Justify high prices on some pre/pros (1 Viewer)

[Scott Oliver]

Tony, are you one of the lucky few who have heard a 950 (or have they shipped already, haven't kept up with every 950 thread)? Hopefully so, for to say the 950 is 99% of perfection is a huge statement, and silly to say without having heard the product in question.
Secondly for me, I've got to disagree with your 99% rule. Yes, there is a definant point of diminishing returns, but in my case it does not start at 99% of a perfect score or sound or whatever. For you it is 99%, for me it would probably be about 75%, and for someone else that diminsihing return could be 88.88%
My big point is that someone shouldn't ask others to justify this or that, especially when it comes to money and preference issues. Everyone is going to have differing points of diminishing return, especially on something that is as heard to judge as audio.
The only way to truly judge a product is to give it a listen. Then again based upon your money and preference issues, you alone could determine your own set price vs. performance value for a piece of audio equipment, and finally you could then justify or damn the piece based upon this value of yours.
Hey John,
How much you renting that space for? Looks to be a sweet deal!

 

[RichardMA]

I've owned a bunch of processors since the inception of

home theater (around 1989) and they ran the gamut from

inexpensive (relatively) to "high end." IMO, the three

things that define what consititutes a good one are:

-Sound

-Flexibility with internal controls

-Build quality/reliability.

Looks sometimes go hand in hand with build quality, but

not always.

But I think the middle-man, distribution price points

are a bit much sometimes. The Outlaw is made in Taiwan or China but so are Adcom and Rotel, both of which cost alot more. When it comes to the high end, it seems like perhaps part of the huge cost (because internal parts simply don't add

up to a substantial percentate of what some of these things are worth) is due to a substantial per processor upcharge to cover development costs. For instance, when Paradigm brought out there first powered speakers, they cost almost double the price of the unpowered units of the same type.

A speaker unpowered that cost $300/pair now cost $600. Even thought the parts cost for the internal amps were no

more than $20 per speaker. I know this because I sold them the electronics to make the amps. Most high-end companies are a fraction the size of large Japanese firms and they expect to sell far fewer high end processors than Sony expects to sell receivers. This no doubt contributes to the need to charge high prices, in order to amortize the cost of the product development. Especially now that processors seem to be going obsolete rather more quickly than in years past.