You know what grinds my gears?

[rollo]

  Yes Sir being in the Biz s a Manf. is not an inexpensive start up. the first thing besides talent and design the Manf. needs a neutral system to evaluate their creations. besides measurements one must listen. The system is not cheap. For years on end Maggie voiced their speakers using Audio Research tubed gear. That is the exact reason I bought Maggie 3A and used an AR DR250 Mk2 servo amp with 240W of triode bliss.
     Then buying testing equip, and parts upon parts until one gets the final product. R&D is not cheap. Granted no overhead for space used or a corporation it is still expensive for a start up.
     When I had my Architectural firm it cost me with salaries a pretty pennie just to put the key in the door. my employees had to generate 2.5 times their salary for me to make a profit.
     What grinds my gears is a Manf. with little overhead and pricing like the ones who do.
     The days of a Manf. charging 5x cost as retail is long long gone. There was a distributor then dealers. It all adds up. When there are no dealers and distributor they should be much lower priced. Some are . Some are not.
      IMO independent direct sales manufactures should charge 30% less not more.No overhead basically.
      Not picking on you that was a general statement. In your case the cost of the rare earth magnets are very expensive these days. Hence the rise in cost of your speaker. I'm sure there is more that raised the price so please tell us.


charles
     

[Response Audio]

Interesting the turns this thread takes.

Being a manufacturer is far from easy these days. The audio industry is tricky at best. Even for manufacturers that don't have large facilities with huge overhead expenses, running any company like this is expensive.
Overhead is still high. Running a business in New York is getting worse.

Speaker manufacturers have it the hardest as they need a ton of space.

I quickly outgrew a 800 sq. ft shop and went into a 2600 sq. ft shop. After loosing it in 2011, the cost  of building a new place is not cheap either.

It simply is not cheap to run a business.

[Werd]

Calling out a specific manufacturer is not being bias to a component type. it is when they make sweeping negative remarks about a particular device like cables void of any manufacturer. 

That's just ignorance or deceit and easily filtered by any intelligent reader. Eventually we all saw Van Alstine admit that he heard a difference with loaned upgrade speaker wires, but he said he would never spend money for that. BAM!

There you just proved my point. Or Frank did, he heard a difference but would not spend money on it. But tries to sell you an amp.  See they bag out to simplify their sales and move more money into their product.

[topround]

Does anyone remember the good ole days of the rave?

The rave was the best thing to happen to this hobby other than audio shows.

Great, gracious people opening their homes up, entertaining people for the pure joy of enjoying our hobby and each others company.

Sure we drank a lot and ate a lot but we had fun and we were all friends.
Then one day a few of us decided to get into the audio business and it all fell apart from there.

I know these words annoy the people reading it, but it is true, we were all in it for the hobby, to learn and experience, profit was not part of it.

Once you are in the business it all changes, you have to support your products, objectivity gets wiped away, the fun disappears, and we all can no longer gather to gain knowledge and experience. At least the way it used to be free and open. Now we have to be careful not to offend anyones products. True friends are able to call each other assholes, and  say their system sucks and still eat their food and drink their wine.

I remember the first day it hit me was when we where at Barry's house for a mini rave, I thought it was a mini rave but really it was designed to introduce  the new Merill amps to the club offering deep discounts to us.
That day changed it all for me, I knew it was over.

It was so much fun..........but alas those days are over except when we gather in small groups privately with no dealers, but the large scale fun is gone.

[richidoo]

Calling out a specific manufacturer is not being bias to a component type. it is when they make sweeping negative remarks about a particular device like cables void of any manufacturer.  

That's just ignorance or deceit and easily filtered by any intelligent reader. Eventually we all saw Van Alstine admit that he heard a difference with loaned upgrade speaker wires, but he said he would never spend money for that. BAM!

There you just proved my point. Or Frank did, he heard a difference but would not spend money on it.

Yes we are saying the same thing, there.

But tries to sell you an amp.  See they bag out to simplify their sales and move more money into their product.

I don't follow that, but that's OK.

[GT Audio Works]

 
      Not picking on you that was a general statement. In your case the cost of the rare earth magnets are very expensive these days. Hence the rise in cost of your speaker.

