Are audiophile products designed to initially impress then fatigue to make you upgrade?


If not why are many hardly using the systems they assembled, why are so many upgrading fairly new gear that’s fully working? Seems to me many are designed to impress reviewers, show-goers, short-term listeners, and on the sales floor but once in a home system, in the long run, they fatigue users fail to engage and make you feel something is missing so back you go with piles of cash.

128x128johnk

Your comment is very cynical. Manufacturer manufacture things to sell… professional reviewers identify a fatiguing piece of equipment and would point it out… resulting in poor sales… however:

Inexpensive audio equipment can be fatiguing… those built to minimize cost of parts.


Some combinations of otherwise not fatiguing components can be fatiguing.

Many people turn on their analytical skills and listen for detail and crispness long before they understand how to hear a noice floor and high frequency hash… which causes fatigue. So they buy highly detailed but fatiguing components.

Folks that like to hear detail… and I think we all start that way, do not recognize when the musicality is striped from a component (rhythm and pace). Without it, you end up listening to the system and not the music. After the, “oh wow, I can hear a violinist move his foot.”… listening is not interesting. Systems that fail to produce music are exceedingly easy to assemble. All components must work together synergistically.

Systems designed to reproduce music tend to be pretty expensive. 

It's a crowded marketplace and grabbing attention is half the game. Whether they are thinking about the step beyond that is an open question. Do most people who buy audiophile equipment --and what gets counted, here? -- get hooked into a buying cycle? I don't know.

If that's how you really feel then you aren't their target market. Plainly stated, manufacturers want to impress you at demo time so that you will purchase. They then want that experience to continue to enhance so that you will comment positively and tell others, so they will repeat the exercise and buy more gear. Most gear made today is exceptional at the various price points.

 

So, relax, as long as the hobby continues to evolve (young, intelligent leaders replacing those who "age out") as it has with regard to sound quality and features for the $$ as well as increased reliability, everything will be ok.