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Thinking aloud: obj / sub / ABX cyclic arguments etc Part III

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flatpopely said:
Your car comparison falls down Serge, the brands you mention all have an objective identify and drive differently and for those who appreciate driving they are easy to discern.
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I agree they are objectively different, but I wonder how many people who buy, say an Audi or Mercedes, or BMW care about how it drives compared with what the neighbours will think when they see it in the drive.

S
 
Yesterday I gave in and bought a new TV, having actually decided to be TV-less a couple of years ago.


Flicking through the channels I happened upon the QVC shopping channel who were selling and demonstrating a £1500 Acer all-in-one iMac style PC.
The very well trained and animated salesman said things like:

Of course this has the very latest and fastest processors on the marker, the Intel Core i5 dual core - It isn't.

It's got 8gb of memory which of course makes everything run so much faster - not necessarily.

Or course with PCs, high umbers will always give you a better performance - no not necessarily.

Yes it's expensive but you wont find a better PC - Yes you will



QVC will have employed this person for a reason, and he will have made these statements for a reason.

Anyone seriously think hi-fi is any different?
 
Robert said:
Yesterday I gave in and bought a new TV, having actually decided to be TV-less a couple of years ago.


Flicking through the channels I happened upon the QVC shopping channel who were selling and demonstrating a £1500 Acer all-in-one iMac style PC.
The very well trained and animated salesman said things like:

Of course this has the very latest and fastest processors on the marker, the Intel Core i5 dual core - It isn't.

It's got 8gb of memory which of course makes everything run so much faster - not necessarily.

Or course with PCs, high umbers will always give you a better performance - no not necessarily.

Yes it's expensive but you wont find a better PC - Yes you will



QVC will have employed this person for a reason, and he will have made these statements for a reason.

Anyone seriously think hi-fi is any different?
Click to expand...

It would be fun to see how QVC would sell a SET amplifier, some fancy interconnects or perhaps a Bose boombox. QVC's presenters are very well trained and scripted. every word is studied for the right emotional impact......right being make the call and buy.

S.
 
sergeauckland said:
It seems that HiFi has joined cosmetics, holidays, clothes, even cars, in selling promises, lifestyles, expectations rather than anything as boring as functionality. When pretty much any piece of Hifi equipment, clothes or cars are boringly predicatable as to performance, how else can one sell? Why should anyone buy Arcam as against Cambridge Audio as against Musical Fidelity, or BMW against Mercedes against Audi against Jaguar if it isn't sold on looks, brand image (what it says about you) and perceived value rather than performance. Yes, there are technical differences, but they are so far below purchaser's buying motivations that they very seldom get much space in the brochures.

S.
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Serge,

Products have to be sold, and things are never sold on functionality. Except for you and the other robots, no one buys a product on utility. A great deal of advertising is always used to sell the sizzle, not the steak.

The British forgot this, and pissed away its engineering legacy as a result. Making a purely functional car ends up with the Austin Maxi.

The hi-fi industry has also forgotten this in many cases, and has the insane idea of trying to sell the steak, not the sizzle. This is driven by a whole lot of people who treat measurement as some kind of audiophile Top Trumps game.
 
darrylfunk said:
i'd say most of the hi fi industry is all sizzle and no steak.
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Evil Emperor said:
Nonsense. You can't sell the sizzle without at least some steak. Whether the steak is a thin piece of wannabe shoe leather or the best fillet, it's still steak.
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Yes but a lot of what's sold is the shoe leather not the fillet. At least the mainstream manufacturers like MF, CA, Quad etc are selling decent steak. It's the boutique manufacturers selling the shoe leather mostly.

S.
 
pure sound said:
Is there really 'so much confusion'? When compared to choosing a new mobile phone, a computer or even who to buy your utilities from I'm not sure there is.
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I suppose it depends on the individual, what they've been exposed to and what they believe.

Thinking cables are going to have a sound might lead to some confusion.

Reading HiFi mags will definitely lead to confusion, as will reading most HiFi fora.

It ain't easy for newcomers.
 
Robert said:
Yesterday I gave in and bought a new TV, having actually decided to be TV-less a couple of years ago.


Flicking through the channels I happened upon the QVC shopping channel who were selling and demonstrating a £1500 Acer all-in-one iMac style PC.
The very well trained and animated salesman said things like:

Of course this has the very latest and fastest processors on the marker, the Intel Core i5 dual core - It isn't.

It's got 8gb of memory which of course makes everything run so much faster - not necessarily.

Or course with PCs, high umbers will always give you a better performance - no not necessarily.

Yes it's expensive but you wont find a better PC - Yes you will



QVC will have employed this person for a reason, and he will have made these statements for a reason.

Anyone seriously think hi-fi is any different?
Click to expand...
Odd anecdote, Got any names of people you're sure think hifi is different?

You can't expect everyone promoting some product or other to be entirely truthful.
 
Robert said:
Yesterday I gave in and bought a new TV, having actually decided to be TV-less a couple of years ago.


Flicking through the channels I happened upon the QVC shopping channel who were selling and demonstrating a £1500 Acer all-in-one iMac style PC.
The very well trained and animated salesman said things like:

Of course this has the very latest and fastest processors on the marker, the Intel Core i5 dual core - It isn't.

It's got 8gb of memory which of course makes everything run so much faster - not necessarily.

