Comparing apples (watches) and pears (hi-fi)

See, and I worked as an electronics technician to pay for college and I rebuilt tube amps and would grab random friends and make them listen. Sometimes they would hear a difference, and sometimes they didn't..

So, quite honestly, I have zero respect for any of these "audiophiles" who upgrade a 6-foot power cord and claim all sorts of wonderfulness with the exact same house wiring with much longer runs that they've always had!

The emperor truly has no clothes.

(I was the creater and moderator of the USENET group rec.audio.high-end back then too)

More than a few, sadly. I spent a lot of time with some hardcore guys who worked for Sound Investments in Glendale WI, in the 80s. Yes, once you get past 97%, then it's rarely better, only different, and I am well aware of component matching.

The folks at the store did me a big favor and hooked me up with local mechanical genius Gene Zanow. I handed him my Thorens TD125 Mk II. It had a Decca unipivot arm. He was to give the arm minor upgrades and tune the table.

What did I get back? The platter was trued. Bearing polished. Springs adjusted so it would move up and down. That tonearm? Gone. Arm board, gone. Wiring, gone. Original arm lifter, gone. What did I receive? A custom-made tonearm that Gene made himself. It was an "Optimum pivot" desgin. The pivot was on the same plane as the record. He made me two weights, one for the average cartridge and one for my beloved Decca Mk IV.

He did keep my AudioQuest sorbothane mat!

I've mentioned some of my favorite components. Mark Dineen's B100 preamp by ADC... one of the most neutral preamps ever. QED 440 bridged solid-state class A amplifier, amazing. The speakers, I can't describe them because boutique. Nobis Dm-3t made in Milwaukee. They were designed to be ESL-63 killers. They pretty much are!

That store made and sold a lot of interconnect custom made. Star-quad microphone cable. It worked pretty well.

My point is that I leared everything you've mentioned decades ago, and did things about it. Honestly, I got out of it because I got tired of screwing around with other people's mistakes (don't get me started on Counterpoint) and I get good equipment and service from Parasound. I sometimes think I want a Halo integrated amp. Maybe some day.

So, please. I know. No need to explain. 😀

This conversation has gone off in an interesting direction but it’s not really what I’m talking about. I think most would agree that the marginal difference in performance between £1000 and £5000 is massive compared with the performance difference between £30k and £34k. Personal taste notwithstanding.

That’s why I kept the discussion to around £2.5k

The emperor’s new clothes thing doesn’t interest me. What interests me is: if I spend £2.5k on a watch am I buying a more sophisticated piece of engineering than if I spend £2.5k on a turntable or amp, or pair of speakers? And yes, I know that the three have different forms of technology in them. That again is not the point. I’m paying £2.5k for something that manufacturers consider economically equivalent. But are they equivalent in terms of the technology that is wrapped up in them?

Turntable pics!

A flying tourbillon wristwatch is the functional equivalent of a high-end audio system. You will not get a flying tourbillon inexpensively... or at least you couldn't until the Chinese started making them. Even still, most chronometer wristwatches do quite well. So does for example Onkyo or Hitachi systems, but are they truly high-end? Can be.

But, that said, you can't really compare them.