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Audiophile snobbery...?

'Scuse the stating the obvious.. maybe.. but back in the day the industry was probably 10x+ bigger and more profitable than it is now and there were no on line review sites, hi fi forums etc etc... The magazine was king when it came to influencing purchase and the manufacturers were in thrall to them. Mags could therefore give reviews slating poor gear without the slightest risk of losing advertising revenue. Today they are a poor relation to on line advertising and reviews and if a big company who regularly pays for a full page glossy ad pulls its advertising that could be the end for the mag.
 
There's no doubt that the big mainstream brands usually offer the best value for money. I guess you can't escape the economies of scale.

Thinking more specifically, I'm going to keep to the subject of CD players since that's where I've had most experience....

What REALLY bugs me is the dishonesty of some of the premium exotic brands! When I look inside a more exotic CD player what I quite often find is a cheap mech and main board taken from a low/mid range big commercial branded player which has then simply been plonked into a fancy alloy case and the price massively inflated.

In terms of build quality the vintage top end machines from Sony, Denon, Marantz, Philips, Pioneer etc are the pinnacle and way ahead of most/all modern expensive machines.
 
What REALLY bugs me is the dishonesty of some of the premium exotic brands! When I look inside a more exotic CD player what I quite often find is a cheap mech and main board taken from a low/mid range big commercial branded player which has then simply been plonked into a fancy alloy case and the price massively inflated.

I read one of the mags recently and there was a CD player for a pretty substantial amount of cash (£15K) and it's a bit of a struggle to see where the money went in that as it does appear to be based around a re-cased commercial DVD player (and the chipsets mentioned in the review didn't sound anything special - in fact there was mention of one of those being a "legacy" one as it dated to 2002). They had changed it to use their own control software although reading between the lines of the review it sound like that was in fact not great. Despite the review saying that there was a surprising amount of jitter (and indicating that was due to some build issues) it still got an 85/100 review. They did however note that it sounded good but was very expensive.
 
There's no doubt that the big mainstream brands usually offer the best value for money. I guess you can't escape the economies of scale.

Thinking more specifically, I'm going to keep to the subject of CD players since that's where I've had most experience....

What REALLY bugs me is the dishonesty of some of the premium exotic brands! When I look inside a more exotic CD player what I quite often find is a cheap mech and main board taken from a low/mid range big commercial branded player which has then simply been plonked into a fancy alloy case and the price massively inflated.

In terms of build quality the vintage top end machines from Sony, Denon, Marantz, Philips, Pioneer etc are the pinnacle and way ahead of most/all modern expensive machines.

I remember well organising a listening test for a brand I used to work for and compiled 7 or 8 different players to compare to the one we were developing. These players included a cheapish Rotel player up against some pretty expensive boutique brands that were highly regarded by our dealer network. I wasn't allowed any input as the potentially biased organiser and when we reviewed everyone's notes, every single person picked the Rotel as the best. The engineer who'd designed our then prototype model, whipped the kids of them all and informed us that the Rotel had the "most expensive bits in it"! Economies of scale, indeed.
 
I remember well organising a listening test for a brand I used to work for and compiled 7 or 8 different players to compare to the one we were developing. These players included a cheapish Rotel player up against some pretty expensive boutique brands that were highly regarded by our dealer network. I wasn't allowed any input as the potentially biased organiser and when we reviewed everyone's notes, every single person picked the Rotel as the best. The engineer who'd designed our then prototype model, whipped the kids of them all and informed us that the Rotel had the "most expensive bits in it"! Economies of scale, indeed.
I have a Rotel 965BX. Great player still after all these years.
 
Big love for Yamaha products here. I don't own any Yammy stuff at the moment but if I had to reduce to one affordable hifi system it would be based around an 803D receiver - from time to time they dip below £500 in Peter Tyson.
 
Big love for Yamaha products here. I don't own any Yammy stuff at the moment but if I had to reduce to one affordable hifi system it would be based around an 803D receiver - from time to time they dip below £500 in Peter Tyson.
Nice that you share my enthusiasm.
 
