bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

ha... was a great decision for me. don't miss the corporate world at all, although the big paycheck, stock and benefits were nice, but i do ok now with a lot more flexibility. i think the key is delegation and having good people. i only have a small team but each are clear on what needs to get done, we have decent systems in place, and the more they can do the easier it is for me.

and then there's this...

SW17LS

Oh working for yourself is the only way to work. All the downsides are totally worth the upsides.

swajames

The law of diminishing returns applies pretty much everywhere, but rarely more so than in audio. Now there are plenty of valid reasons to splurge on whatever it is that you like, and audio components are no exception, but once you get beyond a certain level of performance you're really not going to get much better actual audio quality no matter the additional cost of the components. You're very quickly chasing rapidly diminishing returns. Pretty much all these things are measurable. We know a high-end dealer here in the SF Bay Area, and through him I've had the pleasure of listening to systems costing in the low hundreds of thousands in ideal listening environments, and he himself says the same thing - the point at which you're not really getting any additional sonic return is lower than you might think.

mmarshall

Exactly....you hit the nail on the head.

To some extent, GM wound up in that boat....although it was not necessarily due to a recession. Not having a true competitor, they got left in the dark when Ford came out with the Bronco and Bronco Sport....and had to sit there and watch idly as Ford dealers sold them hand over fist, with more orders than the factory could even fill, with big markups. Same with the also-hot-selling Maverick...GM never did a similar crossover truck to compete. GM had a chance to design a true Blazer to compete with the Bronco, but chose instead to make it, in effect, just a slightly bigger brother to the Equinox.

Striker223

Fair. But I did notice the better systems I've heard all offer a little more impact and soundstage size if not outright accuracy and resolution. You can have very accurate and quality sound but sound that wields impact and emotion requires some power depending on listening space.

Headphones can offer great detail but after you experience a system that you can feel full body that is just as accurate it's impossible to get chills and tears from small scale or nearfield setups

mmarshall

Perhaps you should buy a Mercedes dealership LOL.

Stroock639

you familiar with the Sennheiser Orpheus HE90? only 300 were made and the headphones came with their own vacuum tube amp! yea i feel like this was definitely just the boss being like i need the coolest set of headphones ever that none of my other friends will have lol


it actually comes with a key that must be switched on before use (upper right)

forget $1,800 though, these went for about $13,000 in 1992 and much more than that today... it's said that the time it takes for the tubes to warm up is exactly as much time as it takes for a sphere of ice to just start melting into a glass of single malt

swajames

Yes I agree with you. I'm mostly talking about performance relative to price.

SW17LS

No thanks lol. Dealership business only works in huge conglomerates today.

mmarshall

It shouldn't be that way, but, yes, you're right, it seems that's the way it's going....especially in this area (Koons, Fitzgerald, Stohlman, Brown, Ted Britt, etc...)

SW17LS

There is no “should” or “shouldn’t” in business Mike. There is just “is”. You adapt to the realities of the market and exploit the opportunities the market presents you.

Smaller dealer chains and owners are selling out to large conglomerates because it just doesn’t make sense for them to operate any longer. It’s not profitable and it’s too hard.

It’s similar in my business. All the small brokerages are selling out to big brokerages because it’s just not feasible for them to compete.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

used cars.

'noticing' impact, soundstage, accuracy and resolution, impact, emotion, is all basically subjective... some people love bass, some love highs, some more balanced, some just love it loud, etc. our ears just aren't that good, and our brains like what they like. sure you can use measuring equipment, but if one has to use equipment to 'notice' whether their super expensive system is any good, i think that's a bit pointless, lol. evaluating audio systems becomes a bit like wine tasting... there's some skill to it, but a LOAD of b.s. LOL

here's another insane audio person, smitten with ludicrously expensive components. i had to laugh when she got to her turntable.

Striker223

Oh, yeah 1000%. Nowadays you can get a killer setup for cheap vs before lol!

Striker223

Soundstage is extremely real, a system that has extension 4 ft past the speakers to each side engages you totally differently than one that doesn't.

A near field system that you need to keep your head exactly in the right place and has a foot? of "area" you can see is nothing like a system that forms a 20-30' "shell" of sound in front and to the sides and above you that you can hear the exact size and placement of everything on stage.

Until you experience literally hearing the stage and being able to place everything on it and then looking up a picture of that live performance and seeing its correct it's hard to describe just how real it makes it feel. It's not really about the accuracy of the sound but the physical presence and placement that is what really makes the difference.

Thats more of what I seek vs just accuracy since accuracy is a solved problem as you said and there is a limit of what we can hear anyways. I want a system to be able to fully recreate a scene so when the singer leans slightly in front of me away from the mike I can hear that, if the drummer is is the back left and not center I want to hear that as well and if a guitarist walked forward 2 steps I also want to hear that.

Headphones can't do that and just accurate speakers can't do that. The whole system and room needs to work toward that and once you hear it you will understand how it just ruins you for "detailed" only systems.

swajames

So not to labor the point and yes, I still agree with you striker, but with things like soundstage etc so much it is contingent upon things like careful setup and placement. Whether or not you toe-in the speakers, the degree of toe-in, placement relative to rear wall, dispersion and height of the tweeters relative to the listening position (we are able to more accurately place higher frequencies than lower frequencies) all make a difference. That’s all part of the hobby. We just need to be careful to not catch ourselves listening to the equipment rather than the music