The Great Wall of Better Audio

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Is price.

 

It's been a while since I last posted here the last haven of actual audiophiles outside of Audiogon.

 

The great majority of "audiophile" gear is mass-consumer junk. Toys. The industry and segregated itself into two sides of the wall -- extreme prices on the good side and low prices on the junk side. There is not a middle-ground in the market. There is no "pretty good" for low prices. There's switching-mode powered, class D, plastic driver shovelware junk in the low price segment. When the average audio consumer comes onto Reddit, some forum, or whatever, and asks "are these $100 speakers good enough my budget is up to $300" the answer is...there are no good speakers in that price range.

 

The problem is in my view is that no one will continue their journey to better audio if they're stuck in the shoevelware toy realm because those products sound bad. Bad sound will burn people out on the pursuit of audio. 

 

You can offer advice based on years or decades of audiophile experience to get great sound at a very decent price, but that "decent price" is still going to be in the thousands of dollars range. There's no way around this and there is no one in the market that wants to do "good audio for a low price". Everyone just has to have their big markups so they put out compromised crap.

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42 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

All right. Good day Sir. How are yo today. How can we help you today ?

 

Just making sure the forum moves forward in a neurotypical fashion.

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6 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Would you consider B&W DM601 speakers to be good enough?

 

Aluminum dome tweeters, 13 lbs...not good! In fact even $600 seems like too much.

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2 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

I guess I should have known better than to ask you anything...

 

I bought a pair for $200 bucks years ago, they're great.

 

https://www.whathifi.com/us/features/17-of-the-best-bandw-products-of-all-time

 

$200 seems like a reasonable price. Please be aware that they are very low-end. Cheap metal dome tweeter, 13 lbs, these just aren't good speakers.

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1 hour ago, fas42 said:

BTW, the next project for me, which has been stewing away in the background for a couple of years, looks like it's ready to take seriously - a super cheap, all in media server solution with speakers; all the raw bits should be way under $1,000 ... starting to research options now ...

 

Is it going to be a digital age version of those suitcase record players with the detachable speakers?

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5 hours ago, firedog said:

As usual, you're riffing on previous posts of yours - and you couldn't be more wrong.
You can get an excellent setup for under $1000 new, and an even better one for $2000. The difference between those and uber expensive audiophile rigs is actually quite small for reproduction from 40hz to 20khz. The diminishing returns curve is very steep - for many thousands more you get those last bits of refinement and extension. You also get quality bass down to 30 or even 20hz; but let's be honest - you don't really need that for very highquality playback of most recorded music. Finally, for those bucks you also get the ability to do all of the above at loud volume with lots of dynamics.
 

BUT: many people don't play music that actually has material below 40 hz, and many listen in smaller spaces and/or don't want loud playback. So the uber expensive audiophile prices/playback are useless for them. 
 

And: hi-end reproduction can also be acheived with CLASS D amplification. 

 

It's just another of your posts proving you are neuro - atypical, and it's a shame you came here to post your endless nonsense again and again. 

 

Ignore list. 

 

 

 

 

You make this $2k claim, yet you have more than that in power and signal conditioning alone. Do you just like spending money? Or perhaps you like getting upvotes for supplying emotional support for non-audiophiles? Did you ever think about the hypocrisy of that position?

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37 minutes ago, JezQ said:

So what are the lowest price products that make it to the right side of the wall GUTB?

 

I'd like to think my ProAc D30Rs are among the better values.

 

But the point is, why can't someone make something like the ProAc but at a quarter of the price? 

 

EDIT: The latest version, the D30RS, is up to $7.8k, so I don't know if I'd still call them a better value. ProAc dealers do not offer price cuts either.

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No, the ProAcs are superb speakers and I'm very happy with them. I probably won't upgrade until/if I get something TADs, Magico, Raihdo, etc. Or if I end up doing the radial speaker thing.