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Bruno Putzeys on audio pricing

There is nothing to resolve, other than the confusion that is confined to but a small handful of obsessive audiophiles.

That is a extremely dismissive attitude to take toward your clientele.

Whatever you think about the audibility of amplifier performance and regardless of whether or not your position on this is backed up by every AES member, every objective investigator of audio and more, it remains a minority view in the market in which your products sell.

If it is an unresolved issue within that community, no amount of haughty 'I know better' attitude is going to really benefit.

I am pulling my punches here because I know you have generally provided information to those audiophiles you so readily dismiss as 'obsessive'. But if this statement belies what you really think of your prospective owners, I think you owe them an apology.
 
The poll I ran a year or so ago asking if people heard significant differences between cables (interconnects and loudspeaker) had well over 200 votes and high 70s of percent had felt they heard significant differences. IMO the people who think there are no differences between competently designed electronics and cables are a very small, but vociferous, minority ... time for another poll?

Harbeth challenge ... do you really take such PR-based bollocks seriously!!!

Nic P

so now you are saying a poll of sighted listeners who all listened to different gear in unscientific settings is more value scientifically than someone doing a measured set up, scientifically rigorous blind test....

this just goes to prove what we are up against....people who don't want to have their entrenched views tested.... exactly what mr shaw said.
 
I don't have a clientele to care about, nor any position to protect, so perhaps I can say what those who have to make a living in the industry can't say, or perhaps shouldn't say.

The Harbeth offer was a perfect example of what this industry has come to, that those who believe in what repeated tests have shown to be false, those who prefer to believe their own fallible senses rather than science are not prepared to put these beliefs, this faith to the test.

Alan Shaw made this offer, in my view, in complete good faith, to find out whether there are any amplifiers that would sound different when driving his 'speakers when conventional science would say they shouldn't. Yet he was vilified and his motives questioned for so wanting to do and be better able to advise his clients. He was prepared to pay handsomly for this information, yet many thought it a PR stunt.

Shame on you I say. Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense.

S.
 
My point was that those who think that there are no differences are a tiny minority. I regret my comments about the Harbeth challenge ... they were far too polite. Anyone willing to accept the challenge should reply to those phone calls saying they have won a competition. PR stunt was a massive understatement.

Nic P
 
so now you are saying a poll of sighted listeners who all listened to different gear in unscientific settings is more value scientifically than someone doing a measured set up, scientifically rigorous blind test....

this just goes to prove what we are up against....people who don't want to have their entrenched views tested.... exactly what mr shaw said.

Except that I don't believe it was Alan Shaw who said that. It was me. I found it reprehensible that Alan Shaw's challenge should be seen as a PR stunt, when it was an expression of frustration. As such I offered a modified challenge out in the open. It too was not taken up by enough people to prove practical to establish.

Alan Shaw is outspoken and frequently frustrated by an endless stream of music lovers asking about suitable electronic choices for his loudspeakers. But I don't think he'd be so disparaging of his client base.
 
My point was that those who think that there are no differences are a tiny minority. I regret my comments about the Harbeth challenge ... they were far too polite. Anyone willing to accept the challenge should reply to those phone calls saying they have won a competition. PR stunt was a massive understatement.

Nic P

no not at all...most of my musician, engineering and pro audio friends and folks as well as the vast amount of people in the hi fi trade i still know all say cables either make no or only tiny sound differences and only when or if someone is using something un suitable for the job of transmission in set jobs....

i only know 2 audiophiles who hold beliefs like yours that you think you can id cables blind or that they make huge differences (jaw dropping).

i think you are out of order accusing alan shaw of being anything less than a gent and a professional....unlike some of your charlatan cable flogging friends....
 
Except that I don't believe it was Alan Shaw who said that. It was me. I found it reprehensible that Alan Shaw's challenge should be seen as a PR stunt, when it was an expression of frustration. As such I offered a modified challenge out in the open. It too was not taken up by enough people to prove practical to establish.

Alan Shaw is outspoken and frequently frustrated by an endless stream of music lovers asking about suitable electronic choices for his loudspeakers. But I don't think he'd be so disparaging of his client base.

alan shaw voiced opinions about people unwilling to be tested but still holding onto extremely unscientific views as he was trying to help them in regards amp choices....nic p is obsessed by cables but won't do blind tests.....
 
My point was that those who think that there are no differences are a tiny minority. I regret my comments about the Harbeth challenge ... they were far too polite. Anyone willing to accept the challenge should reply to those phone calls saying they have won a competition. PR stunt was a massive understatement.

Nic P

They are a tiny minority within the audiophile community. Outside of the audiophile community, it's all the damn same. The difficulty is, that "it's all the damn same" doesn't reduce to a sophisticated and discerning set of music lovers who would choose a good system based on objective priorities.

It's what made Amstrad, because the nuances get lost in the wash. So, it's all the damn same means it doesn't matter if one amp has 0.01% THD+N and the other one has 10% THD+N, because it's all the damn same. It's all the damn same means painted on tweeters. Telling people that "it's all the damn same, but not when the specs tell you otherwise" doesn't count because people don't understand the specs (Peak Music Power Output anyone? "How many watts in them speakers, mate?").
 
