Takedown of pricey servers, streamers OCD HiFi guy

@jksec said,

I really don’t understand the point for bashing any products based on they component value. If they sound bad then sure let us know, but estimating component value is completely useless.

That’s an interesting take. Many comments I’ve read on this and other forum try to estimate value, where value means whether the cost of the unit is worth the money paid. Sonic performance is one part of value; other parts include comparisons with other units at similar or different price points.

Right now, there’s a thread on Agon about Pass Labs vs. Sugden Class A amplifiers that is assessing whether or not the extra $$ paid for Pass labs is worth the additional money, or whether the Sugden offers more "bang for the buck." Some judging this question are referring to the parts on the inside of each and how good they are, etc., in order to judge if the Pass is worth the money. This seems to be a regular way that people drill into the details of the value question, especially when it’s hard to audition both. It’s not that sound of the unit is irrelevant, but if someone is going to pay a lot more for something, they often want to know more than just the reported sound of it, which we know is very subjective. Often, both are not available to audition, and even if they are, they might not immediately reveal everything one might eventually hear. Many buy with an eye to "future-proofing," knowing that down the road, one might be able to tell that, for example, the high quality capacitors in a better-made product sound better, even if this isn't immediately obvious. Then again, there's durability, etc. We all experience this with, say, a house or a car, which only shows its virtues or vices after a longer run of experiences with it.

This is my understanding as to why some downgrade (or "bash" as you put it) a product for charging a lot when the internal parts are not as good as other units. To each his own.

Well, at the higher end, audio equipment is both furniture and art  (physical and audio sculpture), and thus provides the same sort of aesthetic pleasure that a painting we like does.  So price is meaningless.  When someone buys a painting for tens of thousands of dollars or more, do they kvetch that the cost of materials was only around $200, and the artist dashed it off in an afternoon?   If I trust the sound of a system that has broken my bank more than I do a $10 boom box I picked up at Goodwill, then it will sound better to me  (regardless of 'specs') and I will get mroe pleasure out of listening to it, no?

Perceived value is can be emotional or monetary.  Audiophiles are a diverse group.  Price sensitivity has different ceilings for each of us.  Most of us won't blink at spending $ 50 for a immediately perceived improvement and at that price would care less about what the cost of the parts are as we are well below the monetary ceiling and in the emotional valuation.  We like it, we want it, lets buy it and we feel good about the buy.

Spending $ 1000 or $ 5000 or $25000 most of us bump into the monetary ceiling and have to balance that with the emotional.  It gets harder and harder to justify the improvement.  Cost accounting the parts is one way to convince us it is a bad buy even though we want it.

We like it, its not a good value, lets not buy it and we feel good about the decision........

Unlike some whom posted comments early in this thread i assume like most like myself would actually listen to said components in your own system to compare, However specifications and measurements is all they need to determine a components worth and measure of playback quality , actually listening for themselves isn’t how they do things ,,..

Its all some sort of comic act with this notion of a digital front end playback quality starts and ends with their choice , like this thread they are always some of the first to comment to tell you how foolish you are with your money, they are some sort of Ralph Naders of home audio I guess ,..

Then there’s the guys that claim with their technical skill they can build a server / streamer with off the shelf parts for a few hundred bucks that will rival and or surpass any brand on the market today ,

Though when asking them questions if they have their own server streamer they have actually compared with side by side the answers are no , however I’m sure some of these home hobby enthusiasts have built a great sounding server streamer though perhaps I missed it none of them claimed they have at least not on these forums. 
 
They always direct their dismissive ridicule on forums like this and never actually directly at the online reviewer with a open comment section below their review or even at the manufacturer themselves on any of their open comments on social media and what have you .

I have directed some of these guys to these open comments of the reviewer they berated including the manufacturer themselves and none of them showed up , how comical is that,..