Value, lack there of, and "High End"

[Blackmorec]

Its how nature works......like attracts like....things evolve and (sometimes) get better. Let me give you an example.

 

Money attracts money.  People with serious amounts of money are given special investment opportunities,  hotel, airline and rental car platinum cards (big discounts),  free casino hotel rooms and drinks,  special purchase rights for collector cars like Porsche  (which appreciate like crazy). They make money on vintage cars, real estate etc where they put money for safe keeping.  Money attracts money.  Manufacturers then make special products to serve this ‘unlimited wealth’ niche market....based on rare materials, complex manufacturing processes etc.  This attraction of like to like is what fuels evolution. 

At the purely genetic level good genes (looks, intelligence etc) attracts other good genes, so we get increased intelligence, faster, more adept athletes etc.

 

For a lot of hi-fi companies these exotic products represent their R&D spend, which they usually finds ways to trickle down the improvements into lesser products. So its not about value per se. Its about evolving capability

 

Politicians often rail against inequality in society...how the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.  This is almost never true. Most times, the rich are getting a LOT richer and the poor, slightly better off.  There’s almost always the trickledown effect.  Unfortunately, poverty very often equals misery so the slight increase in wealth often manifests in things like increased alcohol and drug use amongst the poor....but its all the same mechanism at work....~Like attracts like.

 

Gravity is what we call it when its mass related. For the rest, we haven’t coined a term  yet....what its means for hi-fi evolution is that its funded first and foremost funded by the mega rich who can easily afford to pay huge sums for small increases in capability 

   

[Blackmorec]

9 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

 

Duplicate 

[Blackmorec]

10 hours ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

I can see how the latest IC will find its way into the higher end first, but the technology in high end gear is not any different to the general hifi available. There is no electronic device boutique store - they all purchase from existing suppliers that everyone has access to. Exotic resistors - 0.1% thin film resistors are very cheap.

 

I disagree with this. The reason the rich are rich, and getting richer is because they don't really spend it, so they remain affluent. The trickle down effect is a myth. There are too few rich people to spend money to support the remaining population through permanent/secure jobs.

 

In the UK, the use of foodbanks is growing - not reducing - so the poor are definitely not slightly better off, in fact they are quite a bit worse off. The "gig" economy means no secure work, and people at the bottom end of society are a commodity, to be used by companies as they see fit. Again, the trickledown effect is a myth, to justify obscene amounts of wealth, and to fool the general public that it is acceptable that people cannot afford to eat, whilst people at the top can live conscience free.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

Wow, we disagree fairly comprehensively it seems. 

First lets look at components that’ll find their way into truly high end gear........heavy copper or milled aluminium chassis, special internal silver or 7N copper cables, high-end plugs and sockets, Mundorf and other speciality capacitors,  multi-rail linear power supplies, NOS vacuum tubes,  specially formed and wound transformers, double regulators, premium, selected and matched components, anti-vibration footers etc. Take a look at the cross-over from a YG or Magico speaker and compare it to the regular mass market components. Totally different ball park. Look at the driver materials like graphene, high intensity neodymium magnets, beryllium diamond coated tweeters,  carbon fibre, aluminium or composite enclosures, constrained layer damping technologies etc. Very different technology 

 

As for trickle down, all you need do is look at the tax take for various categories and you’ll find that ever more people are being hit with high rate tax, inheritance tax etc. As wealth trickles down people earn more (wage growth) and therefore pay more tax. A fact

Take a look at where most of the fastest growing economies are located. Africa. Take a look at the rate of growth in India, Pakistan, Vietnam....the poorest countries have the fastest growth......trickle down 

 

 

[Blackmorec]