I'm sure there is more that raised the price so please tell us.


charles
     

Well Charlie, if you must know...its the super rare eel farts sprinkled with magic dust that allow it to compete against more expensive planars for $26,000 less.

Greg

[Werd]

Calling out a specific manufacturer is not being bias to a component type. it is when they make sweeping negative remarks about a particular device like cables void of any manufacturer.  

.

That's just ignorance or deceit and easily filtered by any intelligent reader. Eventually we all saw Van Alstine admit that he heard a difference with loaned upgrade speaker wires, but he said he would never spend money for that. BAM!

There you just proved my point. Or Frank did, he heard a difference but would not spend money on it.

Yes we are saying the same thing, there.

But tries to sell you an amp.  See they bag out to simplify their sales and move more money into their product.

I don't follow that, but that's OK.

He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp. 

[richidoo]

He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp.  

I see. Well, that could be. Of course, we don't know what he was thinking. Probably just trying to have fun with some frieends on AudioCircle, but finding it impossible because all the knowi it all smarky gotcha assholes waiting to prove him wrong about fucking hookup wires. When he was there in the beginning of HiFi people used his beloved zip wire and the music still worked. Hifi was born and grew to maturity and beyond on vinyl coated map cord, and 2 prong captive power cords. So in a way he's right, the wire thing is unnecessary, but time marches on, now we know it matters. And he's not using 1971 transistors in his amps either.

[richidoo]

its the super rare eel farts

!! Endangered Species Act violation !!

You must switch to vegetarian super rare eel farts at once!

[GT Audio Works]

its the super rare eel farts

!! Endangered Species Act violation !!

You must switch to vegetarian super rare eel farts at once!

No worries...farm raised, not wild caught.

[Werd]

He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp.  

I see. Well, that could be. Of course, we don't know what he was thinking. Probably just trying to have fun with some frieends on AudioCircle, but finding it impossible because all the knowi it all smarky gotcha assholes waiting to prove him wrong about fucking hookup wires. When he was there in the beginning of HiFi people used his beloved zip wire and the music still worked. Hifi was born and grew to maturity and beyond on vinyl coated map cord, and 2 prong captive power cords. So in a way he's right, the wire thing is unnecessary, but time marches on, now we know it matters. And he's not using 1971 transistors in his amps either.

The ironc thng is if I bougt one of his amps I would get him to hardwire what ever cable he had there so long as it was copper or gold plated
Copper and not that garbage nickel plated stuff I see all the time on generic stuff. 

[tmazz]

He is still bagging out on cables. But now he is put into words why. He doesn't want people to spend money on it. He is still in the same sales pitch mode. It is a waste of money and what you save on cables you can upgrade to a better amp. 

We may not agree with his conclusion, but he does have a logical point from an evaluation point of view. For a long time cables were considered an accesory that  you needed to purchase to complete your system and if you spent a little extra on them it would produce sonic improvements. Well that held true while even high quality cables were priced in the hundreds of dollars. But now that cables can cost several thousand dollars one needs to evaluate how much improvement the make relative to what else you can do with the money. When you were talking about upgrading a $2,000 amp with $200 worth of cable it was a pretty good bet that the combo could sound better than a $2200 amp. But now tha the cost of the speaker cables and ICs can easily exceed the price of that amp it is not such an easy call to say that a $2k amp plus premium cables will sound better than a $4k amp with lessor cables. Maybe yes, maybe no, but it is a decision that needs to be thought about and made. And I certainly don't mean to prejudge any cable based on price. We all know about certain purple cable that many think are pretty insanely price but many others consider a good investment based on what they do to their system vs what you wot
Ulsan have to spend in hardware upgrades to achieve the same performance upgrade. This sword can cut both ways. And the only waxy to know is to try things in your own system and see how you feel about them.