According to some old geezers here in Sweden, Yamaha starting making HiFi was in the early '70's when Sonab wanted to have electronics made in Japan. Sonab even sent over a bunch of Swedish engineers to cooperate. The result was a reciever called R7000 and a Sonab turntable. The R7000 is supposed to have had a very good tuner section which should have been the start of the CT 7000 (don't have to be true). Other Sonab gear was made by Cambridge and Nakamichi. Anyway, the CT 7000 was hardly mass market.

In the mid 1970's the Swedish Radio choose Yamaha NS 1000M as standard monitor and bought several hundreds. There are still people in the Swedish HiFi community that's upset over this...
 
According to some old geezers here in Sweden...

According to an old geezer here in Scotland, the R7000 had a decent amp section as well. Scandinavian brands were quite popular at the time, despite being generally more expensive than Japanese imports.

First dealer I worked for had both Sonab and Scan Dyna, although the latter wasn't great on reliability and was dropped from the product portfolio. I then moved to a dealer selling Tandberg, which wiped the floor with most of the other kit we sold. I personally replaced a series of Yamaha amps, latterly a CA1010, with a Tandberg TR2075II, which was a glorious thing.

Tuners from Japanese manufacturers were typically better at weak signals, but sound quality from the 2075 was better than top-end Pioneer, Sansui or Luxman which we had to hand. Couple of 'live' broadcasts I remember on the 2075 were absolutely stunning, still the best I ever heard from FM.

A great pity that hardly any of the 'old time' Scandinavian electronics brands are no longer, or if they do exist, are not manufacturing in their homeland. Copland(?) might be one exception, struggling to think of any others. The speaker/drive unit manufacturers have perhaps fared a little better I think.
 
A great pity that hardly any of the 'old time' Scandinavian electronics brands are no longer, or if they do exist, are no longer manufacturing in their homeland. Copland(?) might be one exception, struggling to think of any others. The speaker/drive unit manufacturers have perhaps fared a little better I think.

Copland at one time did have their products (CTA 301, 401, etc) manufactured by Xena in Sweden, the later CTA 305 was manufactured in China, I'm not sure where the current range is manufactured.
 
Yeah, I thought they'd crossed to the dark side as well, but some recent product pics I've got here suggest Scandinavian manufacture — 'proclaiming 'Made in Denmark,' generally preferable to 'Designed in Denmark, knocked out for peanuts wherever we get the best deal.' Maybe it's not the case for the whole range though.
 
Back in the mid to late seventies, I owned a Yamaha CA800 amp. It was a beautifully made and finished machine; the switchable Class A, Class AB operation, and the variable loudness contour feature were unique for the day. Styling wise, it was almost the same as the latest models, with the silver finish and the lovely teflon smooth squared switches. Speakers at the time were B&W DM2a's which were a great match with the Yamaha - very natural sound indeed. However, I sold it to 'upgrade' to a Rait amp - which was a locally made copy of a Radford, - as it had the audiophile stamp of approval and sounded a little different - a bit sweeter and warmer in its apparent presentation.

Decades later it went to the tip having developed overheating issues; the designer having passed away and the company folded - no parts suitable for it were available.

It in turn was replaced by a Naim 72/Hi-Cap/180/SBL's which lasted 10 + years before an expansion of the system into AV saw the purchase of Sony 9000ES series kit.

The 9000ES Sony was their top range offering at the time and built with fastidious attention to detail; I realised how much I had missed the Yamaha with its butter smooth controls and astonishing build quality; here at last was its replacement in terms of exquisite build and finish.

In reasonably short order (12 months) the Sony replaced the Naim kit as the more authentic and better sounding kit overall - a very unexpected surprise.

And in time, as the Sony amp lacked HDMI and it was time to embrace flat screen TV's, it was replaced by a B&O TV and within 12 months some B&O active speakers.

At each step, the pleasure and satisfaction of ownership has increased - as has the audio/sonic performance to a very clear and noticeable degree.

And yet, Audiophiles would and did tell me at the time how inferior the Sony kit would be to the usual touted audiophile brands - despite never having seen or heard it.

Similarly, as I've discovered, if you own a brand such as B&O, the audiophile world dubs you a fancy Bose owner, and someone with more money than sense who doesn't know anything about audiophile sound 'quality'.

