste, or more money spent means better taste.  I am saying that this forum talks much more about music than the typical high end audio (non-headphone) forums.  I am not saying, as you incorrectly state, that folks like music more or less based on the system they own.  I am saying that it seems Head-Fi'ers seem, based on posts, more into the music.  That does not imply that they are more into the music because they use headphones.  I am merely observing this after reading thousands of posts.   
 
I'll also put forth that after owning nearly all of the contenders for state of the art in headphones, as well as having owned hundreds of pieces of contenders for state of the art conventional audio equipment, and having read many, many posts on forums in both fields, that the Head-Fi crowd, in general, has a better grip on what the pieces actually sound like.  
 
My post really was a very positive comment on the knowledge and awareness of folks on this forum.  It is better than any audio forum I've been on.  Why that would seem to inflame you is beyond me.
 
Head-Fi is a great place with many really good, intuitive, music loving members.  If one reads a good number of the comments about a particular model I have found that one can really get a good idea about how the component sounds, something I have not found to be true on other forums.  Again, kudos to Head-Fiers!  
 
So I don't see anything to argue about.  The high end headphone community is a great place.
 
Let me add one clarifier: perhaps I have not been clear enough.  I have been making a distinction between what I call "high end audio" and the "headphone community".  By high end audio I mean the traditional, speaker based, 2 channel high end world.  I am sorry if I was not clear enough about this and that this might have caused confusion.  It is the entire heaphone world, from the bottom to the very top end, to be the great place that I am talking about.  That includes the $5k amplifier and $5k headphone end of things.  

 

[wink]

Operakid, I salute you on a greeat post.
 
This thread may interest you:-
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/678378/occupy-hi-fi-about-head-fi-in-relation-to-high-end-audio-gloves-are-off#post_9736890

 

[Operakid]

Thank you, Wink, surely you were right, I found several things he writes to be right on target.  I don't know him, don't know if I would agree on other writings or not, but he sure is on solid ground in that piece of writing.  A couple of quotes I love are:
 
"........ but for the most part the high end audio community (meaning: journalists, manufacturers, marketers, reps and so on) has become so detached from consumer-culture that it has become an almost cartoon-like, microcosmic world.  One of the pieces of fabric that binds this world together is apathy between peers … and an apathy for the user, to be brutally honest.  Magazines and editorial departments are holding onto archaic formulas because they don’t have enough faith in their audiences.  They seem to think that if they change their approach they might lose their core audience.  Well guess what:  Your core audience is aging itself out of existence anyway, and there’s nothing you can do about it."
 
"It’s the elitist attitude that brought the high end to its knees.  Not to mention the current cost of entry for a would-be audiophile.........."
 
Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE high end audio when it serves the music with greater fidelity (which many of the most expensive current pieces DO NOT.  I love greater music reproduction at home. But the current state of the industry?  Too much the smell of snake oil mixed with the smell of death.
 
Meanwhile, this Head-Fi community of music lovers who uses headphones, for different sets of reasons, is a great group.      

 

[wink]

Too true.

 

[Smeckles]

Ah hahahaha. I always love the thinly veiled Courtier's reply "I have so much experience, so let me tell you what you meant..." .   You're repeating the same "high end audio is dying" cliches that I have heard and read since the '80s.  Yep, any day now it will drop ...
 
Your Quote:

 
high end guys really fall for the dumbest stories on tremendously expensive equipment while the Head-Fi guys much more relate things to music, more talk about music, and buy "sound" rather than "stories" to a much greater degree

 
So expanding upon your words: you believe that the posters on this forum, a headphones-oriented forum, tend to buy their chosen equipment based on "music" or "sound".  Simple enough.  Opposing them, you say, are the "high end guys" who "fall for the dumbest stories" and "buy ... stories"; I am assuming that by "fall for" you mean "purchase equipment based on".  Your comment creates two markets: the head-fiers (HF)  and the high end / 2 channel world (HE), and likewise breaks the potential consumers for those markets into those who vote with their wallets based on "music" and those who vote with their wallets based on "stories".  It's pretty clear that you also believe in a segregated market; one type of consumer occurs much more frequently in one type of market. So your comment reduces simply to: HF likes music and buys accordingly, HE likes stories and buys accordingly.
 
