Cost of listening crisis?

Audio Systems
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@struts001 Great post. The ever-increasing costs of hi-end stereo equipment is beyond absurd. The other alarming fact is that the cost of stereo equipment is like taxes, both never decrease.

Many reviewers, either in print or YouTube channels take the easy path by seeking to review components based on a high cost to attract eyeballs. We’re partly to blame as we continue to watch and subscribe to the platforms of these reviewers.

It’s more challenging to select components that provide a high SQ to $value equation. I find myself turning away from ultra expensive equipment reviews due to the tried & true saying that anything can be achieved, it’s just a matter of time and expense. I’m more interested in reviewers who have a knack for finding diamonds in the rough.

Audiophiles are kind of like baseball fans - their median age keeps increasing and there’s a real threat that there won’t be a market for high-end gear by the next generation. The 20 - 40-year-old generation are content listening to music streamed from their phones to earbuds.

How many of you are like me and don’t like discussing with non-audiophiles the ridiculous amounts of money we spend? And it’s usually followed by us commenting that the $10,000 we just spent was for a few cables.

Many of us got into our hobby awhile back when $25,000 could get you world class speakers and spending more than $20,000 for an amp wasn’t necessary. Those $ amounts today are sales tax amounts for many buyers just entering the hobby.

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23

There are a lot of younger headfi enthusiasts! It’s a cheaper way to get into hifi. Tons of high value components, and of course expensive stuff too.

Even with earbuds (IEMs) there’s a lot of variety and cost options.

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24

The high prices of certain flagship products are often perceived as an abuse of ethical practices, rather than being attributed to their performance. This leads to the question: where should we draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not? Take, for example, the Vivaldi, which most members here consider to be reasonably priced for its performance. However, this opinion is not universally shared within the audio community. Some begin to analyze it in terms of the combination of raw material costs, design and R&D expenses, and the performance it delivers compared to its competitors. The higher the cost associated with perceived intangible elements, the greater the controversy becomes.

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I dont even like talking to people with big dollar systems about how much ive spent. Duh

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@wusplay Re: the cost of components, the other factor is there’s no such thing as an ‘end journey’ component anymore, especially digital source components like the Vivaldi. It seems that each year there’s a new digital source component claiming to be a better mousetrap. Even dCS is victim to this as it seems that about every 5 - 7 years they introduce a new and improved digital source component or an upgrade such as Apex. I’m not blaming dCS as they either advance their product line or get left behind. The problem is we’re talking about obsoleting components that are approaching 6-figure costs.

We’re all in search of the best SQ we can obtain. Since there’s still a sizable gap in SQ between digital and vinyl, we can all expect many more digital source breakthroughs that have a high cost of admission. This phenomenon hardly happened when we were all spinning vinyl.

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Confusingly if it exits there is no consistent direction. As some one who plays vinyl, these days I can have no preconception of which medium will sound, not better,but preferable.Once it would normally be vinyl as winner. No longer. Apologies but a bit OT.

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28

@PAR Pete, I have a modest turntable setup (Pro-Ject RPM 9 with a Dynavector 20x2 cartridge that feeds into a Gryphon Pandora preamp with the Gryphon Legato phono stage using LEMO connectors). When I compare the Brubeck ‘Blue Rondo a la turk’ on vinyl compared to digital, it’s not even close. The vinyl sounds like the players are in the room, especially the sound of Joe Morello hitting the crown of his ride cymbal and the attack of Brubeck’s piano hammers hitting the strings. Similar comparisons for many other vinyl selections. I can’t remember thinking a vinyl version of a song sounding worse, but I’ve likely only compared approx 100 tracks.

For digital I have a Rossini Apex and Rossini Clock fed into the same Gryphon preamp. I mainly use Qobuz with a large % of the tracks being hi-rez (sans the Brubeck reference). I will say that many SACDs I own sound noticeably better than Qobuz but the SACD catalog is fairly limited. I believe you own a Vivaldi. Perhaps the Vivaldi bridges the TT gap more than I’m aware.

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29

i certainly have a buttload more money tied up in the digital source and not a bad vinyl setup with vpi mag driven platter, 3d printed fatboy tonearm, curl designed phono pre and atlas cartridge. I play cds mostly with some streaming and lps for desert. Just due to convenience and basic quality of original recordings, digital wins out but on really well done recordings i get a better sense of realism on vinyl. Just my opinion

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30

As I said earlier this has moved away from the subject of the topic and may require a new thread.

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31

No doubt about that!

32

I had to look up OT to get the reference. Yes it is. Not sure it warrants a thread

33

Agree. I’ll test my newfound superpowers as a “regular” and see if I can accomplish this myself later this morning.

34

Sorry if I got a bit off topic. I was trying to address the OP’s topic, when the ‘Cost of Listening Crisis started’? Before digital, we relied on vinyl (or tape). Although you could spend a lot more, for less than $5k you could purchase a terrific TT setup and keep it for decades. Digital has changed this cost factor exponentially.

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35

I disagree. In my eyes the foremost examples of the “cost of listening crisis” are the speakers in general and the SF Supremas in particular (although as Anup and others point out above more-or-less one-off hyper-expensive systems have been produced before and this may not be an entirely new phenomenon).