It's what made Amstrad, because the nuances get lost in the wash. So, it's all the damn same means it doesn't matter if one amp has 0.01% THD+N and the other one has 10% THD+N, because it's all the damn same. Telling people that "it's all the damn same, but not when the specs tell you otherwise" doesn't count because people don't understand the specs (Peak Music Power Output anyone? "How many watts in them speakers, mate?").

most people like music not bulky polished metal boxes with purple and silver fine filament wires dangling all over an ugly metal stand....mentioning amstrad in the same conversation as hi fi gear is way off beam, they didn't do that well with audio gear.
 
most people like music not bulky polished metal boxes with purple and silver fine filament wires dangling all over an ugly metal stand....mentioning amstrad in the same conversation as hi fi gear is way off beam, they didn't do that well with audio gear.

On the contrary, the Amstrad 8000 received dreadful reviews in the days when reviews were purely objective (1970) and it sold by the thousand because it was cheap and no-one could understand the nuances of objective tests. Even Alan Sugar admitted it wasn't very good, but it sold in such large numbers it made the company.

What we face now is not people rejecting polished metal boxes for something else. It's rejecting the whole lot for... nothing. The audio revolution isn't getting rid of the shiny boxes, it's getting rid of the audio system altogether.

Music is now just an app on an Android phone now.
 
On the contrary, the Amstrad 8000 received dreadful reviews in the days when reviews were purely objective (1970) and it sold by the thousand because it was cheap and no-one could understand the nuances of objective tests. Even Alan Sugar admitted it wasn't very good, but it sold in such large numbers it made the company.

What we face now is not people rejecting polished metal boxes for something else. It's rejecting the whole lot for... nothing. The audio revolution isn't getting rid of the shiny boxes, it's getting rid of the audio system altogether.

Music is now just an app on an Android phone now.

what do you expect? people think that's the future.

and your running a mag that has full page ads for crystal cables that look like jewellery and cost thousands of pounds....

i don't really need to point out where you are kind of herding with dinosaurs in some small protected park at the moment....you will be over whelmed eventually unless you adapt....that is just life!!!

cable manufacturers are just fleecing people it's as simple as that...99% of them don't even have the facilities to make wire or dress it or even design different ones....they are buying raw stock and badging it.

you know that - i know that.

you support that part of the trade - i don't support that part.

i support the harbeth part.

not the foo part.
 
and your running a mag that has full page ads for crystal cables that look like jewellery and cost thousands of pounds....

i don't really need to point out where you are kind of herding with dinosaurs in some small protected park at the moment....you will be over whelmed eventually unless you adapt....that is just life!!!

Again, what constructive measures would you suggest? I'm not sure how magazines could change to fit any paradigm you'd prefer. However, this has nothing to do with the kind of editorial basis or promotion of charlatanry you suggest: note well that, in the UK, the audio magazine considered by some to be the most influenced by its advertisers outsells the others put together.

No magazine today has the impact on buyers it had twenty years ago.
 
what do you expect? people think that's the future.

and your running a mag that has full page ads for crystal cables that look like jewellery and cost thousands of pounds....

i don't really need to point out where you are kind of herding with dinosaurs in some small protected park at the moment....you will be over whelmed eventually unless you adapt....that is just life!!!

cable manufacturers are just fleecing people it's as simple as that...99% of them don't even have the facilities to make wire or dress it or even design different ones....they are buying raw stock and badging it.

you know that - i know that.

you support that part of the trade - i don't support that part.

i support the harbeth part.

not the foo part.

There isn't enough of a trade to support one without the other. Fidelis AV (Harbeth's US distributor) needs to have Tellurium Q's cables and Stein Music's Harmonisers, as well as what you would probably call 'overpriced' electronics brands like Perreaux and LFD. Without those brands, there isn't enough of a market to survive on 'sensible' brands like Harbeth or Kudos.

There used to be enough of a trade to go it alone and in some places (like Japan or Singapore) there is still enough of a trade to survive this way. But not now, not in the UK and not in 2012.

So, if you want the stuff you support, you have to put up with the stuff you don't. Or you get neither.
 
The longer these threads go on, the 'nastier' they tend to get. In truth, our hobby is dying, because of massive social, economic and technical changes. Computer audio won't 'save' the hobby, it is already busy turning it into yet another bland commodity.
But why does that matter? Everything adapts, changes or dies. I still most enjoy vinyl, but I know it is all fading away. That's life, still fun...being in a minority is hardly the end of the world. If the hobby isn't fun, give it up. Simple.
 
Apology offered to Darryl - I had had too much to drink yesterday evening. I would be happy for the moderators to delete that post.

A friend has talked me out of putting a needledrop test up on the basis that it will just attract criticism of my honesty, methods etc.

Nic P
 
Aside from the fact that we were trying to have a conversation about magazines and the credibility of their advertisers, there are a few factual problems in your last post we need to fix:

ok, you're a crook
You need to support this accusation with something legally credible.
Ten years in the business? 430 products from 53 different manufacturers in the catalogue?
trying to make a living
Actually making a living.
out of flogging crappy
We are guilty of selling some cheap things but none are crappy: crappy products are too much trouble.
far eastern made
We sell products made in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Bulgaria, America, Taiwan, China, Italy, Korea, Japan and the Netherlands.
jewellery
Nothing like jewellery, I'm afraid:
is that ok?
Evidently not.
 


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