The Terrible Truth About Audio!

[Krunchy]

Nothing you all dont already know but figured you might get a chuckle out of it. I came across this article while looking up Jolida amps, his second paragraph was just too funny (& true!).
He's got some good points.

"We live in the most technologically advanced age of man, yet ironically virtually ALL the audio gear that is mass marketed to the home consumer is among the cheapest and worse sounding EVER made. If all you have heard is what's at Best Buy, Circuit City, the local audio "shack", or in your friends Honda Civic, (no matter WHAT he's got in there) then it is absolutely safe to say you never heard stereo sound reproduced well."

"The problem is, "major brand" companies make stereo gear for one reason: To make money selling it. The more money they can make, the happier they are. They don't particularly care about your listening pleasure. They are corporations with bottom lines. They get away with it because most people don't know that their ear can be "tricked". Manufacturers know this, and they have learned that they can make really bad gear sound better by coloring it's sound to appeal to you over a short term. Now, your ear is only fooled for a little while but they are counting on you only auditioning it for 10 minutes or less, which is just long enough to fool you into buying garbage. Best Buy makes money, the companies that made the crap make tons of money, and you go home and never put the stereo on because you find after a half hour you're "tired" of it. It's your ear that is tired. It figured out the trick, knows what it's hearing isn't right and the fatigue is it's way of telling your brain to make it go away."


Here's the link
http://www.indiespinzone.com/other/highend.html


I guess a little leg never hurts, yikes !?

[Allanvh5150]

It really has nothing to do with audio at all. It has everything to do with the fact that most people are happy paying the minimum amount for a crappy product. It may be crap to us but most people just dont care and they don't have the money. Large companies make large amounts of money by selling large amounts of average product. It is not the fault of any particular company that some or all of their product is well below average. People who are intested in sound will generally have good gear. Proffesional musicains generally dont purchase $100 guitar paks from Walmart and I doubt very much that Michael Schumacher has a Toyota in his garage.

Allan.

[SEAWOLF97]

>>I doubt very much that Michael Schumacher has a Toyota in his garage

he may have this one



but ,OnTopic...most put up with the least cost product to get the job done..many people listening to music wud consider forum members obsessive.

[Krunchy]

People who are intested in sound will generally have good gear. Proffesional musicains generally dont purchase $100 guitar paks from Walmart and I doubt very much that Michael Schumacher has a Toyota in his garage. Allan.

most put up with the least cost product to get the job done..many people listening to music wud consider forum members obsessive.

Without a doubt! But then again the chivalric order of LH forumites probably wouldnt mind such labels as long a we got our beloved JBLs & Altecs to keep us company all is good & right with the world.

[Tom Brennan]

I don't hold with the notions in the OP at all. Much of the mass market hi-fi gear found in large stores sounds pretty damned good; I'm thinking especially of the JVC and Panasonic chip-amp receivers I've heard, some of them used with pretty exotic speakers.

And cheap Sony, Pioneer and Toshiba DVD players are very good sounding sources.

As for speakers, well a little trip over to Guitar Center will expose you to many good sounding and cheap small monitors. My little KRK ST-6s at $200 the pair sound better to me than "audiophile" speakers of the type (small woofers with dome tweets) that cost many times the price.

In any event when someone is enjoying something I'm not one to tell them they're not enjoying it. Sounds kinda.....ridiculous.

Hell, the jasper who wrote the article referred to in the OP doesn't even know what a monitor is. And he has something to sell. And I never trust a guy uses the term "high end"; that's marketing talk. I'm with the old timers, I call it "hi-fi".

[Krunchy]

Tom you're killing me you'd be a fun guy to have a beer with (if you drink beer that is, or anything of the sort for that matter). I would have to say that my biggest problem with the gear in places like best buy & the sort is not the sound quality per se, for me at least it has more to do with the quality.
Most of these products just dont have a very long half life at all, & are almost guaranteed to crap out in the not too distant future. Its a gross generalization but with some truth to it. The stuff a guit center is probably better as they know it will get a good beating in its lifetime.

None the less, I stand by the entertainment value of the article, high or low end, I could care less. I stopped reading once his pitch came in

"I never trust a guy uses the term "high end" Bravo!

[Doc Mark]

Evening, All,

I thought that article was hilarious!! I'm still laughing about it, in fact! Sweet Bride loved the part about women not being true audiophiles, too. Guess the author has never met our Heather, eh?! Fun piece, that's for sure, even if it wasn't totally factual. Thanks for sharing it, Krunchy, and God Bless!