Thanks for your reply. A friend of mine is one of the founders of a well known company manufacturing high-end hi-fi electronics..,..amps, pre-amps etc.   His biggest cause of failure, by far?    ‘Contact enhancers’ applied to sockets and contacts.  Stabilator 22A may work, may be chemically stable over time and at elevated temperatures and may not migrate to places to don’t want it.....but a great many contact enhancers end up doing far more than desired and end up being very noisy.  Metal fatigue, oxidation, non-gas-tight crimps,  poor mechanical design that impacts contact integrity, materials chosen without reference to sonics....just a few of the problems with cheap RCA sockets 

 

More to do with how far they have to climb.....absolutely correct. And what provides the fuel and impetus for that climb?  The desire for more wealth in already wealthy countries, who create jobs in these poorer countries because labour costs are lower, raw materials are available, etc. So the wealth created in the United States, Europe, China trickles down to these poorer economies by way of investments. Low cost manufacturing, need for raw materials, factories in places close to the raw materials and/or markets.  Take companies like Shell and BP. They make massive investments....but very few in the US and Europe. Nigeria is quite wealthy and would be quite prosperous were it not for corruption. Their biggest industry? Oil and Gas. NIgerian companies doing the exploration, drilling, refining and distribution? Nope.....all US and European companies. 

Gold has several characteristics that make it ideal for electrical connectors. Firstly due to its electron configuration it does react with other materials or gases at mildly elevated temperatures...so it remains pure in a connection

Second, its quite soft, so high spots wear down and bed-in to make better, high-percentage surface area connections. 

Third because its surface remains clean and smooth it has the feeling of being self lubricating, which means connectors can be mechanically very tight without the connection seizing.  So ultimately a well made gold connection can be tighter, with better surface contact and no degradation. 

[Blackmorec]

Getting back to the OPs original question, are $1,500 headphones irrational or do they represent value for money?

 

Take 3 people:

a pensioner trying to make ends meet and deciding between heating and eating

A young graduate doing well in his chosen career 

A mega rich entrepreneur

 

How would the 3 respond to your question? 

 

You would guess that the pensioner would find them wildly, insanely extravagant,  the graduate would possibly order some, and the entrepreneur wouldn’t even register their price or would buy something better.

 

Given that this is an audiophile forum, you need money to be an audiophile so I would guess that from an audiophile perspective the headphones would be viewed as OK value,  provided their SQ is commensurate with their price. 

[Blackmorec]

6 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

 

A well meant explanation.
Please reflect, that there is no equal distribution of your 3 examples in any modern society.
Giving their "assumed" opinion about the value of 1500 $ headphones approximately the same importance, even when audiophilism is a hobby with an instrinsic need to spend money, is obviously not that school of statistics I have visited once in higher education.

Imho, the lion's share of audiophile hobbyists have serious concerns when it comes to spend a grand or more, and that is the basis for Crenca's reflection of value in this hobby.

Best, Tom

Hi Tom,

The point of my post is that one’s opinion of value is first and foremost based on the combination of wealth, the personal importance of having a certain capability (listening to fine music through headphones in this case) and what one needs to sacrifice in order to achieve that capability. 

In the case of my fictitious pensioner sacrificing food and heat isn’t going to fly, the graduate will weigh the value of having headphones vs some other things he may want, and the entrepreneur has no need to weigh the relative value because there’s no sacrifice involved.  So there’s no good answer to the question as the answer depends on a number of highly influential variables. 

Equal distribution is irrelevant. 

I agree that within the audiophile community, the same variables still apply, but to a far lesser extent than the general population. By definition audiophiles have discretionary disposable income and a tendency to value good sound.....but opinions will still divide around the above listed variables. 

[Blackmorec]

15 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

The gold plating is so thin and soft it quickly wears off.  Therefore, it's not good for constantly connecting/reconnecting. In that case, I'd take a nickel plated connector any day.

Surely that depends on the quality of the connectors you’re using? I’ve never had this problem, although it has to be said that I’m nothing “constantly connecting/reconnecting”  I can imagine that for such applications, where the plugs are perpetually in motion, gold is probably not the best element to use.