Don’t let the upgrade bug bite you in the “bum”: Be happy with what you have and enjoy the music

[andromedaaudio]

I Think the upgrade bug only really bites if you hear something better and ked and ron surely do their best to hear it all.
Besides that i have the impression Both are in it for the music regardless of it being an electrostat ,cone or horndesign
High, medium OR lower in price.
Same for amps and sources , a lot of people in the high end audio Bizz are driven by other motivations imo

 

[FrantzM]

Several european audio journals use weighting formulas for grading on performance, also including aspects such as quality for price. In general, more expensive items gets higher points. IMHO there is a too strong bias due to the preference of the magazine reviewers.

IMHO for practical purposes it is more useful to have items grouped by price classes than just by alphabetical order.

Ked's post answers this feeble rationale...

To summarize, in a broken market, price will never correlate top quality. You pay for it based on your individual estimate

 

[bonzo75]

In formulating my point of view I never had an expectation that anyone would simply spend more money and automatically expect to get better performance. I would have thought in a forum such as this, it would go without saying that extensive auditions of more expensive components are essential, apart from anything else such as soliciting peer reviews and opinions as well as independent professional ones. That is the only way to ensure upgrading will yield better performance. But I guess this did not go without saying.

This happens all the time, people buy without extensive auditions, and solicit reviews from people who have incomplete knowledge. Hence market is inefficient.

HiFi World magazine in the UK, for example, will give a product a percentage grading but it is based on the price class. So that is a good starting point. If you buy an "85%" component for $4,000 then upgrade to an "85%" component for $10,000, you will get noticeably better performance, assuming you do the mandatory homework to confirm the component synergises correctly and delivers the upgraded performance.

The bolded line is a big assumption. Essentially both your paras put faith in the audiophile doing his homework correctly and throughly. Many audiophiles are too tied in with family, work, or simply too old to do that.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Ked's post answers this feeble rationale...

if we are looking for a general truth, Francisco is closer to it. and the majority of high end seekers would find truth in it.

Ked's 'world-view' is his personal reality, but not one most of us can use.

we can all learn from Ked and be properly skeptical and search for those exceptions, but also realize that paying for more performance is not in-valid and can be right more times than not. my little twist on Francisco's perspective is that brick and mortar brands are many times not good long term values as they get upgraded so often. which is a completely different subject matter.....and maybe related to the importance of extensive auditions Ked mentions. hard to actually do for many of us.

and I'm an owner of both Ked's favs GG and the Tenor 75 watt OTL's that he notes as part of the 'evidence' of a broken market. exceptions (and what they require to make work) really more prove Francisco's perspective than Ked's.....as they typically require roads much less traveled.....and are not choices for most of us.

 

[bonzo75]

if we are looking for a general truth, Francisco is closer to it. and the majority of high end seekers would find truth in it.

Ked's 'world-view' is his personal reality, but not one most of us can use.

we can all learn from Ked and be properly skeptical and search for those exceptions, but also realize that paying for more performance is not in-valid and can be right more times than not. my little twist on Francisco's perspective is that brick and mortar brands are many times not good long term values as they get upgraded so often. which is a completely different subject matter.....and maybe related to the importance of extensive auditions Ked mentions. hard to actually do for many of us.

and I'm an owner of both Ked's favs GG and the Tenor 75 watt OTL's that he notes as part of the 'evidence' of a broken market. exceptions (and what they require to make work) really more prove Francisco's perspective than Ked's.....as they typically require roads much less traveled.....and are not choices for most of us.

Mike, you could have paid more than you did for other off the shelf components. What you paid for, apart from your components, is customization. Some of it done by you yourself, some by being a beta tester so that the end sound was to your liking. The Yamamuras and the grands are also customized. At whatever a person's price point, it might make more sense to divert funds to customization, especially more the funds available. So might have to do away with a 100k speaker if you can get 30k speaker + 30k customization (I can't confirm the crossover points, but you get the point). Mik's Jadis have kilos and kilos of platinum transformers with silver wiring in them. He did not buy other expensive amps like wavacs instead, because he could customize the Jadis.

