Magico M9 The new 'norm' in speakers

I had bought the ticket to Axpona 2020 but the cancelled ticket will be good for 2021 event.

Thus if I go ahead with Axpona 2021, then i will have a chance to listen to this speaker.

But it is unlikely that sincere audiophile will buy this speaker since they know well enough how hard it is to optimize this kind of monster speaker.

It will be more likely that some billionaire buy one to brag about it.

We will see the pair of speaker with price tag of 1M$ pretty soon.

Then it will be easier to brag about it.

Recently I had spent 4K$ on Nos 6sn7 tubes for shootout.

It was kind of wine tasting.

Now I had settled at Russion tubes called 1578 Melz and 6h9s which cost just 300$.

But after tube rolling, my system sounds much more dynamic with clean details, wider and deeper soundstage.

Thus it is unlikely that I will change my speakers in the near future.

If I upgrade my speaker, then I will go to Vintage Western horn system which cost around 300K$ (modest price tag compared with M9).

I shall have bought one Vintage western horn about 13 years ago when I have 1M$ of cash.

But I had spent the 1M$ on stocks and lost half of the money 3 years later on Lehman crash.

@mike_in_nc many of the recent price increases have been due to the changing trade policies and their impact on materials and shipping costs.

@nekoaudio : Interesting point. I know that when some users were complaining about Auralic’s increases, the CEO pointed out that they only partially absorbed the cost of tariffs.

On the other hand, it’s my impression that Bryston’s prices were steadily going up long before tariffs were imposed. And some increases (Parasound JC1 to JC1+) seem higher than I’d expect from tariff and inflation alone (and of course there are no US tariffs on Canadian electronics). So yes, I am sure that tariffs have caused some increases, but I’m dubious that they have caused the bulk of them.

My impression is that manufacturers are observing that in audio-land, Veblen’s theory holds (that a higher price makes a product more desirable), and they are jumping on the bandwagon. This is encouraged by The Absolute Sound, whose only ranking of products is by increasing prices.

Dubai has fallen on hard times so not sure how many they will sell!🙊