Interestingly, Stereophile, having actually listened to and measured the current Beolab 90's, now places them alongside a few other select speakers in their top Class A product recommendation, which I note with some irony given the fairly negative audiophile attitude towards B&O in general.

So I would say, absolutely - audio snobbery is alive and well amongst some audiophile circles without doubt.

Conversely, the music lover who listens to music on a quality HiFi system, as against the audiophile who listens to the kit as a hobby, is usually relatively immune to these kind of audio snobbery assertions and ideas - as are largely the general public/non audiophile buying group.

In terms of economies of scale, there's little doubt the major manufacturers can bring some astonishingly good pieces of kit to market and most certainly have the engineering chops to offer audiophile performance at a sensible price.

I still have my Sony DVP - 9000 ES 2 channel CD/SACD player; with it's fully copper plated chassis, custom built and hermetically sealing drive, separate toroidal transformer power supplies for digital and analogue, - there's literally nothing on the market at sensible money that would logically better it for build, component quality, and sound quality, currently available. But, I hear the audiophiles sigh... It's 'only' a Sony.

If I were to ever contemplate another passive system (should the big Sony amp driving the SBL's ever die) the Yamaha offerings would be my first port of call.

I'd say buy with complete confidence from every point of view. I certainly loved mine back in the day, and often wish I'd never parted with it - an amplifier for life.

PS: Speaking as a classically trained musician, Yamaha know a thing or two about musical instruments and what real acoustic instruments actually sound like in the real world.

Their piano division for example, is world renowned - right up to top 9 foot concert grands - the CFX - and in addition own Bosendorfer - a revered brand and sound if there ever was.

When it comes to hybrid digital pianos, and sampling - the Avantgrand range comes to mind - their electronics and sound sampling technologies are absolutely state of the art. They might be a 'mainstream' company in the minds of audiophiles, but I'm quite confident they could teach many an bespoke electronics company more than a thing or two when it comes to HiFi, and AV for that matter.

Dare mention B&O and within seconds the audiophile snobs emerge with their ole prejudices and putdowns. Before I discovered B&O, I had/auditioned all sorts of British and Japanese gear. Some of it was good, some of it poor. I’m not saying everything by B&O has been great. Products from Jacob Jensen and David Lewis era are nearly all beautiful, timeless and engineered impeccably 30-40 years in operation. Their active speakers just get better and better and the BL50 and BL90s are at the top of the pack.
 
B&O, beautiful looking. I’m curious about the comment that The BL50 and BL90 are at the top of the pack. Which pack?I can’t speak for the 90 as I couldn’t find a dealer west of London to demonstrate them. I did hear the BL50 in my 2019 speaker hunt, and to be fair it was quite impressive, especially in the looks department. In terms of sound it fell a bit behind D&D and Kii, further behind ATC SCM40, even further behind Quad 2812 at £20k cheaper (need to add amp though), and nowhere near the MBL116F at about the same price.

I would have loved to have bought the B&O for the looks but I couldn’t tolerate the sound on classical, although they did sound better on jazz and probably would have been good for rock. Perhaps I shouldn’t be a classical music snob! ;):D
 
According to an old geezer here in Scotland, the R7000 had a decent amp section as well. Scandinavian brands were quite popular at the time, despite being generally more expensive than Japanese imports.

First dealer I worked for had both Sonab and Scan Dyna, although the latter wasn't great on reliability and was dropped from the product portfolio. I then moved to a dealer selling Tandberg, which wiped the floor with most of the other kit we sold. I personally replaced a series of Yamaha amps, latterly a CA1010, with a Tandberg TR2075II, which was a glorious thing.

Tuners from Japanese manufacturers were typically better at weak signals, but sound quality from the 2075 was better than top-end Pioneer, Sansui or Luxman which we had to hand. Couple of 'live' broadcasts I remember on the 2075 were absolutely stunning, still the best I ever heard from FM.

A great pity that hardly any of the 'old time' Scandinavian electronics brands are no longer, or if they do exist, are not manufacturing in their homeland. Copland(?) might be one exception, struggling to think of any others. The speaker/drive unit manufacturers have perhaps fared a little better I think.

I use a Tandberg TR-2055 in my second system in the workshop and a superb bit of kit it is! I'd take this range of Tandberg receivers over any of the top Japanese ones all day long!
 


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