My Quote:

(the idea that) one group of people likes music or "sound" better than another based on the type system they listen to it on is just patently ridiculous

 
My opinion just rebuts what you said, rephrasing your ideas that one group has bought their system based on appreciation/love of music, the other based mostly on love of "stories";  I used the attributes you yourself used to describe and define the markets and the consumers in those markets .
 

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

The "(lack of) money granting taste" quote you seem to be getting hung up on took your logic a step further than you would've liked perhaps, since it obviously gets into populism:
if 2 channel HE systems can cost multiples above and beyond the most exotic HF systems, and HE consumers buy those systems after falling for stories (rather than actually listening first and then deciding that they indeed appreciate change to the music the new system makes)
 
then the implication is that HF consumers who buy based on music and sound have better taste that HE listeners, since spending (less) money for the appreciation and valuation of art is generally held in higher social regard than spending (more) money for pursuit of brand names or some imaginary bragging rights granted by "having money". 
 
No, you didn't "say" it; but it is inferred based on your chosen associations and is a common enough social trope.

 
Also clearly missed is the context of the my first  paragraph and the entire point of my reply: hi-end products are auditioned in the home before purchasing. Equipment is vetted and approved based on real-life listening before the kilobucks are exchanged. Again, auditions are part of what you're paying for.  To paraphrase my point in fewer words : "Sure, 'stories' may lead to HE auditions, but auditions are what earn the purchase".   You don't go from A (story) to C (purchase) without B (audition).
 
If consumers are buying HE equipment without auditioning it first, then yes, they are "buying stories", but please show me a market where "caveat emptor" does not apply?  Maybe if you had used in-home auditions to screen out the "stories", you would not have needed to purchase "hundreds of pieces of contenders for state of the art conventional audio equipment"?
 
Here's the fact: both types of consumers you've described exist, that I agree with.  They occur in both markets; that I also agree with. But it's nowhere near as polarized a division as you have implied. End of story.

 

[wink]

Thesde dcs DAC's are sure polarising and off topic in this thread.

 

[Operakid]

Smeckles, you don't get it and you try to infer what I have not written but what you think I mean.  You have your agenda, fine.  Obviously others in this thread know exactly what I'm talking about.
 
And no, I have not had so much equipment due to mistakes.  I have no bone to pick about losing money.  As a dealer, distributor, manufacturer I know what I'm getting into before I buy, and any mistake would sell for more than my cost in the case I were to make a mistake.  I get to "play without paying"  So, my disappointment is strictly about the consumer and has nothing to do with my experiences.  Unfortunately, they are often slow to recognize things that bother them, are told to "let it break in for weeks, it will transform itself", are so swayed by reviews and reputation that they force themselves to like things, and are typically way, way beyond any return period when they finally realize they can't make it work.  That is the reality that I see played over and over.  
 
As for your feeling that high end is not in trouble, obviously you are not in the industry to witness the lack of good new dealers to replace the better dealers that have gone out, some due to the state of the industry. You are not privy to info from other manufacturers and don't hear talk behind closed doors with industry insiders.
 
My final post on this subject of high end and its problems.
 
As for another poster on the controversy and ire that DCS often is surrounded by, I would submit that if it really sounded like music and was detailed but also natural sounding there would not be this level of controversy. Good people, good company, no crazy non-science spouted there.  But so many feel that the products are just unmusical.

 

[Smeckles]

Quote:

Smeckles, you don't get it and you try to infer what I have not written but what you think I mean.  You have your agenda, fine.  Obviously others in this thread know exactly what I'm talking about.
 
And no, I have not had so much equipment due to mistakes.  I have no bone to pick about losing money.  As a dealer, distributor, manufacturer I know what I'm getting into before I buy, and any mistake would sell for more than my cost in the case I were to make a mistake.  I get to "play without paying" 

 
Ah, so when you say you've "owned" pieces, you've never actually invested your money so you haven't "owned" them.  Gotcha, Mr. Clinton.
 
Honestly, I got to here and stopped reading, because it's very clear that you cannot communicate effectively or honestly. You use words with a specific meaning out of context and without regard to what they actually mean.  Having any discussion with you would be fruitless since you say a word and then say "I didn't mean that". You use all the argumentative tropes, including "moving the goalposts".
 
I feel badly for your former customers that you seem to say one thing but mean another, but then you wouldn't be a salesman if you weren't trying to fool someone, right? Best of luck conning some suckers out of their money, bro.  At least you're open about it.  What store do you work for, so that I never make the mistake of giving you money?