 

[bonzo75]

if we are looking for a general truth, Francisco is closer to it. and the majority of high end seekers would find truth in it.

Ked's 'world-view' is his personal reality, but not one most of us can use.

we can all learn from Ked and be properly skeptical and search for those exceptions, but also realize that paying for more performance is not in-valid and can be right more times than not. my little twist on Francisco's perspective is that brick and mortar brands are many times not good long term values as they get upgraded so often. which is a completely different subject matter.....and maybe related to the importance of extensive auditions Ked mentions. hard to actually do for many of us.

and I'm an owner of both Ked's favs GG and the Tenor 75 watt OTL's that he notes as part of the 'evidence' of a broken market. exceptions (and what they require to make work) really more prove Francisco's perspective than Ked's.....as they typically require roads much less traveled.....and are not choices for most of us.

Also, exceptions aside, have all of Esoteric, DCS, MSB, Trinity, and other buyers explored each other's choices as well as Totaldac and Aries Cerat? What about Wadax Atlantis and Neodine Origine?

 

[microstrip]

Also, exceptions aside, have all of Esoteric, DCS, MSB, Trinity, and other buyers explored each other's choices as well as Totaldac and Aries Cerat? What about Wadax Atlantis and Neodine Origine?

Again, why are you focusing in the very top prices and little known brands, where other factors such as distribution and after sales service will affect choice, and statistics will be very low?

 

[andromedaaudio]

I think people like ked are very much needed in the high end to put things in perspective , quite the opposite of the likes that take a well known amp from the " bestenliste ", and buy an extremely high megaherz digital system connect it with the thickest cables on the market and call it high end

Ps and off course mostly play cds that sound good on the system .

 

[bonzo75]

Again, why are you focusing in the very top prices and little known brands, where other factors such as distribution and after sales service will affect choice, and statistics will be very low?

Yes, but that was my question - how do we establish what attributes should be paid for - you might value after sales more than I, I might give weight to something else - the RRP factors in so many attributes. And like you said, stats are very low. So with the information system broken, there is no way to establish value (unless one has heard it and compared, everything else is just an attempt to mitigate the inefficiency of a proper valuation). The best you can do is go to a well distributed well reviewed brand to the max you can pay, and hope it sounds good.

I do that for movies. I take the maximum star ratings, and watch the films, hoping they will be good. If the movie is not good I walk out in 45 mins, sometimes it is good and I stay. By focusing on ratings, I am increasing the probablity of a good hit. And the movie market is much more efficient. Hifi shopping is more similar to restaurant shopping, unfortunately.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, you could have paid more than you did for other off the shelf components. What you paid for, apart from your components, is customization. Some of it done by you yourself, some by being a beta tester so that the end sound was to your liking. The Yamamuras and the grands are also customized. At whatever a person's price point, it might make more sense to divert funds to customization, especially more the funds available. So might have to do away with a 100k speaker if you can get 30k speaker + 30k customization (I can't confirm the crossover points, but you get the point). Mik's Jadis have kilos and kilos of platinum transformers with silver wiring in them. He did not buy other expensive amps like wavacs instead, because he could customize the Jadis.

no disagreement.

myself, and your direction and Mik's.......we are not typical at all. and, of course, there are a few others. we are all-in to get exactly what we want. we don't follow any rule.

most others might talk 'all-in' but actions don't support it. so we cannot see ourselves as evidence of anything other than single-mindedness. and I'm not judging or assigning right and wrong.

so looking at general ways things happen, price and value are connected mostly. forget about our small group.