Or course with PCs, high umbers will always give you a better performance - no not necessarily.

Yes it's expensive but you wont find a better PC - Yes you will



QVC will have employed this person for a reason, and he will have made these statements for a reason.

Anyone seriously think hi-fi is any different?
Click to expand...
Odd anecdote, Got any names of people you're sure think hifi is different?

You can't expect everyone promoting some product or other to be entirely truthful, whatever it takes to sell and all that, whether that be computers, cars, phones, amplifiers, dacs or loudspeakers.
 
sergeauckland said:
Yes but a lot of what's sold is the shoe leather not the fillet. At least the mainstream manufacturers like MF, CA, Quad etc are selling decent steak. It's the boutique manufacturers selling the shoe leather mostly.
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Curious as to where you get this notion from, Serge? How does that square with the 'nearly everything designed today is sufficiently competent' philosophy?

What I mean is that (to stretch the analogy as far as it'll go), your argument seems, in the main, to be that 'everybody can have steak these days, because it's trivially easy to make something better than shoe leather. But some people charge ridiculous prices for their steak, more fool their customers'.

Now, though, you seem to be saying something different.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Curious as to where you get this notion from, Serge? How does that square with the 'nearly everything designed today is sufficiently competent' philosophy?

What I mean is that (to stretch the analogy as far as it'll go), your argument seems, in the main, to be that 'everybody can have steak these days, because it's trivially easy to make something better than shoe leather. But some people charge ridiculous prices for their steak, more fool their customers'.

Now, though, you seem to be saying something different.
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Although there is plenty of shoe leather around, just look at all the SET amplifiers or CD players without proper filtering or loudspeakers with a frequency response like a cross-setion through the Alps. This doesn't seem to happen with the mainstream manufacturers.

Otherwise, yes, steak for all these days, and not at fancy prices either.

S.
 
When I listen to Cambridge Audio, Rotel, NAD (etc.) I have a lot of sympathy for Serge's view. Likewise when I listen to good classic gear (Tannoy, Garrard, Thorens, Yamaha NS1000s, Hovland, SME, Quad, etc. etc.) I also have a lot of time for Serge's view. The point I differ on is that I believe in system synergy, and just putting good pieces of equipment together does always (to my ears) produce a great system.

Nic P
 
Well it helps if you understand loading to match gear and understand the need for low capacitance cables and input voltage requirements but that is easy to look up.

Nothing magic about that.

Speakers chosen for the room makes sense too.
 
Nic P said:
When I listen to Cambridge Audio, Rotel, NAD (etc.) I have a lot of sympathy for Serge's view. Likewise when I listen to good classic gear (Tannoy, Garrard, Thorens, Yamaha NS1000s, Hovland, SME, Quad, etc. etc.) I also have a lot of time for Serge's view. The point I differ on is that I believe in system synergy, and just putting good pieces of equipment together does always (to my ears) produce a great system.

Nic P
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I have no problem with good budget equipment, new or secondhand. But I differ in the idea that the sound of the NAD 3020 I had 30+ years ago is no different to the sound of the Bryston kit I just got rid of, or the Devialet I will be getting soon. Setting aside the fact that the Bryston was effectively unbreakable and I though NAD stood for 'Nearly Always Dead', because it would roll over and die at the first sign of a piece of music.

Even if it isn't materially better, it has to be 'better', because if it isn't, good hi-fi gets pushed aside yet again for another games console or Blu-ray player or some other thing.
 
Evil Emperor said:
I have no problem with good budget equipment, new or secondhand. But I differ in the idea that the sound of the NAD 3020 I had 30+ years ago is no different to the sound of the Bryston kit I just got rid of, or the Devialet I will be getting soon. Setting aside the fact that the Bryston was effectively unbreakable and I though NAD stood for 'Nearly Always Dead', because it would roll over and die at the first sign of a piece of music.

Even if it isn't materially better, it has to be 'better', because if it isn't, good hi-fi gets pushed aside yet again for another games console or Blu-ray player or some other thing.
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I can understand someone changing from a NAD 3020 to a Bryston or Devialet, given the greater competence of the latter equipment. In that I mean that a Bryston or Devialet has much greater power output and can drive more severe loads, allowing a much wider range of loudspeakers. Their build quality is also far greater, something that doesn't need engineering knowledge to appreciate. So they are "better" than the 3020 in those terms.

Where I don't see any improvement is in the sound quality when the 3020 is used within its modest capabilities. If I were separated from my current HiFi and were given a 3020 and a pair of reasonably efficient loudspeakers, say Tannoy 15" DCs or even the old Quad Electrosatics, then I don't think I would feel particularly deprived. As long as I could have my SBT and music library as a source, I would be perfectly happy. Conversely, if I were given a pair of horrible squawky horns and SETs, I probably would feel deprived, however expensive they were.

I use a pair of Genelec 1029As in my holiday system, and really don't miss the big ones at home for the few weeks I'm away, but I do take my full music library with me. That's far more important than what I play it on.

S.
 
darrylfunk said:
Well it helps if you understand loading to match gear and understand the need for low capacitance cables and input voltage requirements but that is easy to look up.

Nothing magic about that.

Speakers chosen for the room makes sense too.
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It's impedance matching your talking about, capacitance and voltage are just two of the functions that make up impedence matching/transfer. Capacitance is not a major influence on impedance matching; it's just part of LCR.
 
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