Insanely Expensive Audio

[cjfrbw]

Let's hope the wife never reads that comment, otherwise it'll be "only a few minutes a year" : )

I like a joke I heard.

A man comes home to find his wife packing. He asks what she is doing. She says" "I'm tired of this boring life. I'm moving to Las Vegas to become a prostitute." The man starts packing and the wife says: "What do you think you are doing?" The man says: "I'm going with you. Somebody has to support you. You'll never make it turning two tricks a year."

 

[MattHooper]

Well cartridges vary enormously and there are so many bits of them to vary in stiffness, mass and add or subtract to/from the signal in their layout, from stylus shape, cantilever design, pivot design, damper material, magnetic circuit and body structure.
OTOH absolutely the only expensive, and then not -that- expensive part of cartridges is the stylus and, sometimes, cantilever.
Manufacturing precision is important and difficult and it is actually unlikley that the very expensive hand built cartridges could all be close to each other in tolerance. Maybe Ortofon and Audio Technica have the tooling to do it, most won't.
I find it the story that some makers select their cartridges and give them a name based on the performance despite them all being made to be the same entirely believable.
The only justification for a price like that is the same as the fashion business, not anything to do with designing and making it.
BTW if you like vivid, detailed and realistic Deccas (London as they are known now) are my favourite and much less expensive than that!
http://www.londondeccaaudio.com
I have a Super Gold. The older ones can be sent in for a rebuild and are highly prized because of the body structure. It has, IMO, the most logical transducer layout though as a result it is extremely sensitive to warps and dirt.

Thanks very much for the heads up on those Decca cartridges, Frank.

I'm still a newbie with the vinyl front end, and I spent enough that I'm not inclined at this point to spend any more money searching for upgrades.
But cartridges/needles wear out so a decision I guess will always come sooner or later whether to replace the cartridge. I looked up some info and reviews on the Decca cartridges and they certainly sound intriguing. There seems to be quite a consensus on their quality engineering and character. Seems to be a "spectacularly true to the signal, warts and all" cartridge. In my case one of the benefits I found when I "upgraded" to my new turntable and cartridge, was an apparent lowering of general non-musical noise - background hiss, ticks, pops etc - with an apparent increase in the general smoothness and clarity of the musical content. Whatever the technical merits or not of the cartridge I'm using, it's a seductive combination I'm not sure I want to give up for another cartridge that might produce more vivid and exciting sound, at the expense of non-musical noise also being ruthlessly revealed.

I'd love to hear a set up with that Super Gold cartridge one day.

Back to being more directly on the subject of the thread:

I agree with another poster who said that listening to the super expensive systems can be an antidote to upgraditius. By far the most common reaction I have...and I note many audiophiles have...to super expensive systems at shows or dealerships is: Is that it? Really? Frankly, I prefer what I have at home.

It's not that surprising since most of us have curated our system to the presentation we prefer. (Be it "neutral" or more colored)

And lots of high end pricing seems like a direct insult to one's intelligence.

This is one reason why I've held an ongoing respect for the manufacturer of my current Thiel speakers (I've owned a number of Thiel speakers, and lots of others over the years). Jim Thiel seemed to have more integrity and pragmaticism. Yes like any high end speakers the products were expensive. But for the most part Thiel always sought to produce the best possible speaker design - by their lights - for a reachable price point for many audiophiles. They never went for the hyperinflation pricing and out-of-the-reach-of-mere-mortal flagships, where prices completely break orbit from any reasonable account for parts quality and design/manufacturing costs.

 

[SIY]

Contrary opinion: Deccas are HIGHLY colored, idiosyncratic to a ridiculous degree, prone to hum, and as reliable as a late '50s British sports car.

/former owner of a 4RC

Best cartridge ever made (IMO) was a MM from Technics that had to be purchased gray market in the US.

 

[DonH56]

My wife has always supported my audio hobby, to the extent of encouraging me to grab a great deal on the very Salon2's mentioned earlier. She knew about it before we were married and, while never being as much into it as I, she has always appreciated having a better-than-average system to listen to in the family room even after I had a new media room built. I recently changed from 20-year-old Infinity speakers to Revels in the family room (where she lives) and she at least pretended to hear the difference. Not from the kitchen, though, so I've still a little work to do.

Of course, my current system is insanely expensive to many, and my older "filler" family room system that went to the kids seems insanely expensive to them. All the long work hours have at least been good for something; just need to find more time to actually listen to my toys!

My last cartridge was a Grace F9E after trying Grado, Shure, Stanton, few others I've forgotten. I liked the old Denon 103 and a Koetsu sounded great but at the price (even decades ago) I was too nervous to keep it (store demo; back then I got to try out all kinds of neat stuff). Still have the TT and Magnepan UniPivot arm on it but haven't felt the urge to get it out and set it up. Not really a place for it either. If they would just quit "remastering" the life out of CDs I'd be happy...