 

[amirm]

Years back when high-definition video formats were being introduced I met with the R&D VP of a high-end company to see if they would support them. They wanted to but asked if they could make their own drive. I explained that this was not possible and why would he want to make his own drive. He said that is because they make their own DVD drives then. I asked again why they did that. He said that they invested a ton of R&D in how the motor sounded as the disc drawer opened and closed! No way could they use a "cheap sounding" drive from major CE companies.

Fast forward a few years later and I am chatting with an audio manufacturer's rep about his background. He said that he was the #1 salesman for the above brand in the store he worked. I asked how he got there and he said, "guy would walk in to buy a mid-priced player. All I had to do is ask him to push the open/close button on that high-end brand above and it was as good as sold!"

If I go and build 10 amps a year, should I price them at $100,000 or $150,000? If I pick the latter, did it elevate the fidelity because I did?

Ton of factors go into high-end products retail pricing. No way can there be generalization that it translates into fidelity. The two are so loosely coupled that the connection might as well not be there. You need to be in the industry to know the details here and have a ton of knowledge about cost of manufacturing, running a business, distribution, etc. to know the answers.

 

[853guy]

Yes, but that was my question - how do we establish what attributes should be paid for - you might value after sales more than I, I might give weight to something else - the RRP factors in so many attributes. And like you said, stats are very low. So with the information system broken, there is no way to establish value (unless one has heard it and compared, everything else is just an attempt to mitigate the inefficiency of a proper valuation). The best you can do is go to a well distributed well reviewed brand to the max you can pay, and hope it sounds good.

I do that for movies. I take the maximum star ratings, and watch the films, hoping they will be good. If the movie is not good I walk out in 45 mins, sometimes it is good and I stay. By focusing on ratings, I am increasing the probablity of a good hit. And the movie market is much more efficient. Hifi shopping is more similar to restaurant shopping, unfortunately.

Hey Bonzo,

I think this blurs the lines more than it does clarify things, especially in terms of length of time a given experience is expected to produce results.

And despite the fact that movies, restaurant meals and hifi components all require a vision from their (co)creators to come into existence, and all are subject to reviews from various pundits, there’s too little crossover to be meaningful.

Once a movie is released it is almost never re-created. There may be a director’s cut, an extended version, or a re-release in which it is digitally remastered either for posterity and/or a new format, but the consumer is only ever asked to give two or three hours of their time in investment relative to whatever price they paid. That is, it’s a relatively hermetic experience, in which the consumer has pretty much zero say on how the product is produced and consumed - whatever makes it to the theatre or Blu-ray is final. No matter what you thought of the movie, it’s not going to be changing anytime soon. There are no come backs, but then again, you don’t have to ever watch it again either.

A dish served by a restaurant is constantly re-created from scratch. The variables inherent in cuisine are much, much more volatile, not limited to quality of produce, skill of the chefs and time to table. The dish you raved about last year that sucked last night? That’s fine-dining for you. Where this differs from the movie experience is that you’re given a real-time level of interaction with the process. Didn’t like it? Say something to the maître d’. Ask for your dish to be re-created again. Still didn’t like it? Maybe the scallops weren’t plentiful this year because a weird algae took out half the population. It’s vary rare for any fine-dining establishment to want to serve sub-standard food, especially if they have a reputation to uphold, and especially if that reputation is gilded with Michelin stars. Get to the end of the night and you’re still unhappy? Chances are you won’t be paying full price, and hey, there are plenty of other restaurants vying for your attention. It was just one meal, you need never go back, and you can write a snarky hate-filled review on TripAdvisor to make yourself feel better.

In this regard, both the above are ultimately subjugated to the taste of the consumer, and as ephemeral experiences that are soon over tend not to be valued in the same way as consumer goods.

A hifi component is infinitely more complicated than either of the above two experience because not only is a not an ephemeral event in the way a movie or a meal is, it’s subjected to variables completely outside its creator's control (music choice and system/room) and its ultimate performance "modified" by the user's taste/skills in system integration. And because it’s an electro-mechanical component requiring a level of long-term investment, ownership - not listening - becomes the defining variable. I first heard about the Tenor 75 via Mike’s system thread on Audiogon maybe 10 years ago (maybe longer). It took all of three years of being an interested bystander to conclude I would not be seeking them out for myself. Because of the sound? Because of the price? No, because of the reported ownership experience.