[_Scotty_]

While he might not be using transistors that date to 1971, he is using a replacement for the Hitachi lateral MOSFETs that were first producced in 1977 and subsequently used in the Hafler DH 200 which was produced between 1979 through 1982. When Hitachi stopped making these complementary pairs in 1993, he was lucky enough to find a British manufacturer who had decided to build replacements for these lateral MOSFET transistors. About the only thing that distinguishes these transistors is that they will not thermally runaway and they are fairly robust. They have a much higher RDS on value than a Vertical FET. Unless they are biased like crazy into pure class A as Monarchy did in their Class A amps, they will give you the old "mosfet mist" which characterizes all Class AB designs using the Hitachi lateral mosfets and their modern equivalents. Vertical power MOSFETs do not have the dreaded "MOSFET mist" when operated in Class AB.
To put not to fine a point on it, lateral MOSFETs circa approximately 40 years ago are not my cup of tea.
I agree with tmazz on the amplifier price vs. cabling price. Sooner or later it going to pay you to buy a better amplifier. You can seldom turn a sows ear into silk purse with externally applied tweaks and cables despite what purveyors of same tell you. Eventually someone will bring in a much better power amplifier (or fill in the blank with the component of your choice), with a modestly priced power cord on it and you will find out that your tricked out cheap amp was actually "broken" and you just didn't know it.
Personally, I hate it when this happens, it usually costs me money.
Scotty

[rollo]

 
      Not picking on you that was a general statement. In your case the cost of the rare earth magnets are very expensive these days. Hence the rise in cost of your speaker.

I'm sure there is more that raised the price so please tell us.





charles
     

Well Charlie, if you must know...its the super rare eel farts sprinkled with magic dust that allow it to compete against more expensive planars for $26,000 less.

Greg

    Arghaaaa gotta love those eels. What planars for $26K less. What planars cost 35K ? The Analysis planars are 20K and 28K and discounted.
   Maggies are 14K and 5K. Greg you have a great speaker and more should own a pair. At 9K it is getting harder to buy a pair. Those who are willing to put out 14K for MG 20 should demo your speaker and leave the Maggies in the store. There would be 6K left over to buy amps [ Arions of course] that was for Topround. . BRILLIANT !!!
     

charles 
 
   Your biggest competition is Maggie at 14K which you best IMO

[rollo]

Does anyone remember the good ole days of the rave?

The rave was the best thing to happen to this hobby other than audio shows.

Great, gracious people opening their homes up, entertaining people for the pure joy of enjoying our hobby and each others company.

Sure we drank a lot and ate a lot but we had fun and we were all friends.
Then one day a few of us decided to get into the audio business and it all fell apart from there.

I know these words annoy the people reading it, but it is true, we were all in it for the hobby, to learn and experience, profit was not part of it.

Once you are in the business it all changes, you have to support your products, objectivity gets wiped away, the fun disappears, and we all can no longer gather to gain knowledge and experience. At least the way it used to be free and open. Now we have to be careful not to offend anyones products. True friends are able to call each other assholes, and  say their system sucks and still eat their food and drink their wine.

I remember the first day it hit me was when we where at Barry's house for a mini rave, I thought it was a mini rave but really it was designed to introduce  the new Merill amps to the club offering deep discounts to us.
That day changed it all for me, I knew it was over.

It was so much fun..........but alas those days are over except when we gather in small groups privately with no dealers, but the large scale fun is gone.

   Yes Mike the original Raves at Levi's were lots of fun. We had manf present if you recall. Vista anyone as an example.We demonstrated his amps at Levi's. Levi bought one if I recall at a HUGE discount. Paul was making power conditioners Felix anyone ?
    What happened was political.You featured manf and dealers  at your Raves several times. What was the difference.
    It got political as to what cable manf. Paul or TWL. What amps Arion or Merrill. Remember ? Greg's GT A's with a horrible sounding amp which did an injustice to Greg. At the last minute I was told not to bring my amp. A mistake only that there was a good synergy together which would have good for GTA and their speaker. I felt so bad for Greg as the did not represent how good his speaker is. Politics strikes again.
     IMO it was some manf. and dealers who got preference over others and then who was selected was the biggest issue I saw at your place.
    The Raves went away when Levi and that crowd stopped. Barry tried with great effort to hold it all together but it was Humpty Dumpty already.
    BTW did not the dealers and Manf offer a substantial discount for Ravers ?? I surely did 20% as a matter of fact. That is a good thing No ?  To many drunk people as well


charles