I remember having a chat with one of the guys in Loud and Clear in Edinburgh back in 2008 or 2009 or so. Not long after the crash in any case and coincidentally, not long after dcs had brought out their then Scarlatti CD transport / DAC / clock and power supply for it all. He mentioned they'd just sold their third full Scarlatti set up that year. At the time, the whole kit and kaboodle would've set prospective buyers back around £68,000. He went on to say that those who have wealth, can ride out the financial storms better than anyone. Dropping nearly £70k suggests at least three of them managed just that.
Yeah this reminds me of a recent post asking about headphone/headphone amp set-up for $1500, and a user on there kept going on about how insufferable people were and how dare they make people like him feel poor and how everyone here must be millionaires. Frankly I was surprised people weren't telling him to f-off, or mods telling him to take a walk, he just kept ranting
When I lived in Canada I had a different perception of high-end. A high-end watch to me was Rolex - I mean $10k to $20k just for a watch. To me, it is still a high-end watch but living in Hong Kong where it seems like every other shopping mall has a Rolex store or Rolex within a jewelry story is common. Teachers own them - student teachers own them. High-end they really aren't here. Patek Phillipe at $2million USD is high-end - and owners of them don't own just one but the most expensive watches of all the other brands. I was speaking to one dealer who sells $800,000USD speakers - the buyers don't care about the sound - they care about the money and the look and the prestige factor of owning such speakers. The dealer showed me the rooms of the owners and said - these sound dreadful in the room which is not set up at all for acoustics. His biggest issue was the fact that the speakers don't fit in elevators so have to be crane lifted to the apartment - a neat trick if you are on the 57th floor! Different markets around the world tend to shift perceptions of audio brands as well. Something that is popular in North America may do zilch in Asia and vice versa. Take DeVore - non-existent here but if you read the press in the USA you would think it was a major audio brand. Vice Versa with Audio Note - pretty small - there are some dealers in Canada and the USA (~20) but I would not be terribly surprised if Hong Kong sales beat all of the US and Canada combined. I am not a Canadian or US dealer of course but I wonder if a Canadian dealer would like to sell AN M6 preamps - my dealer sold 200 of them in one year - These are in the range of $18k to $40k USD. I am fairly sure there are no Canadian dealers that sell 200 ~$20k preamps in a year. They may not sell 200 of anything $20k in a year. And since they also sell 7 other preamps from the same company - well - you don't get that impression in Canada/US. I noticed this dealer put in an order for 200 Audio Note Meishu integrated amplifiers - they have sold all of them - it's just a matter of having them built. It's hard to tell people on a Canadian forum I was on that a mere high school teacher could afford to buy my rather expensive gear - not on a teacher's salary. It is, for them, unimaginable. I know I taught in Canada and got paid a Canadian teacher wage. But their salaries have not kept up with inflation so since 1985 teachers have the buying power of a mere 40%-50% of what the 1985 teacher was earning. Meanwhile in Hong Kong wages kept up with inflation metrics of how the private sector was doing. In 2011 when I moved to Hong Kong to 2020 I was earning at least a 3% raise per year - that's 30% compounding - the Canadian teacher got diddly squat in comparison and usually had a strike or three along the way - those strikes just cut your pay raise - and it surely didn't just happen to teachers. I kind of feel like Canadians and Americans are being screwed with their pants on. Canadians are panicking over foreign investment - rich Chinese buying up homes - but the blame should not be going to these people - it should be hard questions like why is that person getting paid $200k a year to do the same job I am only getting $50k for? And to get back to your question - companies selling audio are selling to the people who can afford to buy it. Audio Note is going to target the Hong Kong and Singapore dealers who order 200 $25k Preamps over the North American dealer who has to sweat to bring in one. And of course cars and running them eat up a massive amount of cash. So that's a huge expense that largely doesn't exist in Hong Kong or other parts of the world.
There was/is a forum called "What's Best" and eventually "Audionirvana.org" came to be. Most of the members have cutting edge high end. They are actually super cool people and not snotty at all. They welcome anybody to join. Plenty of members here also have very top shelf gear as well.
You'd imagine it would be people who can reasonably afford such high prices, however my friend's system cost double his annual income. At the other end footballers in the Premier League, who I'm very reliably told just go out to buy a system more expensive than their star striker, in fact they send their agent.
we had a member here sign up and ask some questions and then put together a full Shindo rig with big Shindo speakers. Relatively young guy in the Bay Area. I think he owned a software company?
Heard a story c2005 where a Russian Oligharch purchased a close to the top system from Audio Note UK, and insisted on the factory personally delivery the system (and happy to pay just about any amount). SO they drove a truck with the gear all the way form Calais to the Moscow Suburb where this fellow lived. If I recall the story correctly the whole system was costing in the millions (pounds). And another story I heard that the NY Metro area buys about 80% of the audio gear sold. The whole rest of the country accounts for the 20%. Because Banking Sector and East Coast Weather. I am sure COVID with people staying home, having a decent stereo becomes more of a priority. I know I am slow to upgrade in my own modest way, updated my main DAC, SACD, Amp and Preamp all during the pandemic.