I can walk out of a movie or turn it off and it costs me whatever I paid to watch it (or simply my time if streaming on Netflix); I can walk out of a restaurant having negotiated the price of my meal and simply go to McDonalds for something more consistent. Hey, it was only one night, right?

But with a piece of hifi gear the expectation is one of longer-term value. Duration of experience comes into play. Sound is only one and possibly the most easily misleading variable to consider. It’s one thing to go from room to room and hear component X in system Y and decide it’s amazing - it’s entirely another thing to own component X in system Z - especially when system Z is your system and component X was purchased using your money. And when it starts to misbehave as electro-mechanical things are sometimes want to do irrespective of their providence (or simply doesn’t perform relative to expectation) how amazing it sounded in system Y is really irrelevant. So you experiment with footers and cables and racks and jars filled with pebbles. The investment of time in optimising component X for your particular system costs time, effort and often, further expenditure. Skin in the game really kicks in. Of all the factors involved in selecting a hifi component, personally, for me, length of time results can be consistently reproduced is probably one of the more important, if not the most.

Nassim Taleb has a heuristic in that he only ever consumes beverages over a thousand years old - wine, water and coffee. Why? Because history has intricately detailed the long-term effects of over-consumption (and a thousand years is a long time and a lot of lifetimes). So while ratings in-and-of-themselves may help determine sonic choices relative to preference, they almost never shed light on longer-term effects, in the same way the fact that Red Bull gives you wings but doesn’t shed light on the longer-term effects of drinking it every day. (It’s probably agonising death, but that’s a guess.)

 

[bonzo75]

Hi 853, you answered some of the questions I asked - which is what attributes do you give value to. You said "Sound is just one, and probably the most easily misleading variable..." - that is fine. My point is, as long as you and I do not agree on how we should weigh different variables - we will not be able to agree on what the sum total of the value should be. So if I tell you an RRP of 50k for Wilson and 30k for restored Apogee, how do you know based on RRP alone what variable has higher value in which component. You might choose one with higher value on service, I might choose one on sonics. Ditto optimisation. Some want plug and play, some want to set it up - that's their hobby.

Regarding restaurants, I stress test restaurants. I go back often sometimes encourage a group to, so we can sample as many dishes as possible and only then make a call. But my point was more that - the costliest restaurant might be French, while someone might prefer a local, low service, home cooked Asian meal in some small village. And that's fine. When you go to the french restaurant you value something else. If you have read the blog Marginal Revolution, the economist Tyler Cowen has a theory that restaurants start off small, get known for their food, then get known as the place to take your gf/wife out to, and soon lose their way on the cuisine. He avoids restaurants with beautiful looking people. Well - agree or disagree, I don't like Michelins. Coincidently, I realized some of my favorite restaurants in London were also on Zagat - including Yashin, which was the top of their list (not sure if it still is).

I agree with your skin in the game point - hifi is unfortunately a game of sunk costs to an extent, coupled with lack of information given the nature of the hobby - research has to come after wife, kids, work, etc

 

[853guy]

Hi 853, you answered some of the questions I asked - which is what attributes do you give value to. You said "Sound is just one, and probably the most easily misleading variable..." - that is fine. My point is, as long as you and I do not agree on how we should weigh different variables - we will not be able to agree on what the sum total of the value should be. So if I tell you an RRP of 50k for Wilson and 30k for restored Apogee, how do you know based on RRP alone what variable has higher value in which component. You might choose one with higher value on service, I might choose one on sonics. Ditto optimisation. Some want plug and play, some want to set it up - that's their hobby.

