Value, lack there of, and "High End"

[Ralf11]

Two comments on the above Bluesy post:

 

unlike driving a high buck exotic car, over-spending on an audio system won't kill you or others

 

also, I prefer ego-diatonic thoughts and feelings as they scale much better with respect to monetary input

[Ralf11]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

I wonder if more people die form exotic cars or electrocution working on their electronic gear?  I don't think either is a big deal. 

 

I know of several deaths of exotic car owners from their poor driving skills.  No idea if it's a biased sample due to me being interested in cars...

[Ralf11]

17 minutes ago, bluesman said:

I understand your point. But I have many friends and colleagues who spend so much on frivolity and luxury that they really do compromise their health and safety and that of their families.  For example,  I’ve had many patients from my neighborhood who turned out to have poor or no health insurance despite appearances suggesting they should. One complained to me about having billed him for his $500 deductible. I pointed out that he drove to my office in his new 911 and was wearing an 18k DayDate, so it seemed a bit inconsistent to me.  He did not understand.

 

This behavior is common, in my experience. And it can pose serious risk.

 

Many people aren't able to be happy w/out possessions, then find they aren't that happy with them.  It's to some extent a psychological problem, or may there is a "collector" drive in many animals (pack rats, bower birds) that has gone a bit haywire in modern humans.

 

Maybe the solution is to acquire skills and projects, etc.  OTOH, maybe you then have too many carpentry and car tools...

[Ralf11]

When I can stick a small $400 speaker smack dab in a corner and have it sound like the best Sound Labs, I'll have Value.

 

Until then, I'll just value my Maggies....

[Ralf11]

2 hours ago, bluesman said:

It's not a biased sample.  In addition to being a competitor for decades, I was the race physician for Philly Region SCCA for about 20 years and for VSCCA and SVRA at multiple events from 1984 to 2000 - and I fished many a wealthy dilettante out of the wrecked exotic he had no business buying let alone driving in competition.  I pulled the same lawyer out of the same ex-Gurney GT-40 at Summit Point in '87 or '88 and the Grand Bahama Vintage grand Prix in '86. We had guys driving Allard J2Xs who couldn't handle a 948 bugeye.  One of my friends wrecked a gorgeous Turner in an end-over-end at Summit Point and his 944 on a local road - so he bought an E-type.  My wife's former dentist totalled his 944S in a "track event" at Watkins Glen.  And so forth and so on.

 

These guys also have great audio systems.......

 

You'd think the ultra-rich would start universities or endow libraries or (more recently) cure childhood diseases, solve the world's energy and transportation problems, create their own National Parks, or just build carbon fiber racing yachts more often...

 

I once tried to get a guy who worked for Foundation for Deep Ecology to convince his.. ah.. "keepers" to take the concours concept from cars and apply it to whole ecosystems.  Could never tell if it caught on...

[Ralf11]

While there is no electronic device boutique store - they all purchase from existing suppliers that everyone has access to, there is a substantial cost increment from testing many caps or resistors (not to mention tubes) selecting, and matching that some manfs. do.  Audio Research has a video showing this with comments on the cost of it.

 

Then there is R&D - which must be amortized over only a few units for more expensive gear.

 

I DO agree that a lot of the cost is going to dealers, and cosmetics.  I tend to buy speakers with minimal wood (Vandies, maggies) and a lot of R&D and SQ for the price.  I am a value shopper and often buy used - not just for audio either.  I do it even tho I don't need to - it is just satisfying.

[Ralf11]

Bring Back The Audio Cheapskate

 

 

also, if we are going to talk about obesity, we should include specific nutritional hungers*

 

 

 

* to loop back on topic, many have a hunger for polished Bubinga wood

[Ralf11]

we have to use non-parametric statistics on "value"

[Ralf11]

maybe we should talk about marginal value, instead of just value...

[Ralf11]

3 hours ago, Daverz said:

DeVore Fidelity Gibbon X loudspeaker frequency response from Stereophile:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/devore-fidelity-gibbon-x-loudspeaker-measurements

 

I think plot speaks loudly as to their "value".

 

they have very high value for gibbons, not so much for homonids

[Ralf11]

Value and beauty are certainly species specific, and likely differ among cultures within the species of most interest here.

 

Nonetheless, we know that visual beauty has some objective reality in humans, based on experiments.  No doubt the same is true for "auditory beauty" as well.  I am thinking about even/odd order harmonics in particular.

 

We can get more philosophical on this thread or more scientific... esp. since it appears that science is eating away at philosophical notions more and more these days.

[Ralf11]

Opportunity Cost and OCBA Selection Procedures in Ordinal Optimization for a Fixed Number of Alternative Systems

• September 2007
• IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics Part C (Applications and Reviews) 37(5):951 - 961

• DOI:  10.1109/TSMCC.2007.900656

[Ralf11]

I value Neolithic technology more than Paleolithic but not sure if that is intuitive...

[Ralf11]

What if it is purely a rational decision?

 

Say if it is based on surface smoothness and edge sharpness assessments?

[Ralf11]

if rational, then .not. intuitive

[Ralf11]

[Ralf11]

lying is good, and deception is practiced by many species, not just humans or primates

[Ralf11]

so, you felt that the 2 posts above lacked value??