Daoism is such a big word, and wasn't always a religion.
It was however quite political, and rebelled against the brutality of a distant centralized government Confucianism had made possible.
Really expensive systems that sounded great?
I often laugh at megabucks systems ($100K and above) I hear because so often they are just OK, or the presentation is so off in one dimension or another I can barely listen to them for long.
What I’d like to ask now is what megabucks systems have you heard which you felt actually were worth the asking price? I don’t mean incrementally better than your $20k system. I mean leaps and bounds. Anyone?
The best system close to that I ever heard was the top of the line Vandersteen speakers and Vandersteen monoblock amps driven by VTL preamp (I believe) at a show in Oakland. Nothing else I heard in that price range or above sounded worth it to my poor ears.
Lets try to stay wealth-positive here and stick to things we actually LIKED. 😁
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Uhhhh.... now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Regarding how luxury brands are marketed, would it make sense for them to sell on Amazon or Ebay? No, they could, but not really suitable. Showrooms? Faded away against direct to consumer brands. Custom installers that typically don’t have a showroom? Check. Audio shows that are coming back since Covid lockdowns? Check. Maybe we will see a NEW marketing plan in line with WOM from other luxury brands:
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@kenjit Interesting comment about box speakers. I have no idea what you are referring to as I have not seen it. I can tell you that we did "informal" research in my shop back in the mid 1970's. I carried a number of lines of goods--speakers included. SO, what we did was, we brought our instruments to the shop--no, not HP oscilloscopes, etc., but guitars and horns and so forth. MUSICAL instruments. Then, we hooked up pretty much every combo in the store over a few months (after hours) and listened to these systems with various sources--back then we had reel-to-reel decks, cassettes, turntables, and FM radio, of course. After much testing and discussion, we did learn that pretty much every box speaker--regardless of the cost--changed the sound of the music. Some slightly--Fulton 100's, and some dramatically--Bose 901's and Advent's (my college fav) and RTR and AR, and Marantz (yes, they made speakers for a while) and B&O and, well you get the idea. What we learned was that if you wanted to reproduce the VERY PRODUCED AND PROCESSED recorded music closest to the original, box speakers were not that good. We did use the Sheffield direct-to-disc vinyl and 15 ips 3rd gen tapes as well as popular normal vinyl. Today, box speaker manufacturers have solved many of the "coloration" issues that they had in the past. Boxes are more accurate today, and while I have not heard the latest Wilson, et al boxes, I can state that what we found was that ARC HW and Magneplaner speakers were about the most accurate systems at that time. I ALWAYS sold the customer what he or she wanted and liked, but that does not mean I changed my mind. I recently re-hooked-up my old system after moving and put on Diamonds and Rust. Mitchell was in the room with me, and my Maggies were made in 1974. I don't doubt that boxes have improved, but I do doubt that they sound as good as modern Maggies with quality tube HW. When you own a business, you have to make a profit, so we sold the best stuff available at the time, and it was a wide variety of stuff. BUT, I would be surprised if any modern stuff exceeded even the newest ARC-Maggie pairing today. Doesn't mean I am close-minded. I know what we heard back then and what I just heard on my system, and I would enjoy hearing the latest and greatest stuff. Possibly there are superbly accurate box speakers out there today. Funny, though, that after the 1970's almost all the "great" box manufacturers went to the 6'tall form factor. I wonder where they got THAT idea... Cheers! |
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