Regarding restaurants, I stress test restaurants. I go back often sometimes encourage a group to, so we can sample as many dishes as possible and only then make a call. But my point was more that - the costliest restaurant might be French, while someone might prefer a local, low service, home cooked Asian meal in some small village. And that's fine. When you go to the french restaurant you value something else. If you have read the blog Marginal Revolution, the economist Tyler Cowen has a theory that restaurants start off small, get known for their food, then get known as the place to take your gf/wife out to, and soon lose their way on the cuisine. He avoids restaurants with beautiful looking people. Well - agree or disagree, I don't like Michelins. Coincidently, I realized some of my favorite restaurants in London were also on Zagat - including Yashin, which was the top of their list (not sure if it still is).

I agree with your skin in the game point - hifi is unfortunately a game of sunk costs to an extent, coupled with lack of information given the nature of the hobby - research has to come after wife, kids, work, etc

Hey Bonzo,

I agree in the main, but I still don’t think we can discount expectation relative to duration of experience.

I know the chances of me not enjoying a film are relatively high irrespective of providence. Whiplash is rated at 88% on Metacritic and was directed by the youngest-ever Academy Award winner. I hated it. I could watch it again and change my mind or confirm my existing opinion of it, but I don’t expect it to provide value beyond the time it takes to watch it or switch it off.

Same with restaurants - one meal, one night. I have low expectations because I understand some of the volatility inherent in eating out, and because ultimately it only needs to provide value relative to a single, isolated evening.

But saying you might value sonics whereas I might value service (which is not what I was saying - I'm saying consistency of performance over the long-term) without taking into consideration value relative to duration of experience is to ignore the realities of what it takes to have skin in the game. I’ll hazard a guess here but even with the paucity of data we have, I can’t imagine a single person among us (and by “us” I mean “crazily insane individuals who spend car-money on first-world luxuries of illiquid value”) being able to justify the purchase of an item that only gave revelatory and life-changing results once per year (cartridges might be the exception to the rule). Maybe I’m way off here, but if a hifi component is silenced through inoperation it really doesn’t matter how good it sounds on its best day if its worst days are the other 364 days of the year. It's pretty much the reason I abandoned the LP12 - on its best day it could be brilliant, but it had way, way too many average days to be worth persevering with (that, and I discovered idlers). I certainly can’t imagine sustained enthusiasm for something like the Lampi had ?ukasz not moved from point-to-point to all PCB two years ago (but that's an assumption on my part).

But again, like you say, all you and I are really doing is revealing preferences. Stated preference is one thing, and easy to do with little to no skin in the game, revealed preference is another.

Be well.

 

[RayDunzl]

Upgrade Conundrum:

If the piece you have now doesn't "do it" for you, how do you decide the next one will, since, it would seem the last choice missed the mark?

 

[16hz lover]

I'll disagree with you on this one. There are 2 restaurants that come to mind that have been owned by the same families for over 30 years that I go to yearly when visiting out of state. My whole family and other friends all agree that it never changes. I asked the owners son on my last visit about franchising as it is such a unique restaurant. He told me that they have always used the same ingredients and have the same supplier that they started out with years ago.
Fast food changes every time you eat there too?
Successful restaurants have to be extremely consistent.
I realize that this is a waste of time, so carry on with the discussion.

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

The bolded line is a big assumption. Essentially both your paras put faith in the audiophile doing his homework correctly and throughly. Many audiophiles are too tied in with family, work, or simply too old to do that.

I guess I do not get around enough The audiophiles I have known or currently know are pretty dedicated, extremely knowledgeable, have great listening skills and put a lot of effort into extracting the best from their systems. I think they would be a little insulted (at least to some extent) to be accused of being the things you mentioned, especially the "old" bit. Is there an age limit that you prescribe beyond which we should just give up on hifi and move onto other things such as pre-arranging the finish on our coffins (I hear piano black is really popular at the moment but I'm partial to simple boxwood as it gives me more money to spend on my next amplifier upgrade).

