" High End home audio is extremely dishonest business and it's blown like a soap bubble."
Only if you don't know what you're doing. If you let someone sell you a 32k dac, you're an idiot. At that level, you need the skills to make the decision yourself, or you have no business buying it to begin with.
Most people that think high end audio is an extremely dishonest business, come to this conclusion because they made bad choices. The term snake oil seems to be a popular label for expensive audio products. But what most people forget about snake oil, is that its relative. Here's an example. A friend of mine who loves music but doesn't know much about the equipment, wanted to upgrade his system and asked me for advice. After looking at his system, I thought a new CD player would be the best place to start, so I lent him one of mine. It was far more expensive than what his current player costs, and he never heard of the brand. He seemed a bit nervous, but I told him to relax. The whole point of me lending him a player was so he doesn't make an expensive mistake.
I said to use the player for a week or so, and report back when he formed an opinion. To make a long story short: Snake oil. He couldn't tell the difference between his player and mine. I was a bit surprised when he told me this so I went over to listen to his system. I had no problem hearing the differences between the 2.
So, was my expensive CD player that sells for 7x more than my friends really snake oil? I don't think so, but my friend did. The cheap CD player was a Sony 5 disc changer($100), and the expensive one was my Rotel RCD-1072 ($700). In the audiophile world, the Rotel is considered to be one of the best budget CD players of all time. TAS gave it product of the year. Not budget product of the year, but actual product of the year which competes with everything, regardless of price. Its all relative.
Only if you don't know what you're doing. If you let someone sell you a 32k dac, you're an idiot. At that level, you need the skills to make the decision yourself, or you have no business buying it to begin with.
Most people that think high end audio is an extremely dishonest business, come to this conclusion because they made bad choices. The term snake oil seems to be a popular label for expensive audio products. But what most people forget about snake oil, is that its relative. Here's an example. A friend of mine who loves music but doesn't know much about the equipment, wanted to upgrade his system and asked me for advice. After looking at his system, I thought a new CD player would be the best place to start, so I lent him one of mine. It was far more expensive than what his current player costs, and he never heard of the brand. He seemed a bit nervous, but I told him to relax. The whole point of me lending him a player was so he doesn't make an expensive mistake.
I said to use the player for a week or so, and report back when he formed an opinion. To make a long story short: Snake oil. He couldn't tell the difference between his player and mine. I was a bit surprised when he told me this so I went over to listen to his system. I had no problem hearing the differences between the 2.
So, was my expensive CD player that sells for 7x more than my friends really snake oil? I don't think so, but my friend did. The cheap CD player was a Sony 5 disc changer($100), and the expensive one was my Rotel RCD-1072 ($700). In the audiophile world, the Rotel is considered to be one of the best budget CD players of all time. TAS gave it product of the year. Not budget product of the year, but actual product of the year which competes with everything, regardless of price. Its all relative.