Every Good Wish,
Doc (still giggling.....)

[Ducatista47]

RE: chip amps and cheap DVD players sounding pretty good. That is relative (if I am allowed an opinion). To me they sound tolerable until you hear something better, which is still far short of the "high end" in price but equal or not far off in sound and quality. JoLida is a leader in that category.

A friend of mine who runs an audio shop deals with Mike Allen all the time. That would be the head of JoLida. He seems to be a straight shooter and his pieces offer fantastic value. They sound great, cost a lot less than High End snob appeal fashion statements, and I should know. I actually own a 502B myself. It makes the 2245's sound much better than any SS amps I have tried, 6260's and 6290's for instance. My CD player is also a JoLida.

I looked into the site the OP article is on and had a lot of fun. I started at the home page and found some neat stuff. http://www.indiespinzone.com/ Check out the Rant section and "DOWNLOADS- The Death Of Us All."

This page is the preamble to the posted article. http://www.indiespinzone.com/stylin.html

I found more truth than anything else in this amusing site. Great speakers do indeed make crappy stuff ahead of it sound like the crap that it is. I think most who put down good tube gear have not experienced that yet.

And where did they find all that great old cheesy illustration?

Clark

[Tom Brennan]

RE: chip amps and cheap DVD players sounding pretty good. That is relative (if I am allowed an opinion). To me they sound tolerable until you hear something better, which is still far short of the "high end" in price but equal or not far off in sound and quality. JoLida is a leader in that category.

I've owned quite a bit of tube gear and right now I own two Jolida amps, a 102B and a 302B-RC. And in my somewhat informed opinion some cheap chip-amps sound quite good. I've even heard an excellent system that consisted of a Sonic Impact and LOWTHERS in Medallion cabinets. And ole Kurt Chang's DIY dipoles with 72" B&G planars and 8-18" Eminences; all properly EQed and powered by a pair of JVC chip receivers.

My opinion.

[Ducatista47]

Tom is more than entitled to his opinion. His JoLidas are smaller, better sounding models than mine. The 102 is really, really sweet with the right tubes. (To be fair, the gear I listen with now sounds a lot better than JoLidas, but cost less than the 502B. Smaller, fewer watts.)

Maybe it is substandard hearing on my part, but EQ gets in the way of the music for me. And even well thought of SS gear gives me listener fatigue. To each his own.

Clark

[Titanium Dome]

Well, geez, you guys are all full of it. The only stuff that sounds right is what I've got. When are you going to get with it?

[Allanvh5150]

So tell us TD, how does it sound?

[duaneage]

Considering the source for the music varies wildly I think a reasonable compromise can be made between the absolute best and worst equipment out there. Sure, 110 db 20hz - 20khz with flat response in a large venue may be someone's goal but overall our listening rooms and requirements are far from ideal. Music produced 30-40 years ago was not recorded all that well, popular music is electronically manufactured these days. Jazz and Classical remain the best recorded IMHO and give a system the best workout.

The average room is far from perfect for acoustics unless great effort and expense is made to improve it. Best system in the market would sound bad in a tiled floor room with weird ceilings, glass doors and little furniture. By contrast a small set of book shelves carefully placed in a quiet room with an adequate sub should sound reasonably good at low to medium levels. Pushed up too hard and it will be harsh but that is the compromise.

I never bought into the SS versus tube argument, I think vinyl sounds different but not necessarily better, wire is wire to me, and I like EQ and other processors in moderation.

I do agree the quality of today's equipment is in doubt. The engineering is fantastic as even chip amps perform in ways thought impossible 20 years ago, but the controls and cases are injected plastic. Compared to vintage gear the feel of the knobs and switches is lacking. Digital switching may be better technically, but the feedback from the controls makes the difference in the long run.

I also see nothing wrong with the notion of making audio gear for profit, that is what companies are supposed to do and the loss of so many principled manufacturers who refused to adjust to market realities is the result. It may not be possible to build equipment like they used to profitably and compete with mass production from China. I submit that there are still vintage pieces in the used market and kits available new to satisfy the quality conscious for now.

[dino]

I think alot of cheap sounding crap is sold here in the good old usa but I also think overseas is were most of your good hi end audio eq is sold. [ like jbl] Just like MLK had a dream I have a dream were all americans can walk into the nearest audio store and listen to all jbl speakers new and old

[BMWCCA]

I have a dream were all americans can walk into the nearest audio store and listen to all jbl speakers new and old

And then you wake-up!