The price of high end

Does it have to be expensive to be considered "high end"

  • Yes, the more debt the better

    Votes: 39 31.0%
  • No, give me my car's AM radio

    Votes: 87 69.0%

  • Total voters
    126

omer

AK Member
Doesn high end NEED to be expensive, i.e. can one enjoy a system regardless of cost?
 
You DO NOT have to spend a fortune to have a nice system. I've owned everything from DIY to Mark Levinson and have determined I am just as happy, if not happier with my many systems that cost less than the one Levinson system. I have found "x" amount of dollars will get you to about 90% towards audio nirvana. Each additonal percent past 90 cost an exponential amount of money. To where to go from 99% to 100% you would have to buy something from NASA that would align the ions of the air in the room. :D

Views here do not represent the management or their affiliates. Your milage may vary.
 
My present system is a Marantz 2325 and a pair of Large Advents

Not much to be sure, but it pleases me and annoys the neighbors (who, by the way, truly deserve any abuse I heap upon them as they've been a thorn in my rectum for many years)

Cost to date:
Receiver, free
Speakers, $30

Will have the receiver aligned and possibly modded in some ways and the speakers eventually will get new foam. I guesstimate an outlay of about $200. Can't beat that with a stick.

Anthony
 
There's *mid-fi* and *hi-end*, but both are at all price points. DIY's and used equipment buyers know that you can spend a little and get a lot if careful.
 
I have found that the more I spend on an item, the less I can actually enjoy it. I keep thinking the money could be spent on something else. That is why I have put together my gear at a pretty low budget point. Though I have a 500-c and an 800-c and a few decent Marantz tables and the Denon DP-1250, decent and I didn't have to spend a ton of cash. The most I spent on one peice is 400 bucks on a G-22000, then later traded it for the Denon and 800-c, so I figure I can enjoy myself and not woprry about where themoney could have gone. Besides, right now my favorite piece is a Realistic Boombox from 86 that I picked up for work, or my second favorite at the moment is a Hitachi box that I use in the bedroom because it has a timer and a sleep timer. The sound is anything but hi-fi, but I can just go to sleep with it and not worry if it is sounding right or not, I just enjoy the tunes.
 
Originally posted by Wardsweb
To where to go from 99% to 100% you would have to buy something from NASA that would align the ions of the air in the room. :D

At least your room would smell fresh.;)
 
Ours is mainly vintage, Yamaha CR-1020 driving Polk Model 7Bs, samsung DVD player. Last evening we watched Master & Commander and the sound was great. Only time we ever watched all the credits because of the music accompaniment.

Rob
 
Good question. I don't think you need to spend a fortune. But, I also don't think anything can realistically be called high end. I feel you can get very good sound with less $$, but it takes a little creativity.

Say you have $500 total to put a system together. I'd bet most on this forum could put something pretty nice together. However, those not so familiar might run out and get the biggest things they can at Best Buy and not have anything decent at all.

Then again, to some it's only about the music and they really don't care where it comes from. Fair enough, as long as YOU enjoy it. That's what matters.
 
Originally posted by one1speed
I feel you can get very good sound with less $$, but it takes a little creativity.

Say you have $500 total to put a system together. I'd bet most on this forum could put something pretty nice together.

Try $100. Some of us scroungers can do it for even less. Find a vintage used Pioneer/Marantz/Sansui/Kenwood/Sherwood receiver for $15-20, set of EPIs, Advents, or Boston Acoustics for $15-20 and some surrounds from MAT and you're all set. It may not be "High End", but it will sound better than 95% of the systems out there these days!

Don't ask what my JBL 4311s and Marantz 2265B cost; I'll get arrested for theft!
 
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Wardsweb said:
You DO NOT have to spend a fortune to have a nice system. To go from 99% to 100% you would have to buy something from NASA that would align the ions of the air in the room. :D

Views here do not represent the management or their affiliates. Your milage may vary.

I have just up-graded to the newest NASA ion air molecule aligner and now have their Gen 11 model available at a substantial discount. Warning!!! Tres expensive. Serious inquiries (many $$$$$) only, please. Oh, but the sound!! Once you've heard your system with the air perfectly aligned so that the sound can channel directly to your ears you will wonder how you ever managed to listen any other way. Buyer is responsible for all costs associated with tractor-trailer freight and crane rental for delivery.
 
it's not the money.....

Money is what it tkaes to get you into an audio system....what you get out of it can't be attached with a price. For my parents an AM radio is all they need to enjoy the music. They get as much out of that radio as I out of my tannoy.
I was in a hig -end store yesterday and saw a Mcintosh amp with a 9500.00 price tag. I'd get no more pleasure out of it than I do my pawn shop philips, and the money saved can get my kids a year of tuition :scratch2:

For those that have the $, sure spend it, for thoe that don't(like me) , I do consider what I have HI-FI, beacuse 99% of the population couldn't tell the difference between a Kenwood and a Krell in a blind listneing test.
 
