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"Delusional nice people" - Ken Kessler on the high end audio industry

Chaps

This thread seems to be a lot of squawking over a non issue.

If someone wants to spend a pile of cash on an expensive whatever, who cares, it is their money and has bugger all to do with us. They keep workers in jobs and retailers in business. Also they will be paying a high amount of VAT, so we all benefit from that.

Live and let live etc.

Regards

Mick
On one hand I accept your statement.
-as is.
On another angle though, it also can become / or is, a form of corporate exploitative plunder and acknowledgement of warped perception by the company's intending purchasers, borne out of some blind , twisted snob- loyalty logic to one or more Brands.:rolleyes: The then accompanying image of lessened obtainability by so called proverbial 'great unwashed masses' - on the financial front - through astronomical asked purchase prices -also falsely creates 'exclusivity'.

We see plenty of such relatable HI -fi products in the market place that are simply not worthy of being connected or switched on - forgetting the silly prices asked.
 
Chaps
This thread seems to be a lot of squawking over a non issue.
If someone wants to spend a pile of cash on an expensive whatever, who cares, it is their money and has bugger all to do with us. They keep workers in jobs and retailers in business. Also they will be paying a high amount of VAT, so we all benefit from that.
Live and let live etc.
Regards
Mick

It is a discussion about biased opinions on very expensive equipment posing as genuine reviews. A discussion about ethics.
 
It is a discussion about biased opinions on very expensive equipment posing as genuine reviews. A discussion about ethics.

I think we all know that an opinion is just an opinion, no matter who says it or what the topic is. Simples.
 
It is a discussion about biased opinions on very expensive equipment posing as genuine reviews. A discussion about ethics.

A discussion triggered, amusingly enough, by an article from someone whose day job was/is to write biased opinions (are opinions ever anything other than biased?) about expensive equipment. So KK gets to review expensive equipment, to be paid for doing so, and get paid for writing a 'Why Oh Why?' piece about such reviews. Nice work if you can get it.

Does any other group of hobbyists/collectors wind itself up so much about 'rip-off' pricing? Very few purchasing decisions are entirely rational; we are all influenced by advertising, other people's opinions, too much alcohol. etc etc. In the end, 'caveat emptor' is the only sensible advice.
 
It's funny that KK should mention high end watches.

There has been a fancy watch shop in Manchester for a long time.

You can look at the main window with exotica time pieces with eye watering price tags.

Then your eye is drawn to the small window round the corner. Here, less prominently displayed are watches with prices in the hundreds of pounds.

I start using the phrase "good value" when I see these. In actual fact, they are only good value because I have just moved from a high end reference point.

Perhaps there is a similar thing happening when you surround yourself with expensive hifi pieces?
 
In defence of High end watches, and the same may apply to Hi-Fi.
I bought a second hand Breitling Chronomat 17 years ago, and sold it last year for more than I paid for it. That was not a profit in real terms, but bear in mind I wore it neally every day for those 17years.

P.S. It was serviced every 4 years and kept good time.
 
I can't help thinking that the watch comparison is a little misplaced really. If the fundamental job of a watch is to accurately tell the time it's demonstrably the case that the most basic quartz movements in the cheapest possible cases do that every bit as well as items that cost tens of thousands of £'s. That doesn't seem to me to be the case with sound reproduction equipment, where better (i.e. usually more expensive) components can resolve information more thoroughly and satisfactorily from a given source. Now the law of diminishing returns may kick in fairly low down the price chain but nonetheless I think it's fair to say the very cheapest equipment is not as 'good' at resolving information and reproducing music - it's fundamental purpose - as the more expensive. Unlike, I would suggest, watches, which all tell the time more or less equally well.
 
How do you know? Have you heard this "nameless" equipment?

DO you really need to have some of the brands and equipment spelt out???!!

Quite a few of the brands are already often named here on pinkfish.

I am not about to start another one of the usual slanging matches over what is obvious inflated priced, sonically unbalanced rubbish. Reinforced to even a further degree : when it is coupled with other equally dumb, 'cross- sonic' lack of value products.

To sit and allegedly audition to some of 'this stuff'.....is akin to imagining, being placed in an special acoustically -designed torture chamber; especially built for such purpose. All one can privately think & exclaim to oneself , having experienced such idiotic sound , is ...."Jeepers, is this / or that dealer #*^*ing serious, asking dollars for that blown -up noise?"
 
In addition: I always thought HI FI and its pursuit, was firstly about its enthusiastic owner, using "complimentary - combination product synergy" before just throwing money, to achieve a desired result.

I have heard set -ups in peoples' homes, that were modest in cost that 'would cane the pants off some other pile...which is an assembled pile of expensive music distorting apparatus'.
 
Funny that people mention watches in this discussion. I can remember going to an Audio Club Meeting one night about 30 years ago. I quickly gave this practice up.
On this particular occasion to what I want to refer, there was a guest speaker. A clown who shall remain nameless, an amplifier designer/ manufacturer ( charging hideous prices!) giving a 'slide show' of his then recent World travels on the Hi Fi scene.
The ego was on full show - and so desperate 'to impress' ....and the moment he made the statement ( as he brushed one of his wrists and exposed a watch....muttered" Not everyone can afford a $ 5000 Rolex watch........half his audience immediately got up and left the building.
The last I heard of him....he was living......and 'flogging his amplifiers to the impressible' in the U.K!!!!???
Good riddance !
 
Funny that people mention watches in this discussion. I can remember going to an Audio Club Meeting one night about 30 years ago. I quickly gave this practice up.
On this particular occasion to what I want to refer, there was a guest speaker. A clown who shall remain nameless, an amplifier designer/ manufacturer ( charging hideous prices!) giving a 'slide show' of his then recent World travels on the Hi Fi scene.
The ego was on full show - and so desperate 'to impress' ....and the moment he made the statement ( as he brushed one of his wrists and exposed a watch....muttered" Not everyone can afford a $ 5000 Rolex watch........half his audience immediately got up and left the building.
The last I heard of him....he was living......and 'flogging his amplifiers to the impressible' in the U.K!!!!???
Good riddance !
You never fail to amuse mr/mrs freak, may;be you should be an agony aunt/uncle?
 


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