 

[Frank Dernie]

Contrary opinion: Deccas are HIGHLY colored, idiosyncratic to a ridiculous degree, prone to hum, and as reliable as a late '50s British sports car.

/former owner of a 4RC

Best cartridge ever made (IMO) was a MM from Technics that had to be purchased gray market in the US.

Record players are the only bit of a Hi-Fi I know quite a bit about, having worked in the business. I can agree the Decca of old had variable quality control the current London branded versions seem fine.
The Decca has the transducer element pretty well connected directly to the stylus rather than on the end of a thin lever with a 10:1 reduction in the already minuscule amount of movement. I don’t know how linear the magnetic circuit is but it is actually most likely to be uniquely UN-coloured compared to conventional cartridges which are engineered more for tolerance of record defects than accurate transduction, and people has been polishing that particular turd ever since.
The damping for a Decca needs to be in the arm btw.
I perhaps had one of those Technics cartridges you mention (EPS205 or something???) it had a boron cantilever even back then and was highly rated. I can’t find it any more it may have been thrown away by mistake with other stuff. It was indeed excellent!
A friend of mine has a Platine Verdier with 2 arms and cartridges. One is an expensive arm and van Allaerts cartridge, the other an old basic damped unipivot with C4E rebuilt by Wright who makes the London cartridges now. My wife is a professional musician but totally uninterested by Hi-Fi. We were at his house once when he played one of his new charity shop finds. He played it using the expensive kit then the old Decca. Sheenagh innocently asked “why do you ever use that other one” it was a genuine question. I agreed.
I have lots of record players and cartridges but rarely listen to LPs any more. Listening to a CD of Janet Baker singing one of Elgar’s Sea Songs as I type.

 

[SIY]

I perhaps had one of those Technics cartridges you mention (EPS205 or something???) it had a boron cantilever even back then and was highly rated. I can’t find it any more it may have been thrown away by mistake with other stuff. It was indeed excellent!

EPC205C Mk 3 is the one you're probably thinking about and it was indeed excellent. But the EPC100C Mk 4 was even better.

 

[FrantzM]

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2019-editors-choice-awards-loudspeakers-100000-and-up/

The best thing to do is not listen to these speakers then you don't know what you're missing. The Ostrich approach.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2019-editors-choice-awards-loudspeakers-100000-and-up/

The best thing to do is not listen to these speakers then you don't know what you're missing. The Ostrich approach.

A few years ago, I would have thought the same. I would have preached the same. Right now, I know this to be false. The audiophile eco-system needs to keep these half-truth flying to justify the enormous expenses of those speaker/systems. There is no doubt in my mind that big speakers tend to sound bigger than small. This could be psychological. We see a big thing and assign a "big" sound to it. Most of the speakers on this list are big and some (not all) are pretty dynamic sounding. The honest question: With appropriate care can we approach or surpass their sound with more modest and sanely priced components? The answer is a resounding: YES!!!!

 

[Hypnotoad]

The honest question: With appropriate care can we approach or surpass their sound with more modest and sanely priced components? The answer is a resounding: YES!!!!

You are right, I had some BIG speakers for a while, Polk SDA's, not in the same league as the ones in the editors choice awards article though, big speakers, big amp, had them in a big room. Then I got a pair of much smaller B&W speakers and all I can say is they are the most enjoyable speakers to listen to. Got rid of the big ones, don't need a big room anymore and all is good.

 

[MattHooper]

There is no doubt in my mind that big speakers tend to sound bigger than small. This could be psychological. We see a big thing and assign a "big" sound to it. Most of the speakers on this list are big and some (not all) are pretty dynamic sounding. The honest question: With appropriate care can we approach or surpass their sound with more modest and sanely priced components? The answer is a resounding: YES!!!!

The visual factor influence is one reason why I very often do the "closed eyes" test at audio shows, show rooms etc. (especially audio shows).

When I'm sitting in front of a large, fancy set of speakers listening, I close my eyes and in a sort of thought experiment, ask myself "if I didn't know what these look like, and simply concentrate on the sound, what does it actually sound like? And I try to fit it to whatever speaker my mind conjures up that seems plausible. This has been very interesting because I've noticed a number of times that some big speaker is actually putting out sound that I can easily have inferred, eyes closed, to have been a much smaller, cheaper speaker. Eyes closed some fancy speakers have sounded to me like I could have been listening to something not much more beyond an old boom-box.

This is of course nothing like the controls of blind testing. But even as a modest exercise it DOES seem fairly revealing to me and helpful in putting aside for a moment expectations based on the visuals. Of course some speakers do survive the "closed eyes what could I be listening to?" test better than others.