Traditional Brands vs. "Audiophile" Brands

Often the products from large companies are designed with priorities other than sonic quality in mind. Are you familiar with the Yamaha "EAR" speaker, the speaker shaped like a human ear? In point of fact I cannot remember a case where the large companies have been in the forefront of sonic advancement. True, they did develop the CD, and have made a mess of it from the word go. There are divisions of companies like Sony which offer very good products from time to time but they have very limited distribution. I was in the past a dealer for Technics, Hitachi, Sansui and some other Japanese brands as well as "audiophile" brands. In general , if you do not want to spend too much brands like Rotel or NAD will give the best sound for the money. While the big companies COULD make good products and have economies of scale this does not , in fact , occur. The marketing division rules , and perhaps they do know the market. There are many like the electrical engineer I once knew who bought his equipment solely on the basis of how many lights it had on it.

Go with the "blue" lights. The red ones work on a frequency which attract flies. The fly's wings flap at a frequency which counteracts super tweeter frequencies. What you want to do in that case is flip the fly upside-down...and change the phase. Simple aint it? Cheers.

No, you cannot assume that an audiophile brand of more or less the same price is superior to these "traditional" brands. Try the traditional brands first. They usually come with better return policies, so if you don't like the sound, back it goes. I've heard some great traditional stuff and some bad 'audiophile' brands. Keep Onyko and Interga on your list. They present great sound and value. Don't be con'd by the 'audiophile' label. Its meaningless, your ears are the decider.

can't speak for all traditional brands, but the new yamaha 2 channel line is outstanding value.