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"Will COVID-19 Take Out High-End Audio?"

Darren L said:
I wouldn't take the gift of an Aga, it has to be the most expensive way to heat a room and cook, the Rayburn is much better as it heats the whole house and water.
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Some Agas do this. The one I was bought up with certainly did.

It was also bought when Agas were still tools for cooking, baking, heating the water and the house.

About Hi Fi, I hope that the helpful staff at my local Sevenoaks SAV and the guys at Soundcraft in Ashford ride this out.

These people have been welcoming and friendly. I've bought friends to Sevenoaks SAV and got special deals on Cables, as a result.

I believe that when this all blows over, repair business will be successful. People will probably want to keep hold of their kit; changed priorities, etc...

Stay safe everyone!
 
stevec67 said:
A mate of mine would back this up. He bought his current house a few years ago and both he and his wife were drooling over the Aga. It was marvellous, the kitchen was so toasty and nice. Then the gas bill landed and he nearly puked. This is a wealthy man too, the thing was gone in weeks and replaced with a very nice conventional cooker.
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There are now Smart Controls for them. That might help with running costs. Certainly did with the people I knew that ran one...
 
Monitor Gold 10 said:
There are now Smart Controls for them. That might help with running costs. Certainly did with the people I knew that ran one...
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Not before time. The Smart Control my friends took was to remove it and sell it. Their time has been and gone. If you have people in the house all day, if you live in a draughty farmhouse and people are coming in with wet clothes that need drying, if there's someone in the house spending half the day baking bread and cooking and the other half of the day heating water to wash clothes, then great. However it's not 1930 any more, most houses are empty during the day and people spend an hour cooking in the evening at best. You just don't need a quarter of a tonne of cast iron glowing in the corner any more. If you want a toasty kitchen then that's easily fixed by turning up the thermostat.
 
stevec67 said:
Not before time. The Smart Control my friends took was to remove it and sell it. Their time has been and gone. If you have people in the house all day, if you live in a draughty farmhouse and people are coming in with wet clothes that need drying, if there's someone in the house spending half the day baking bread and cooking and the other half of the day heating water to wash clothes, then great. However it's not 1930 any more, most houses are empty during the day and people spend an hour cooking in the evening at best. You just don't need a quarter of a tonne of cast iron glowing in the corner any more. If you want a toasty kitchen then that's easily fixed by turning up the thermostat.
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very well put, growing up on a farm this struck a chord with me :)
 
Beobloke said:
St. Aga - the patron saint of the overheated kitchen and the under-cooked dinner!
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The Rayburn was way more unreliable for cooking. When we had one we had to run the water heating circuit to get the thing to keep the heat up enough to complete a family roast. Aga are great so long as the fuel supply is good - obviously. But they are doubtless rather excessive these day, despite the lovely cooking. My Mrs cannot get on without knowing the real temperature and cannot think in terms what shelve to use.

My MIL lives alone with a large Aga that is completely over the top - but it came with the house and running costs are not an issue.
 
stevec67 said:
Also I wouldn't worry about the footballer market at all.
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It's quite simple really, Footballers have money, but Footballers don't buy Hi-Fi. They will most likely have a top Home Theatre system and TV's in every room, but they won't have a Hi-Fi System. If they have a music system at all it will be something like a Sonus or a Bose capable of playing in every room.
 
Like Sea-sick Steve I started out with nothing and I still have most of it left... So, fingers crossed, I plan on seeing out this crisis.. and maybe I'll be one of the one's who this ill wind blows good (not been blown good in a while! :D) and people having to stay in will use the hi fi a lot, more gear will need repairing, and more may decide that as they have plenty of time to listen they may as well get that new phono stage....

I find that KK's attitude of "mega wealthy people are fab, we're not worthy, they are our superiors, we look up to their good taste and their lead" fills me with the urge to defecate.. as Floyd said!

I'm hoping it's them that lose out from this and their wealth ends up rather more evenly distributed... I'm not holding my breath!

As to the OP and KK's wish for small companies to go bust well I've rarely heard anything so offensive!
 
linnfomaniac83 said:
I think I paid about £250 for my Apple Watch, it keeps time as well as the very best mechanical watches, also give me message notifications without me having to reach for my phone and tracks my exercise routine and calorie burn with surprising accuracy, it helped motivate me to lose 25kg last year... what most could you want out of a watch, beside bling factor?
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"i think i paid £30 for my amp, it measures as well as the best valve amps, has a dac, a phono stage and blah blah blah... what more could you want in hifi set up?"

sorry to use your quote, but i reckon watch nerds could say exactly the same thing about posh hifi gear. luxury goods are all the same, after a point...
 
linnfomaniac83 said:
I think I paid about £250 for my Apple Watch, it keeps time as well as the very best mechanical watches, also give me message notifications without me having to reach for my phone and tracks my exercise routine and calorie burn with surprising accuracy, it helped motivate me to lose 25kg last year... what most could you want out of a watch, beside bling factor?
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Quite OT, but how did it motivate you? As someone midway through a similar weightloss plan, I'm curious how the watch was especially helpful ? Thanks!
 
What about a pfm brand of gear, funded by the massive, designed by Mr A?

Providing it didn't take fumfty bazillion years to materialise or involve catastrophic threads I'd be in.
 
stevec67 said:
Not before time. The Smart Control my friends took was to remove it and sell it. Their time has been and gone. If you have people in the house all day, if you live in a draughty farmhouse and people are coming in with wet clothes that need drying, if there's someone in the house spending half the day baking bread and cooking and the other half of the day heating water to wash clothes, then great. However it's not 1930 any more, most houses are empty during the day and people spend an hour cooking in the evening at best. You just don't need a quarter of a tonne of cast iron glowing in the corner any more. If you want a toasty kitchen then that's easily fixed by turning up the thermostat.
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We looked at one 3 years ago - gas bill of around €200/month for us in Ireland (may be a bit less in UK, not sure) - crazy for what it does. In a modern house with insulation, we learnt many people just turned theirs off May-Sept and used a normal oven (and bbq when weather permits). Bought a Smeg Opera Range thingy in the end which has been fantastic.
 