 

[bonzo75]

Hey Bonzo,

I agree in the main, but I still don’t think we can discount expectation relative to duration of experience.

I know the chances of me not enjoying a film are relatively high irrespective of providence. Whiplash is rated at 88% on Metacritic and was directed by the youngest-ever Academy Award winner. I hated it. I could watch it again and change my mind or confirm my existing opinion of it, but I don’t expect it to provide value beyond the time it takes to watch it or switch it off.

Same with restaurants - one meal, one night. I have low expectations because I understand some of the volatility inherent in eating out, and because ultimately it only needs to provide value relative to a single, isolated evening.

But saying you might value sonics whereas I might value service (which is not what I was saying - I'm saying consistency of performance over the long-term) without taking into consideration value relative to duration of experience is to ignore the realities of what it takes to have skin in the game. I’ll hazard a guess here but even with the paucity of data we have, I can’t imagine a single person among us (and by “us” I mean “crazily insane individuals who spend car-money on first-world luxuries of illiquid value”) being able to justify the purchase of an item that only gave revelatory and life-changing results once per year (cartridges might be the exception to the rule). Maybe I’m way off here, but if a hifi component is silenced through inoperation it really doesn’t matter how good it sounds on its best day if its worst days are the other 364 days of the year. It's pretty much the reason I abandoned the LP12 - on its best day it could be brilliant, but it had way, way too many average days to be worth persevering with (that, and I discovered idlers). I certainly can’t imagine sustained enthusiasm for something like the Lampi had ?ukasz not moved from point-to-point to all PCB two years ago (but that's an assumption on my part).

But again, like you say, all you and I are really doing is revealing preferences. Stated preference is one thing, and easy to do with little to no skin in the game, revealed preference is another.

Be well.

Whiplash is a decent film. Nothing to debate about. I liked the musical inspiration in the story though would have preferred better movie-making. I too can change my mind about hifi. Which is why one should not buy immediately. Just fyi, to your Whiplash analogy, I did not like Apogees initially, when I heard the originals or the wrong restores. I liked them only in certain set ups. In fact, I dislike more Apogee set ups than I like them. So I "did watch it again and change my mind. And went on to revisit to confirm my existing opinion".

I don't have low expectations of restaurants. I either eat a healthy salad - wholefoods or a couple of salad places in London that do good fibrous veg plus meat and fish at roughly 7 - 8 quid, or I go all out. I don't want to pay for mediocre food that is known to be unhealthy and mediocre. Then, even paying 10 or 20 quid is to me a waste. I don't mind paying multiples that as long as I tick off some restaurants off my list, and if they taste good, all the better. It is just like hifi - listening to 3 or 4 TTs in a room ticks off a list, and if one of them is good and purchasable, all the more better. Crossing off a product is also progress. And I think restaurants are much more consistent than what you are saying.

Regarding sonics and service - I was referring to consistency of performance over the long-term. I don't know any hifi component I am considering that will work 1 day and off 364, or anywhere close. Even the Tenor 75 I won't be buying the ones made pre-2005. With Apogees I have no such concerns, as their users are extremely long term. Btw, Lampi fans were extremely enthusiastic when we had the point to point too. But examples aside, the point you and I are clarifying is, would guys in the US buy NAT audio from Serbia knowing there is no after-sales in the US and their users advise after-sales help? Well they are doing it. Personally I wouldn't.

I agree stated and revealed preference is another - the decisions that happen between sonic preference to making out the payment is a whole different game.

 

[853guy]

I'll disagree with you on this one. There are 2 restaurants that come to mind that have been owned by the same families for over 30 years that I go to yearly when visiting out of state. My whole family and other friends all agree that it never changes. I asked the owners son on my last visit about franchising as it is such a unique restaurant. He told me that they have always used the same ingredients and have the same supplier that they started out with years ago.
Fast food changes every time you eat there too?
Successful restaurants have to be extremely consistent.
I realize that this is a waste of time, so carry on with the discussion.

