Bonkers

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

What happens to an industry when it goes stark feckin' mad and loses any grip on reality.

http://www.my-hiend.com/vbb/showthread. ... h-End-Show

Even plugs start at about 1000 euros.

[vincula2008]

I think many people has lost it and the industry has decided to rip 'em off. They've all forgotten it was about music reproduction or fidelity TO THE MUSIC and not TO THE EQUIPMENT. Audiophile records, audiophile downloads, high res files to be played in top-notch equipment, with people digesting pseudo-scientific vocabulary in their pathetic attempt to stand out from the crowd. I play music myself and need less than 5 seconds to know whether any equipment has the ability to play MUSIC or not. I can also recognize GOOD MUSIC no matter the equipment in which it's being played and I'm able to enjoy Charlie Parker through my DAB radio in the kitchen -which I rescued from a garbage can- with no problem at all. I usually turn it up, especially if the kettle's on. I love my grandfather records. I owed them my passion. I play them. I enjoy them. I don't care. Music's so powerful. Pops and clicks? Yes, they're got a few, but I wish I could ever play like them myself, boy, clicks and all!

Germans are known to be fascinated by MACHINES, especially if made of METAL. The gospel has apparently spread to the rest of the world. We must all worship the work of CMC-machines. Ja, wohl! British "kitchen hi-fi tradition" has IMHO produced the best no-frills best sounding equipment, products with SOUL, usually with an idea of SHARING a passion with others, a community of music lovers. Same philosophy applies in Italy, Spain, Denmark, France...

I'd come up with a recent example of the current state of things. I was in Berlin last month with the missus and I managed to visit a few vinyl record stores around Kreuzberg. All of them were stupidly overpriced. Vinyl's chic now. I could have bought records in London or here in Copenhagen (not especially cheap either) at a much better price. Go figure. I didn't buy anything, but I managed to pick up a little brochure of the renown hifi retailer phono-phono.de, presenting equipment from Brinkmann. I decided to pop by, as I was 200 metres away.

The place's located in a beautiful (and rather expensive) building. Everything feels "exclusive" (read "excluding"). People were sitting around in silence, listening to Brinkmann electronics and records decks, along with EMT and other very expensive carts. I thought I was in a church. Only the "guru" did the talking. What were they playing? Well, you can imagine: Diane Krall, Patricia Barber and the usual suspects. You get the picture. They didn't even care (dare?) flipping the record. They only keep playing THE SAME TRACK, so that they could COMPARE and enjoy the NUANCES OF THE EQUIPMENT.

I stayed there for 15 minutes and rushed back to my wife. I got scared. I thought they're were all mentally deranged. "It didn't take long", the wifey said. "No, it did not. Even though I stayed a little longer than I wanted to. I wonder why".

The mind boggles...

Regards,

Vincula

[Cloth-Ears]

Probably the funniest moment I ever had in hifi was visiting the Clearaudio room at a show, where I raised the issue of value for money in the case of their chest high oil rig style floorstanding turntable. I found the po-faced seriousness of the immaculately dressed rep quite hilarious. What was it, a hundred grand or something ? The price of a flat in some places. Preposterous ! But they're not the worst are they ? I wish I'd tolled them a bit more, perhaps suggesting a play off with my Rega 3.

[Classicrock]

Some German Guy's designed the ultimate TT. It has so much metal that it must cost a fortune to make. But it's pig ugly and too large for most dwellings and takes 3 days to set up. Fremer is drooling over it on his web site.

[BBvideo 425,350]http://youtu.be/3C84geXA8LU[/BBvideo]

[jammy395]

Yep theyve lost the plot.......

[antonio66]

Yep theyve lost the plot.......

+1. Some of the ugliest components I have seen although there are 1 or 2 exceptions. I went there 10 years ago with my brother and thoroughly enjoyed the show and local hospitality, but looking at this years show I don't think we'll be rushing back.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

It is the death throws of their type of industry. It is reliant on the super rich and must have toys. How many do they sell, how many do they need to sell at that money. For me the market has become like the boat show, or private plane or helicopter, and some of it costs as much.

The British hi-fi shows are an amateur attempt to emulate it, and in the process fall between the two stools of sensible product and this daft bollocks. This is why within the cognoscenti Scalford has been so well looked on. We need to go back to our origins, as that is what the real part of the industry is doing, back to the hobbyist and music enthusiast. I don't know how as we still have far too few companies doing what I do, and so much conflict has been created on the forums by the traditional trade trying to stop me and hang on to their slurp.

I keep looking for ideas to promote the VFM low profit enthusiast products, like the loan scheme, because as has been proved people only have to listen to realise how they are and have been ripped off. BUT as can be seen by what happened at TAS the trade are scared stiff of it and will do anything they can to kill it off.

I always welcome any new ideas.

[Classicrock]

Form over function. Expensive casework but dubious what is inside. Hi-fi is for listening to, not looking at.

[BBvideo 425,350]http://youtu.be/a6_TVzO9bmE[/BBvideo]

[BBvideo 425,350]http://youtu.be/X005di7deeE[/BBvideo]

[BBvideo 425,350]http://youtu.be/o-oW1LTBs6g[/BBvideo]

[_D_S_J_R_]

All that wasted and considerable effort to play those shitty but charming bits of black plastic on them, with mono'd messed up bass, compressed and eq'd mids and nothing to listen to much over 13k 'cos the cutters can't usually deal with it without overheating... So much is done to the music to get it onto vinyl it beggars belief we can still listen to it and enjoy what comes out.

The guitar music accompanying the last vid sums it up - mic in the guitar sound-box and boring as hell - just like the gear ultimately

Don't know about you chaps, but I get so much more fun from now cheap vintage stuff and of course, have good references with the gear I make for a living.

[Classicrock]

Agree this gear can be underwhelming. Even more so when you take a sneaky look at the price tags. I understand that Sterling and other top notch cutting facilities get over 20Khz from vinyl with no heads popping. Which may go a long way to explain why some vinyl records are exceptionally good sounding. I think expensive vinyl set ups can be great in as much they lower the noise floor and minimise imperfections. Heavy engineering can be expensive but there are limits to how much this improves sound. However I can't see the justification for prices charged when electronics only are involved. More complex circuitry is likely to give worse sound. They rely on a lot of quoted watts output and bling casework to justify the cost.