JensenHealey said:
The Rayburn was way more unreliable for cooking. When we had one we had to run the water heating circuit to get the thing to keep the heat up enough to complete a family roast. Aga are great so long as the fuel supply is good - obviously. But they are doubtless rather excessive these day, despite the lovely cooking. My Mrs cannot get on without knowing the real temperature and cannot think in terms what shelve to use.

My MIL lives alone with a large Aga that is completely over the top - but it came with the house and running costs are not an issue.
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We have a Rayburn XT. Installed it 12 years ago and never regretted it. Many options for CH/HW or just cooking. Gas/leccy/oil fuels.

Main difference between Aga and modern Rayburns, is that Rayburn you didn't have to have one all the time, although you can if you like. It also has dial controlled oven temp using the ye olde Gas Mk 1-8 scales.



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We supplement it wih a two burner gas domino. Its broken down only once, although that was on Xmas eve, which was not initially funny - although the in laws enjoyed the xmas day BBQ.

Running costs are fine. Someone said £150 pm.. lol, far from it I pay about that amount per month for leccy and gas to power whole house including HW/CH, lighting and all my tech.

Very satisfying to clean and polish up too, which satisfies my ocd detailing peccadillo

Aga Rayburn are one company these days.

A shoulder of lamb is slow cooking as i type. mmmmm.
 
wiresandmore said:
Quite OT, but how did it motivate you? As someone midway through a similar weightloss plan, I'm curious how the watch was especially helpful ? Thanks!
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It sets targets to achieve/beat, and it tracks your workout, very accurately. I’m disabled and can’t walk unaided so I swim, and the workout/fitness tracking encouraged me to push my boundaries, swimming further and faster each day, because it was all recorded, I had a target to beat each day. It definitely helped a lot... can’t say a Rolex would’ve done the same!

I also became more conscious of what I was eating, counting calorie and fat/carb intake. I lost weight fast and healthily whilst gaining fitness.
 
guest said:
We have a Rayburn XT. Installed it 12 years ago and never regretted it. Many options for CH/HW or just cooking. Gas/leccy/oil fuels.

Main difference between Aga and modern Rayburns, is that Rayburn you didn't have to have one all the time, although you can if you like. It also has dial controlled oven temp using the ye olde Gas Mk 1-8 scales.



IMG-1204.jpg


We supplement it wih a two burner gas domino. Its broken down only once, although that was on Xmas eve, which was not initially funny - although the in laws enjoyed the xmas day BBQ.

Running costs are fine. Someone said £150 pm.. lol, far from it I pay about that amount per month for leccy and gas to power whole house including HW/CH, lighting and all my tech.

Very satisfying to clean and polish up too, which satisfies my ocd detailing peccadillo

Aga Rayburn are one company these days.

A shoulder of lamb is slow cooking as i type. mmmmm.
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Nice. We run a Rayburn 345W (wood burning). Sausage casserole in it at the moment, got a shoulder of lamb for Sunday! It makes just the best casseroles / slow roasts / jacket pots etc imaginable.
 
Linn and Naim are fairly well run so would expect them to survive. They also sell to people who frequent sites like this and civilians who just want nice sounding lifestyle products. Businesses go bump because they are either badly run or unable to adapt.

Look at Brewdog now making sanitiser. They are clever boys and their beer tastes good too,
 
Martian Sunrise said:
"i think i paid £30 for my amp, it measures as well as the best valve amps, has a dac, a phono stage and blah blah blah... what more could you want in hifi set up?"

sorry to use your quote, but i reckon watch nerds could say exactly the same thing about posh hifi gear. luxury goods are all the same, after a point...
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It wasn’t a pop at watch enthusiasts, just pointing out that a relatively dirt cheap watch can keep time as well as a hugely expensive Rolex, Bell & Ross etc, and offer a lot more functionality... and people admire those products.

People seem to love bashing high end HIFI. Okay there are speaker cables that would cost more than my three bedroom detached bungalow if I were to (hypothetically) but enough to wire up my system, and that is utterly bonkers... but why does anyone care, if someone is rich and crazy enough to spend it, that’s their choice, nobody is forcing them.
 
We have an Aga fitted new 20 years ago and certain to outlive us - very reliable.

Running costs of £150/month ! Don't be silly, less than 1/2 that here even using oil and with the water boiler that is not fitted to new ones anymore.

Rayburns are different and again of various specs. The one in our holiday let is a cooker only but you can get them (and Esses, etc) that provide hot water and heating; the dual burner ones are quite a good idea.

Our Aga is very multi-use including saving the lives of many a day-old chick - just drop them in the double oven grove and drape them over hand rail; the cheeping can confuse the dogs, however.

Meanwhile, I used to read KK back in the HFNARR days and he seemed to be as interested in style as anything else. I recall in the 90s perhaps him reviewing some damn ugly DaVinci (or similar) amplifier that got too hot and by his own admission didn't sound as good as his usual reference, yet he waxed lyrically for ~5,000 words on it. After that I stopped reading as it was basically froth. His latest missive is simply insulting.

CHE
 
The shifting economics post covid19 will have an effect on all retail and manufacturing. Companies who dont make money go bust, in any market, that wont change.

Hopefully companies like Rega will be largely unaffected, privately held, deep in profit, they can weather the storm better than almost any other hifi brand I can think of.

I dont know about anyone else, but my music listening and consumption of new media is unchanged by the current crisis.
 
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