Talking about fools who spend too much, I've just used the inflation calculator and found out I paid the equivalent of £9000 for my turntable. My income wasn't that high then and even when it was any sane person would have shaken their head.
Can I tell you, that if I owned a software company and was rolling in it, I might have done the same thing. *sighs* and looks at the 6 pack of Genny Cream Ale and wishes the Champagne budget would come soon ...
If you pull in $1M a year, "wasting" $200k on a stereo system once every few years is totally swallowable. The altitude helps!
I spent quite a bit on the hobby in the past few years. All is listed in my profile. I'm not rich. I just make hifi a financial priority.
That's me as well. I had the same basic system for about 10 years, and with the pandemic it's changed a lot.
Richard Austen hit on a pertinent factor. Many people who spend the "high end $$$" have a completely different set of motivations and parameters for the purchases they make. Secondly, these systems see far less action than you might presume. Time is the most precious commodity at that level, and there isn't a whole lot of time to sit around listening to music. Dare I say it's close to the importance of the choice of a $200k chandelier, which isn't that much.
Then there are guys like me, wedged between ultra-high end and the moderate priced 'good stuff'. My spot is McIntosh gear, have five pieces in my system plus Focal Scala Utopias. Only pieces I have over $10K is a MT-10, which looks cool, but not my favorite, and the Focal's which were my most expensive components at a bit less than $20k. To put my system in perspective, it could be recreated for about the price of a fully loaded Toyota Tundra 4x4 with all the bells and whistles, or equivalent, or one of Musk's plug-ins. There are many, many folks who buy these high price depreciables, over and over thru the years, while my audio system is pretty much a one-time acquisition and keeps its value relatively well. So, who's the greater fool? Plus, I don't have to buy gasoline, oil, tires, expensive insurance etc, etc. With this confession, don't lump me in with the "more money than brains" group, also I'm not too proud to ask for advice on this forum. Rock-on and long live vinyl. PS, I have a 2003 low-end Tundra and a 1995 Chevy Cheyenne, just in case you wonder.
Even 15.000 is serious money for the working man. Personally I prefer to go discrete about some of my audio equipment's price. There is a kind of common decency that must prevail. My point of view. PS : I'm sometime a little shocked reading such things as "looking for an affordable phono stage (under 5K)", perhaps I'm not alone ;-)
While I’m sure this is true, I make no apologies for the money I spend on audio. I worked my ass off for over a year to fund my latest toy. A lot of OT made it possible. It’s modest compared to what many spend ,but it was unattainable while my kids were young and now that they are out of school, no debt , and have great careers I can finally indulge a little.
I thought the Zu Druid speakers I purchased were high end for me, and then I spent some time listening to Vandersteen speakers (with the built in bass 11 step equalizer). You can pick your own price range, but they (IMO) sound so much better than the Zus, that at least for me, it could be affordable perhaps in the future. Of course, I'll keep my 20 year old truck until I die. Life is about priorities.
When I was a young, poor musician I would read the stereo magazines each month and lust after equipment that cost, in the 1970s, $500 or so. After 50 years of inflation, that same price point would be $3705 today. So, alright, I bought a couple of stereo mags for old-times sake several months ago and while they had a few products in the $3705 ballpark, virtually the entire review content was directed towards speakers that cost $160,000 and amps that cost $45,000. These days I can afford to buy equipment in the $5k range and do so on a regular basis. But $160k? Even though it would be possible, I would hate myself afterwards. The wealthy audiophile wannabe is faced with mags touting 6-figure stuff and salespeople that live for the dream of a gullible enough purchaser. When they go to buy a system, who's to say that $160k is not the normal amount for a quality speaker? They wouldn't know unless they had the background to make audible decisions. And the status trap has been detailed above. My belief is that there is a floor for quality high-end equipment and you have to pay at least that much. But when you go higher you may or may not get real value. Stereo systems and the upgrade mentality are peculiar in that there is no "best" system but, rather, a lot of companies vying for the most prestigious reputation. When you spring for a Ferrari, you get a complete car. When you spring for a $160k loudspeaker, you've got a whole lot of additional stuff to buy. Adds up over a million real quick. Khorn's original post is of great interest to me because I hardly ever meet any other audiophiles and have never met anyone who has bought $160k speakers. Guess I'm not hanging around in the right places...
Another contrast is between people in the hobby vs. outside of the hobby. Spending $4K on a pair of speakers is considered completely insane to most of those on the outside, whereas here it is considered somewhat "reasonable".
people with much more than average disposable income. i know a dealer in higher end audio and they survive on margin at relatively low volume- as do the makers.
