Psychicanimal, you're right. How could I forget dear old Bozo...er...Bose. But I wasn't thinking of dimestore brands at the time.
Deven8, your point is well taken. I have long argued that we should listen a lot and buy what we like that we can afford.
Alas, very many in the high end have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the notion that Really Good Equipment has to cost a lot of money and be Hand Built. They should only be available in Small Numbers and priced so high that only Serious Audiophiles can own them.
Anything sold for a modest price or produced in large quantities is, by advertising-taught definition, mid-fi at best. Then there are the matters of conspicuous consumption, pride of ownership, and needs for ego gratification. All these conspire with clever marketers to create an environment in which people will pay $50,000 for speakers shown to contain $500 worth of components.
Someone posted to a thread the other day an anecdote about walking into a Salon with $5,000 to spend on a system and being told that with that much money he could buy one component. And we wonder why we remain a niche market.
Sorry for getting a bit off-thread. These opinions, like all of mine, are worth precisely what you paid for them.
will
