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    Hi res again?

    From an end-user perspective, I think there's an important issue about hi-res that doesn't get waved around too much. In TV, the arguments for HD are supported by a picture that is is demonstrably better, and appears so to people who are not 'engaged' with home theater. In fact, the picture is...
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    Euphoric index of Audio Performance

    Personally, I think Coke tastes 1,000 times better when it forms a part of a Cuba Libre, and that really only works when one of the other parts is Havana Club Añejo 3 Años. The real one, not the Bacardi version you get in the USA. One man's 'meh!' is another man's 'OMFG!'. Some kind of Euphoric...
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    Audio Dealer Business Model

    Yes, I know several who use facebook, and who tweet and blog. I know other who have seminars, offer clinics, set-up advice and the rest. They get the usual suspects turn up to these events. I also know a retailer who worked extensively with the local college network, offered 10% off at the...
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    Audio Dealer Business Model

    The usual suspects in budget audio 30 years ago are still the usual suspects in budget audio. The prices have gone up somewhat, but there's still good stuff to be had. Only last year, Rega did a show in Manchester, England, which featured the company's P1 turntable the (now discontinued) Brio...
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    Do we NEED subwoofers with full-range speakers, and how many?

    Yes, but when you get used to being paid by the word, why use one word when you can knock out 10,000?
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    Do we NEED subwoofers with full-range speakers, and how many?

    I'd say the situation was far, far worse with a smaller loudspeaker (especially a smaller ported) unless it was intended purely as satellite and had almost no content below 200Hz. A full-range loudspeaker might be in the worst-case nodal point where there's a 6dB hump at 80Hz. A bass trap will...
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    Do we NEED subwoofers with full-range speakers, and how many?

    Going right back to the OP: The fundamental flaw in this logic is considering the subwoofer as simply augmenting the bass of a loudspeaker. If your loudspeakers resolve down to DC then no amount of subwoofer will augment that. In that case, a sub's role is to provide control over the lower...
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    Audio Dealer Business Model

    Yes, but if they aren't walking into the store under any circumstance, no amount of smart sales technique is going to work. You have to have someone to sell 'to' before you can begin to sell things. And right now, that isn't happening in enough numbers for anything, unless it's got an Apple...
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    Audio Dealer Business Model

    I don't think dealers are willfully suiciding their businesses. Some are doing well (a few extremely well, even in markets that are seen as burned out and driven only by iDevices). Some aren't. Many are trying everything they can to stop the rot. Some, regardless of doing everything right, will...
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    Reviewers pointing out sonic flaws in audio equipment

    Having worked for years under a points-score system, it's worth pointing out the difficulties such a system creates from the end user. All these questions are pretty much identical to the ones you get when working a points system: Is an 85% product at $1000 better or worse than a 90% one at...
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    Price, Value, Worth and COGS

    One of the problems facing the high-end is that over the last 40 or so years, equipment that gets you on that path to real music starts at a surprisingly and increasingly high level and low price point. The basal audio performance level in 2011 (iPod+Apple headphones) is astoundingly high when...
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    Price, Value, Worth and COGS

    One of the potential difficulties people in the industry face is the credibility of relatively inexpensive products in the traditional audiophile market. The Peachtree is a perfect case in point. I wrote a review of the Peachtree iDecco partnered with a pair of Amphion Argon 3 loudspeakers...
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    Price, Value, Worth and COGS

    Quad is reputed to have sold 100,000 405-2 amps and Linn has sold almost the same number of LP12s, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule.
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    Who is the best reviewer?

    Off topic stuff now here: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?3512-Price-Value-Worth-and-COGS
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    Price, Value, Worth and COGS

    The rise in price in high-end audio is there because there is a market for high-high-high end audio. And at the moment, that is doing better than the traditional high-end. Is this down to marketing? No, because the high-end audio industry is absolutely hopeless at marketing. Too many company...
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    Price, Value, Worth and COGS

    Continuing from the 'Who is the best reviewer' thread before that finally self-destructs... Yes, you are correct that the 'elite' category has shot into the stratosphere. As it has with most things that appeal to luxury buyers in far-away places. The normal values of COGS vs End User Price...
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    Who is the best reviewer?

    I think this might be better broken out into its own thread...
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    Who is the best reviewer?

    Agreed. Sorry!
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    Who is the best reviewer?

    Price is not an indicator of quality, but neither is it an inhibitor of quality. There is no reason why a big-ticket item need automatically be catering for a market of well-heeled magpies. That a pair of amps cost more than a Porsche Panamera Turbo S might border on insanity to most people...
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    Who is the best reviewer?

    Devil's advocate aside, a similar mind-set effectively stymied the UK audio market for much of the 1980s. A cabal of reviewers at the time stopped using their owned products as a reference point and started using them as the reference point, creating something close to a cult of the reviewer...
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