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Art Dudley Calls B.S. but without naming names - PLEASE DO!

Hey all,

As someone who hasn't been reading the audiophile press for all that long, I stumbled upon this article that I'm sure it lit up these airwaves when it was first published: https://www.stereophile.com/content/skin-deep

It's a great article and one that any knowledgeable person would most likely agree with, but hey, spending your own hard-earned (or inherited) money is a right and a privilege.  Art does call out some brands that he perceives to give great value:  AMVR, VPL, Conrad-Johnson, DeVore and Harbeth and Kimber and Peachtree and Quicksilver and Rega and Rogue and Spendor and Wavelength.  Shouldn't NAD be on this list?  

But what he doesn't do and I think is warranted, is name the companies that are most egregious in selling high-end products where the performance is far below the cost.  

I, for one, would love to see a list of those manufacturers from the people who read this forum.  You can group them by what they manufacture or just put them in order as you see fit.  I think it would be most helpful in calling b.s. but with "added-value", which is what this whole article was all about.  Right?

128x128lgoler
jhills
613 posts
 
@johnk
I agree. While it’s someone’s right to spend mega bucks to by gear, without doing their homework, believing that higher bucks always means better sound - as that reasoning becomes the common consensus - it’s inevitable that good companies, who build very good equipment and sell it for a fair and reasonable price, will jump on the big bucks band wagon. Another nail in the coffin of a disappearing market...Jim
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geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
You have to look on the bright side. With a $60 phone call there’s no salesman showing up at your door and no shipping charges. 
supertweak
90 posts
 
 People coming in and out of shopping malls usually are not rich at aIt and most audiophiles have to save and sacrifice for the equipment they eventually buy.It all depends on what equipment.Plus there is the morality issue.
  I am of a very open mind..but only up to a point.Everything that happens in the known universe involves an "action" and a "reaction".Even if you would stretch your mind to the incredulous point of believing that its possible to send some great force over a phone line costing $60, somehow I couldn't picture that force losing steam, over all those hundreds or thousands of miles and petering out over a farm field in Iowa, or more likely a half block from where it originated...assuming there exists such a force somewhere in the universe.In Carl Sagan's great book "Dragons Of Eden" he mentions that billions and billions of miles away from Earth there are blackholes.Just a thimble full of black hole material would weigh more than the entire Earth.But I like to stay within the realm of reality and what's overwhelmingly likely and actually without a doubt.
supertweak
90 posts
 
Re: my post above.Typo.Of course I meant I couldn't picture such a force if it existed somewhere  "NOT" losing steam.The spell-right also changed the name Sagan to "Satan"; glad I caught that one and changed it before.
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