The High End for Under a Grand?
"In the last few years I’ve reviewed some very expensive hi-fi gear (all prices in USD): Constellation Audio’s Revelation Taurus Mono amps ($40,000/pair) and Revelation Pictor preamplifier with optional DC filter ($23,000); EMM Labs’ DA2 Reference digital-to-analog converter ($25,000); Muraudio’s SP1 speakers ($14,700/pair) -- and, still to come EMM Labs’ Pre preamplifier ($25,000) and MTRX2 monoblock ($85,000/pair).
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In short, no audiophile of average income is going to spend $25,000 on a preamp -- but they’re happy to be entertained by reading a review of that preamp. More likely, they’ll be looking for something that costs a lot less -- something for way under $10,000, and perhaps under $2000 or even $1000. It’s reviews of affordable products like these that get read much more often than reviews of most expensive items, as is seen in our statistics. And the average music lover would rather go even lower -- say, an entire system for less than $1000. This is what “normal” folks can actually afford and are willing to spend on hi-fi gear.
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But you might be wondering if it’s even possible, in this era of accelerating price increases for high-end audio, to assemble a good hi-fi system for under a grand.
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I was able to assemble a surprisingly complete, feature-rich, expandable, shockingly good-sounding hi-fi rig with a total US retail price of only $926.95. Its sound is good enough that I think many people would enjoy it -- not only plain ol’ music lovers who just want something that sounds great, but budget-conscious audiophiles as well"
My only concern with this system would be that it’s not full bandwith. As Doug says, it only goes down to about 50Hz.
For me it goes without saying that its almost crying out for better loudspeakers but this article certainly does make me question the relationship between high priced and high end audio.
For music lovers it’s just got to be a great thing to know that high end (near state of the art) sound is well within the reach of almost anyone!
