@dayglow wrote:
... If an Adcom amp with JBL’s propped up on milk crates playing poorly recorded Sabbath can shake the walls is the "Holy Grail" run with it. Thankfully some of us want to hear(experience) the subtle macro/micro nuances of well recorded Beethoven/Coltrane/Pavarotti and Pink Floyd that only a certain level of audio components can achieve.
Dichotomies like these are easy, convenient and potentially quite misleading even. I've heard my share of moderately to crazy expensive setups with über high-end brands, all the accessory trimmings + room treatment sounding utterly bland, incoherent and downright boring. Goes without saying, perhaps, because why wouldn't it - gear is only so much in itself, and implementation and integration is essential, right?
And yet implementation and integration is the one factor we don't "see" (unless we hear it in the flesh) and that we also can't take for granted in any setup context. The individual with the cheaper setup comprised of mostly 2nd hand and more or less vintage equipment likely won't get a lot of traction among audiophiles by the mere looks of it, whereas the ones with new and expensive stuff and cool/aesthetically pleasing listening rooms are automatically swooned over - with all that implies and the associative mechanism that follows.
For all we should know however the former can sound much better depending on how it's been dialed in and (also importantly) adheres to physics - despite being both older and much cheaper; that's the power of proper implementation and integration, not to mention the relative insignificance of price, looks, age or other. Indeed, in the right hands and configuration those (older) Adcom amps and JBL speakers can very good indeed, and they mayn't reflect a young bloke whose only incentive it is to blast away at room shaking SPL's or who doesn't know about setting up his gear properly (or who can't listen to classical/jazz/sophisticated rock music).
It's often leveled at those who sneer at expensive equipment that they're just jealous (and effectively perhaps some poor, uneducated saps), but conversely those who pride themselves of owning expensive "high-end" stuff (and can't help but let others know about it) won't even consider cheaper, let alone used and older gear, or when it's from another (pro) audio segment. One can only assume it's beneath them or that it doesn't trigger the right association/expectation, and while they may not openly admit it or share this view, their silence can also tell you a lot.
I'm sure many don't have the experience of listening to well implemented and expensive, new high-end audio gear that they're nonetheless addressing negatively, but I'm just as sure many of those from the other "camp" haven't given a much cheaper, well implemented and differently configured setup of older, used gear from a likely pro-ish sector a proper, unbiased chance either. With a great source and solid amplification (made much more solid and efficiently harnessed when coupled actively), audiophiles would be baffled by the sheer potential of such a system as well.
To my mind it's a very different discussion than what has a price bearing as a predominant marker. To a degree price may not irrelevant, until it is, and then it's really about what's advocated above. And, coming down to it it's only what can discerned in front of the setup itself.