Hi 16hz,

What type of restaurant is it - what does it serve?

If the menu never changes and they’ve used the same ingredients and supplier for 30 years my guess is they’re not experimenting much or creating dishes based on in-season ingredients. Hence my comment re: volatility and why some will vary greatly relative to expectations and others will remain consistent. Same menu, same staff, same ingredients, same supplier = less volatility. Different menu, different chef, different (seasonal) ingredients, different suppliers = greater volatility.

Again, expectations define experience. Honestly - and I’m being sincere about this - some of the most satisfying meals I’ve ever had have been from major fast-food chains (and often at international airports, why is that?). But that’s largely because the eating experience is heavily commoditized. Some of the least satisfying meals I’ve ever had have been at haute cuisine establishments. But that’s largely because the eating experience is artisanal. The hit to miss ratio decreases exponentially, which is to say that fine dining carries more inherent risk because of the increase in complexity of variables (as above).

But that’s okay - I’m not expecting the same things from something with low volatility like a Coke as I am from something with high volatility like a Grand cru. I’m more willing to be disappointed because of the greater risk inherent in the process of production. Conversely, greater risk often brings greater reward, as happened recently with a 2011 Daniel Boland-Groy à Germigny Champagne Prestige Brut. It was fantastic.

I’m not saying one experience is better than the other, I can enjoy both equally and for different reasons but I temper my expectations relative what it takes to produce one versus the other.

Let’s just put it this way: When was the last time you took back a Coke because it wasn’t what you were expecting?

 

[853guy]

Whiplash is a decent film. Nothing to debate about. I liked the musical inspiration in the story though would have preferred better movie-making. I too can change my mind about hifi. Which is why one should not buy immediately. Just fyi, to your Whiplash analogy, I did not like Apogees initially, when I heard the originals or the wrong restores. I liked them only in certain set ups. In fact, I dislike more Apogee set ups than I like them. So I "did watch it again and change my mind. And went on to revisit to confirm my existing opinion".

I don't have low expectations of restaurants. I either eat a healthy salad - wholefoods or a couple of salad places in London that do good fibrous veg plus meat and fish at roughly 7 - 8 quid, or I go all out. I don't want to pay for mediocre food that is known to be unhealthy and mediocre. Then, even paying 10 or 20 quid is to me a waste. I don't mind paying multiples that as long as I tick off some restaurants off my list, and if they taste good, all the better. It is just like hifi - listening to 3 or 4 TTs in a room ticks off a list, and if one of them is good and purchasable, all the more better. Crossing off a product is also progress. And I think restaurants are much more consistent than what you are saying.

Regarding sonics and service - I was referring to consistency of performance over the long-term. I don't know any hifi component I am considering that will work 1 day and off 364, or anywhere close. Even the Tenor 75 I won't be buying the ones made pre-2005. With Apogees I have no such concerns, as their users are extremely long term. Btw, Lampi fans were extremely enthusiastic when we had the point to point too. But examples aside, the point you and I are clarifying is, would guys in the US buy NAT audio from Serbia knowing there is no after-sales in the US and their users advise after-sales help? Well they are doing it. Personally I wouldn't.

I agree stated and revealed preference is another - the decisions that happen between sonic preference to making out the payment is a whole different game.

Hey Bonzo,

I won’t state why I thought Whiplash didn’t work, but suffice to say it’s not worth me re-watching. I’ve heard hifi components that I feel very similarly about, but need not mention.

As I posted in response to 16hz, it’s not so much that I have low expectations of restaurants (I should have more carefully worded my above sentence), just that my expectations are tempered relative to the inherent volatility inherent in heavily commoditised “cuisine” versus artisanal cuisine (i.e. Coke vs Grand cru).

Of course, the 1 good/364 bad day analogy is an exaggeration. But then, you’ve never owned an LP12, right?

I probably sound like I'm disagreeing with you, but I think we're probably more in agreement than not.