Who's the Cadillac of Hi-End Audio?

A number of people have mentioned how certain cars offer a certain excitement when driven. Is this driving excitement analogous to what some audiophiles call musicality? There may not be a logical connection, but the language people are using is so similar.

For what it's worth, I drive an 1998 Audi A8 and my previous ride was a 1993 Lexus SC300. They're very different cars and each has its strong points, but one thing is an absolute fact. The Lexus dealer network is far superior to Audi's and this definitely effects the total ownership experience.

Amen to that Onhwy61! I used to own a 2001 Audi A6 Avant and was always amazed at how I was treated. Granted, this wasn't an ultra-premium car, but at 2 clicks less than $50K, I sure expected better treatment than the VW owners. NOPE. Same goes for Porsche. I couldn't imagine spending $100K+ on an exotic sports car (911 Turbo) and being treated the same as those bringing their New Beetle in for an oil leak.

Even for warranty repairs, they would not give me a loaner vehicle. When I complained, the best I could get was a ride to Enterprise to pick up my $25 POS rental.

At Lexus, even the entry-level ES-300 (Toyota Camry) owners get treated like royalty.

That being said, I still think that the analogy regarding Japanese cars is mostly true. There are, however, some pretty exciting Japanese cars. Most of them come from Nissan and Mazda who are far less conservative than Toyota and Honda. My 1996 Nissan Maxima was (from a reliability standpoint) far and away the best car I've ever owned. Sadly, it was killed in an automobile accident last Thursday. (MOMENT OF SILENCE) My old '90 Mazda Miata was an absolute BLAST to drive and was dead reliable as well.

Even still, I'd take a fine German sport sedan over a "comparable" japanese model any day of the week. Did somebody say BMW M5??

Anarchy, Italian cars are better made than Japanese cars? I rest my case as to the pathetic level of your knowledge of things automotive. I think that I have made my point that in cars like in audio, a lot of folks here would rather believe stories, lies and vicious innuendo than consider more objective data. I guess JD Power et al are wasting their time and, oh, obviously, so is John Atkinson. Anarchy you are precious. Love people unswayed by evidence. I see you are dumping your Sony speakers. Why? Bad Japanese components?

They are American designed and made. I have a short list of speakers which I would like to replace them including Sony SS-M9ED; B&W Signature 30's; Kharma Ceramique 1.0; or Wilson Watt/Puppies. So no Pbb I am very happy with the American Sony speakers I have.

You are probably one of the people who buy based on Consumer Reports recommendations, even though experts in the individual areas always disagree with their findings. If you are happy driving you honda or whatever, keep it. I will stick to better made German, Swedish, British, and American cars. I hope your knowledge of HiFi is better than that of cars or it must be ugly in your listening room.

You know I'm not interested in debating why I like car X more than someone else likes car B, but I think generalizations should be taken to be exactly such and exceptions should always be minded.

In direct response to the commentary about my knowledge of audio, I can't dispute that my audio knowledge is relatively dismal. With respect to motor vehicles however, I have designed, built, tested, and driven small scale formula cars while I've also been exposed to and driven high performance cars in a track environment.

I won't dispute the fact that the performance advantages of German cars aren't *necessary* any more than a $30k system is necesary over a $1k system. If it's good enough for a user and it makes him(her) happy then I wish them the best. However, it's another fair generalization that a high performance car brings benefits to lower echelons of the operational envelope. Many audio parallels can be drawn here and I will leave illustration to the users unless specifically requested to elaborate.

None of my claims have yet spoken poorly of Japanese cars from an objective standpoint. However it seems a popular opinion of users thus far that as a whole these cars are somewhat bland, of high quality, and appliance-like.

With regard to JD Power and their awarding process, this organization sells the results of their studies to manufacturers. This kind of behavior is heavily discouraged and is not tolerated in this particular community (i.e. dealer plugs in the form of "reviews" and "i'll give you a 30% discount if you refer 3 friends"). I have no intention of directly questioning the integrity of JD Power, but even if their tests are unswayed by market conditions some of the award categories are a little questionable and probably unnecessary. I am reminded of a Chrysler commercial a few years ago (maybe 5 or 6) where one of their vehicles was ranked "Number One in Initial Quality". If I'm going to leave my car on the showroom floor I suppose that's fine. If I'm going to drive it I would prefer to see a better measure of the vehicle's ability along with a pedigree of high performance engineering.