If anything I would say digital is one area where the reverse is the case. The same standard of SQ is available for (maybe exponentially?) less and less in the digital space as technology advances. The SQ available at every pricepoint in digital is way higher than it was 5 years ago, which was way higher than it was 5 years before that etc. Just look what you can get today with something like a Topping DAC for $139!

No, I believe the acceleration of the price of the most expensive gear has as much to do (to Pete’s point) with the luxurification (is that a word?) of the hi end, with materials like exotic woods and stone whose impact on SQ is secondary to their aesthetic appeal, and exotic industrial design where a music server can be made to look like a steampunk teleportation device plucked straight out of Flash Gordon (Wadax)!

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36

Luxurification - is now a word. Perfectly appropriate.

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37

Couldn’t agree more Brian! As many have already commented, some of this daft pricing is driven by the global super rich seeking ever more aspirational bling - same as fine wine, fine cars, fine watches, fine fashion, fine mansions, fine yachts, etc, etc. But we “boomers” may also be to blame, being prepared to blow our pension savings on aspirational equipment where desire began decades earlier. Just as for key staff, manufacturers need a customer succession plan otherwise their base will deplete once we are all gone!

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38

Totally agree with you & Pete. Speaker prices have gone insane. I spoke with a local dealer that specializes in selling used gear and his comment was that he focuses on selling used high-end speakers (>$100k) to Asian customers.

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39

Yeah, this is starting to be crazy, now any up-grade as to come at twice the price. Just look for example the Odin Power cord 1,25mts had a retail price of 11.550 euros, the Odin 2 came with 22.500 euros and now the Odin Gold have a 35.000 euros.

I just can not understand this, i know there’s a cost of development but also have a already a life span of almost 10 years between generations. It also dont fit on the inflation range, so i think that’s just a way of thinking on this corporations that any price stick they put people will buy

40

This is an interesting post and something I’ve been thinking about for some time. First, since I haven’t posted anything meaningful in a while, I would like to again reiterate that what makes the dCS forum so great to me is (a) the quality of the members, and (b) that (the vast majority of the time) it is a respectful place to exchange ideas.

With that in mind I have a couple simple ideas to share : )

The first idea is from one of the most famous books in business, The Innovator’s Dillema, in which Clayt Christensen explains how, paraphraising, existing incumbents focus on serving their existing (high end) customers, i.e., high end audio, while newer companies with inferior technology (e.g., software-based DACs running on standard, purchased chips) focus on low-end customers (today’s youth) and over time, improve their product, and eventually build a high quality product that takes market share and eventually dethrowns the market leaders.

The second idea relates to “excessive” pricing, and a company I used to cover when I worked on Wall Street (so long ago). It is well known that Gillette employs a highly successful “razor and blades” business model, in which you get the razor for free (or nearly for free) and in exchange, you contribute endless profits to the company by buying expensive, high margin, replacement blades. Many companies use this strategy in other areas of business.

In the early 2000s, it became obvious that the increasing prices of razor blades would eventually lead to a revolt, as most American men either did not want to, or could not afford to, pay $1-3 per shave every day. The increasing price of this proposition (by Gillette), came to be viewed by the male public as greed, which in turn catelyzed capable competitors, which offered a product “just good enough”, which quickly started eating up the Gillette quasi-monopoly on shaving: Dollar Shave Club, Schick, Bevel, etc. emerged and became billion-dollar/hundred million dollar businesses.

And so, just giving my thoughts, in the absence of a years-long thesis, which I don’t have the time to work on: The first challenge to high-end DAC pricing will come from the lower end, software “only” DACs on standard chips, which we now would all laugh at, but will continue to get better over time.

And the second challenge will come from a new technology, AI, which will contribute breakthroughs in DAC processing, and in hardware, and will likely enable lower cost products, possibly at much higher quality.

And so, I do not believe this strategy (below) by high end audio manufacturers is “essential”, or that those products reflect breakthrough innovations that we don’t already enjoy at the Rossini- or Vivaldi- level:

I personally believe that the pricing model is driven largely by greed and gimmicks, in a “seize the moment”–what can I get away with?–opportunity which, except for the uber-wealthy status purchasers, may portend the end of (very) high-priced equipment. In other words, we may be approaching the peak in high-end pricing, after which, only the status purchasers will remain.

For further clarity, I don’t believe that in 10 years, we will all spend $200k on high-end front-ends. I believe that some form of a software AI will have solved or commoditized the solution by then, and that many of us will “abort” the ridiculously priced, for those new products.

Of course, the ultimate outcome will be determined by the pricing strategies of dCS, MSB, Esoteric, Playback Designs, WADAX, and others. So ,we will see : )

Note: This post was written entirely by me, with a little assistance from a nice Italian red wine, but with absolutely no assitance from ChatGPT, or any other NLP model or bot, in case @PAR tries to get me kicked off of the forum… again… ; )

Just kidding Pete. With affection, from New York City,
Richard

https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Change-Business/dp/0062060244

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41

Great post! I have no doubt that new techologies will allow us to achieve sound qualtiy to price ratios we can’t currently achieve, but I wonder if this will really reduce the market for very high priced gear.

Perception of sound quality is so personal and subjective that I think there will always be a market for very high end grear, because audiophiles will still think it sounds better than cheaper gear. Our perception of sound quality is definitely impacted by how the gear looks, how it’s marketed, and yes, how much it costs. This is aside from non-sound qualty related factors like pride of ownership and appreciateion of build quality, etc.

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