I agree.

Just came back from getting an oil change on our 2002 Kia Spectra, and ended up p urchasing a 2004 Kia Rio for our second vehicle to replace a 1990 Ford Ranger. I STILL think FORD is short for "first on race day" :D

I got the Rio for 2 reasons:

a) the Kia dealer feels like a second family
b) the same reasons Krimney just iterated for audio

For what the second car will be used for, it makes NO sense to me to spend any more on a car that will be driven less than 20k a year at the most. It starts, it goes, reliably, with a 5 year bumper to bumper warranty. I almost considered a 4 year old car for the same money with no warranty and 100k on the clock. :yikes:

I'll save my pennies for the Porsche when I start to lose more hair. :sigh:
 
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I always figure it's your money so spend as little or as much as you want on stereo gear or whatever else turns you on (as long as it doesn't hurt others). I have been up to a mostly new McIntosh system, but most of their stuff doesn't sound as good as it looks, IMHO (however, the MC-500 is a truly great sounding amp).

Now, after listening to many, many different pieces of gear over the past 35 years I have pretty much found what I consider the best sounding electronics. And my total investment today is around $3500 (one eighth of what I had in the McIntosh system). I think my playing in the future will be limited to speakers and cartridges, once I get a VPI ScoutMaster TT.

Omer - Getting a Porsche doesn't help. I've been bald for 20 years and drove a 911 Targa for 18 of them (sold 2 years ago - no longer can be bothered with a clutch). Stop lights and traffic congestion are a great leveler of the automotive playing field. Even here in moderately populated south Jersey. Have found that a Targa is like a motorcycle. It is generally either too hot and sunny or too cold and wet to have the top off. Uh-oh. Is that the definition of 'getting old'?
 
I doubt there are many here at AK who drink the Stereophile Kool-ade. If you trolled this Q at other audio sites I'm sure the thread would soon be closed, edited or erupt into the mother of all flamewars.

The term "high-end" is often abused for marketing (and bragging rights). A year ago I strolled into a local GW and they had some cheap BPC junk. Some customer was hanging around the gear and kept telling everybody who was trying to test something how the stuff was "high end". Maybe to him it was but I gotta think WTF? If Bose rocks yours world then I'll leave you in Fantasyland while I play my JBL/Adcom system (not "high end" by any stretch of the mind but it gets me to 90% of perfection).

To answer the big question, *anybody* (myself included) could enjoy any system (even <shudder> Bose). Its just a matter of your mindset. If you just stepped off Gilligan's Island and hadn't heard heard music in ten years, a drug-store CD walkman and a Britney Spears CD would have you smiling ear to ear.

Well, maybe not Britney but you get my point...

Part of me wants to convert the masses from mid-fi garbage but I have enough to do. Besides, if everybody dumped their cheap BPC and went high end or classic, there would be a lot more people fighting for the good gear.

As somebody pointed out earlier, sometimes all you need is mid-fi.

I long ago realized my quest for audio perfection was not going to be via the classic high end route. Buying a $500 new piece of gear was out of the question due to unemployment and other issues. I'd rather have six vintage pieces than one brand spankin' new high end piece anyways. Far more flexible IMHO. If one amp doesn't sound good with your "new" pawnshop speakers, then try the one you put in storage last summer.

I'm not trying to rag on the geniune high end gear makers and dealers (especially those of you out there in tonight's listening audience). You have continued the spirit of quality hifi gear that has disappeared from the average consumer's radar. When I was in tech school part of me thought the coolest thing would be to have my own high end audio company. Didn't turn out that way but hey, I'm having fun...
 
I'll take Brittney

After being stuck on an island for 10 yrs, Brittney would be EXACTLY what I'd need.......then Jessica simpson :D

They wouldn't even need to sing.
 
Like most folks have stated, high end is a state of mind more than a economic plateau. An example, a good friend came over shortly after I'd saved and bought my Mac stuff in 1971. He listened to my setup and remarked "I have an Airline console at home that sounds just like this" I was furious at first but luckily held my tongue. I started to think about what Bill had said. He wasn't trying to be cute or hurtful at all. To him they did in fact sound the same. So I learned a few things that have stuck with me. 1. Hi-Fi or Hi-End is in the ear/eye of the beholder. 2. I do not have to defend my idea of Hi-Fi to anyone but myself. 3. Everyone you meet can teach you something if you'll just listen. Now the clincher for me. Knowing those three things and living by them is harder than I thought :D
 
An Aiwa system and a Mac sound to me almost the same at the same loudness level. But, the real difference is not in sound. A cheap looking stereo system just doesn't look/sound good.
 
Without reading the above posts I have to say neither. High end performance is achieved through design and implementation.
 
Warzau said:
At least your room would smell fresh.;)

Fresh and probably easier to breath, with all those ions just lined up to go into your nose... :D
 
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