"I'm sorry, but an interconnect is not, under any conditions, worth as much as a new car."

Alan

An interesting and nicely written article by a chap called Art Dudley in Stereophile. I've never bought HiFi mags, but I found that to be a decent read. Apparently, the average cost of HiFi components at the New York Audio & AV show was over $20k! So much for the deep end, it seems I am splashing around in the paddling pool.

Jim

Totally agree mate!

Greed is the motivating factor here.  Old fashioned firms such as Quad and SME price their  items realistically and plan to get their investment back over the long term.  The trend now is to expect the money back straight away.  Other issues such as bragging rights also feature highly.

The quality of components is also worth questioning.  Three years ago a manufacturer boasted to me that the bass/mid driver is his £1,200.00 per pair speakers cost him £25.00 from China.

The recent issue of HiFi News has the new Wilson Audio speaker.  It's £200k FFS.  If you've ever heard Wilson Speakers that should be all the more shocking!!!

This is one of many reasons why I've tended to build my own kit.

Alan

I wish I had the ability to follow suit Jim!

I haven't head Wilson Audio, but I was tempted by a good deal on a Wilson Watt prototype recently - I'm glad funds didn't permit me now.

I have found lots of gear I own has el-cheapo grade components inside, but I must confess I don't mind so long as they combine to sound good (which they do). I have to say I usually buy second-hand also, which mitigates the disappointment somewhat - I can't say I'd feel the same if I had paid full whack (£2-3k) at full RRP!

Jim

I'm afraid I do mind seeing cheap parts in expensive kit.  Especially when good parts are not usually that much more expensive.  And certain parts can make all the difference to the sound.

25 years ago a friend bought a classic British pre power combination.  A recommended upgrade was to buy the same company's power supply to power the preamp on its own.  This cost over £400.00 at the time.  My friend managed to get a look inside one.  The, very few,  parts were readily available from RS for less than £60.00.  He built his own better version for about £150.00 IIRC.

Pure greed in my book.

Alan

Well, when you put it like that...

It does look impossible to justify. You'd think companies and designers would actually want to make the best they can, rather that ripping us off.

'Classic British' HiFi seems to have a bit of a name for this kind of thing.   £25 drivers and £60 power supplies is a sorry state.

Jim

With a very few exceptions most HiFi companies are just that.  Companies who are in it for the profit.

Another well known example is a well known British turntable manufacturer.  They sold a well regarded arm in the '80s for £294.00 retail.  They were made for them by Audio Technica in Japan and they paid exactly £26.50 each to AT.  They sold many thousands!!

Alan

...and I thought window cleaning was money for old rope!  :-O

PAC

So called "high end" is very difficult to value unless you have a throughout understanding of the design, construction quality, comparative performance and numbers produced.  Quite often as in the example above, a company will come out with a £200K pair of loudspeakers.  This number bears little resemblance to the actual cost of manufacture which for the speakers in question might be something along to £20K mark.  However, they won't expect to sell many, perhaps half a dozen total, so £1m income against say £100K production costs.  Add to that the cost of development...half a dozen engineers of various disciplines at lets say 3 man years at payroll costs totalling another £300K;  Then there's shipping to demo venues, advertising costs and marketing costs at probably a not inconsiderable £50K or so total.  Speculation of course, but add that lot up and initial overheads for a £200K loudspeaker could easily total £450K.  They wouldn't be in profit until lets say three pairs were sold and possibly would only sell half a dozen, so yes, a tidy earner if that was the case.  Why not £100K or even £50K then?  Because a decision was made at the top that they'd probably sell as many at £200K as if they'd priced them at half that amount, so this is where marketing strategy comes into force.

Cables at £10K per 1.2m pair anyone?  Now that follows a similar argument, and they know (again) that they may sell one pair in every country they market to, and are not interested in what enthusiasts thing of the cost because they are targeting these things at the few people willing to part with their hard earned.  they do run the risk of damaging their reputation for good, but work on the principle that any publicity is good (we all know a specific hifi company that fits that bill don't we?) plus do it to produce a "statement" product so that they can be taken seriously by the hifi press and by the wealthy...it sort of sets out certain credentials, although to me, those are false credentials.

Cost does not equate always to performance, although with certain types of hifi component, you tend to get what you pay for (valve amps being the prime example).  Reach say £100K for an entire system if your room is big enough to house it all, and you would probably have had a dedicated room treated and set aside at this budget.  Anything over this is IMHO foo marketing and follows the trends mentioned above (ie performance probably will not exceed that of similar products at much less cost). There are diminishing returns up to that 100K which I would argue set in at around one third of that total.  

Things aren't always what they seem!

Brain_Dead

Cheap products are normally not design specific, and the 300W TOCA were £120K were they worth the money, well they took 12mth to make each (Mono). Is there a Goldmund TT about £200K.

So with good kit why put Woolworth Bell wire on it??

Jim

Wilson Audio (and I use the name very looslely) are an long established firm. Their tooling up costs will be small ish. They'll have most of the necessary in place.

It's a lot of money because they've created an elitist product and they want to make a lot of money.

I have no problem with people making money. But let's not pretend it's anything else please.

Alan

It's a different world out there, where 'worth' (as in the thread title) takes on a different meaning.

I'd like to say money isn't important to me (broadly it isn't), but in terms of HiFi I want to be sure I get maximum bang for my buck. This is simply because I don't have too much money.

When people get to the position of not worrying about how far they can get for a given amount of money then all sorts of esoteric (no pun intended) options are open to them and people are only to happy to meet them.

Like Jim, I've no problem with an industry existing to service the needs of a different group of people - that's their business and all concerned are welcome to it. Some of the products are doubtless exceptional (they damn well all ought to be), I am sure the 300w TOCA was unique in technology, design and performance for one, but I was never the target consumer.

