Audiophiles vs DIY-o-philes

Dgarretson: so in your opinion most of the people who are buying expensive gear are fools and most DIY'ers are (although being restricted in their financial resources) the genuine audiophiles? This also implicates that products from these consummate DIY'ers are better than most of the "overpriced" gear. Is this in fact the truth? So most of us, non-techie audiophiles, are being fooled by the so called high-end manufacturers and that our hearing is likely more sensitive to suggestion and "placebo effect" than the dedicated DIY'er?

Chris

Shadorne sez

Unfortunately for me I have tin ears...so I am lost from the get go!

Lol!

I admit to liking oscilloscopes -- they are very useful. As well as unsmoothed RTA and FFT -- lots of fun. What about DSPs -- great machines (sound is often a bit dry, but the benefits are always very liquid).

Actually, to return to subject, it would seem that the primal scream of the diy-er was originally: buy "better" is not an option so I'm left with diy for improving sound.
The you realise that diy can be fun (or not, depends on the person).

But the underlying motivation is: get BETTER sound.

Of course, diy-ing may become an end to itself -- i.e. where the machine & the engineering challenge takes the upper hand over the initial onjective which was sound.
But I think that's rare.

In the blue corner with Have Mr Dave Willlllllllson (applause) a well respected maker of fine expensive loudspeakers with a big workshop, lots of staff and huge overheads, and In the blue corner Audiogons very own Mr DIY guru and extremely nice guy John Kalllllllllll.......inowski (applause). Pep talk by the referee, clean fight, no holding, biting or kicking In the family jewels, break when I say 'cone'. Ding Ding. 25 years DW has been making speakers. JK 20 years, so not a lot In that one.Tied 1-1. Who sells the most speakers? DW by a mile. 2-1 to the blue corner. Who can make any pair you like to virtually dimension, shape, size, form and not working to rule? JK. 2-2. Who can you call anytime (well nearly) for a hi-fi chat? JK 2-3 to the red corner. Who has the best (most expensive) website and brochures? DW 3-3. Who has the best sounding speakers? I would say red corner, and the vast majority will boo and hiss and say blue corner. 4-4. Oops, Ring Invasion, ref stops the bout. A tie has been declared from a hard fought battle of the bass woofer heavyweights.

BUT SERIOUSLY FOLKS...............

I would say that both are well respected speaker bods who know their capacitors from their circuit boards. My own personal view Is that Johnk can make anything as good as D.Wilson Including the all Important sound for a huge amount less than Mr.Wilson can, obviously a one man show working In his own workshop Is not going to have the overheads of a big speaker company. There Is absolutely nothing wrong with going the DIY way to attain a world class sounding speaker rather than to any other big speaker manufacturer who also produces world class sounding gear. I would prefer the red corner route myself. Judging by all the good feedback Mrk gets he leaves all his customers satisfied with all aspects of his work. Its all down to you pays yer money and you takes yer choice.

I was Impressed with the Maxx2's at the Denver show as I heard them with a cd I am very familiar with. I would not trade them for my Oris 150's that Johnk had a hand In. Does that mean they are better? Nope. I just prefer mine. They also cost a lot less.

Just my own personal opinions on the topic...........

here is another view:

a fool and his money soon are parted. there are fools and stupid fools. a stupid fool makes one mistake after another.

foolishness is not necessarily overpaying for audio equipment, but rather not being aware of one's preferences and therefore buying and selling and not having a clue as to the source of dissatisfaction.

the value of a component is subjective. one may consider a $2000 amp overpriced, while another may consider a $15000 amp fairly priced.

the key to remember is the value in use equals the value in exchange.