But in my world, from my perspective (as a working class pleb), I agree that "...an interconnect is not, under any conditions, worth as much as a new car". It's not down to the interconnect, it's how I define 'worth' in  my life'. YMMV.

Docfoster

Presumably there is a greater likelihood of someone who buys interconnects worth several thousand pounds being able to afford a car many times more expensive...?
None of my kit costs more than any new car that I'm aware of, but one could buy a working car for less than the price of my speaker cables, and the total cost of my system is higher than the cost of the car that I drive. Some people would question the worth of my Hifi (my wife will be happy to discuss this with anyone), whereas like Alan, I like to think that I have been canny in extracting the best performance possible from every penny that I've directed towards my Hifi. It brings more pleasure to my life than my car both in absolute terms and in pound for pound terms.
Discussions on the 'value' or 'worth' of Hifi products often focus on the value of the components, sometimes also the value of the time taken to design and construct them, and occasionally on the value of the expertise involved. But, I'm not sure any of these ultimately need to be important to the end user. It's the value of the pleasure that the user experiences that is the arbiter of value. This is highly subjective and subject to non-sonic factors and abuse (aspirational marketing, snazzy packaging, hype, etc.,...), but although highly objectionable to an objective analysis, this manipulation is irrelevant to the subjective pleasure experienced by the user who's own disposable income may enable a specific product to represent outstanding value for the pleasure it brings.
Our cognitive processes are constantly deformed and deceived by subconscious pressures and feelings, and i would imagine that musical and Hifi experiences suffer (or benefit) profoundly at the hands of internal pressures that have nothing to do with how 'good' a component sounds in 'purely' sonic terms. It's important to guard against these self-deceits in our own lives, but I feel that judging the subjective self deceits of others on issues such as 'sonic performance', 'value' and 'worth' is a complicated business.

PAC

The OP statement has it right IMHO.  IC's are never worth as much as a new car to 99/99% of us.  To a millionaire with a totally different concept of money and value, a bling set of £30K IC's could be small-change in their system and totally worth it to them.

Value is all relative.  

The more accurate assessment for many of us isn't whether a bit of hifi's worth as much as a car but whether (if you had the cash in the first place) that amount could be better spend elsewhere to get bigger improvements.  The answer is of course "yes"

No manufacturer needs to justify what they charge simply because we're all free to make our own decisions on whether we'll buy.

Selling anything's about making money otherwise people wouldn't manufacture and sell things...simples.

It's also very easy to single out one or twi exotic hifi examples which might or might not net a total of say £500K profit for a company over the lifetime of production of that exotica, but another way of looking at things is that many hifi companies earn WAY more than that from selling cheaper kit at higher mark-ups and getting the profit in by turn-over.

Our perception of value allows that because we're more likely to buy a box (lets say a DAC) for say £500 than a pair of speakers at £200K.  The profit in that DAC could be £200 a unit to the manufacturer.  They sell 10,000 units world-wide, and there's £2m profit, which is way more than selling the half a dozen or so £200K speakers would ever net.  the 200K speakers are an exercise in market placement, a sort of commercial willy-waving if you like.

One thing sticks in my throat and does get me angry though, and that's ANY company claiming R&D costs based on cost/benefit basis and charging £10K per metre for cables.  The ought to be ashamed because despite there being a few deluded amongst them that believe their own crap, most know they're ripping people off.

Alan

"Value is all relative"

This bit.

We have skewed ideas of value anyway. What would a normal person (like say, our wife) say about a speaker cable worth £500, a DAC worth £1000 (Not even all a CD player - just part of one!) - in our glass houses we can't really throw stones at another demographic because we can't relate to them. Normal people can't relate to us.

To us, within the relative pool we occupy, we seek the best value we can, that may well be half a CD player for between a grand or three, expensive amps or cables.

Within each sphere/price bracket there are decent products, worth what they sell for. There are even some bargains. There are certainly more than a few rip-offs as well. So what?

Jim

What he said ^

But something can only be a rip-off if you've bought it and are disappointed in some way. Something that's expensive that you won't or can't buy is just that - an expensive item.

PAC

What he said ^

But something can only be a rip-off if you've bought it and are disappointed in some way. Something that's expensive that you won't or can't buy is just that - an expensive item.

Not sure I follow Jim.  Just because we may be disappointed in some way with something doesn't qualify it as a rip-off.  Something that's expensive and outside of our reach (for now) IMHO isn't just an expensive item.  I'd like a new RSV4 Aprilia but its out of my reach.  That doesn't lessen it's appeal or it's value as the UK's top litre class sportsbike;  It just means I can't afford one!  If I could, I'd have one in a heartbeat.

Hifi is for me far more subjective.  I've reached a point where uber-expensive hifi does little for me at all because of two main points:  firstly I know from experience that in my room I can get a pretty decent sound without needing to resort to lottery ticket tagged hifi (In the past I've listened to, owned or reviewed kit components that cost 5 figure sums) and secondly because our means as a family don't justify that sort of nonsensical expenditure but even if they did, I'd keep my current system.  

There's a fair bit of "willy waving" IMHO in hifi land, and not all of it results in more expensive being "better". However, there's also a preconception of no system costing more than we'd be prepared to shell out for (or could afford) offering value in terms of performance.  To some extent, both stand-points are compromised since both could be equally true or equally false. Its what our personal means happen to be and whether we invest wisely that matters IMHO.

Jim

I probably rushed my answer.

If you buy an expensive item and are disappointed in some way then you may (or may) claim to be have been ripped off.

If you are simply thinking about expensive said item then it's just that: an expensive item.

If you buy it and are content with your purchase then you'll probably claim it to be worth the money.

Unless you really do have more money than God in which case none of the above matters a carrot!