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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: The real reason is the price of admission. It has skyrocketed!! posted by Elizabeth on May 23, 2008 at 11:18:52:
Yes, there are more $100,000+/pr. loudspeakers than ever before.
But that is not the price of admission.
Now, CPI calculators are very blunt tools, but they at least indicate major trends. I used several different CPI calculators to bring the Fried Products Company's 1976 price for the Q/2 loudspeaker up to today, and it came out to $1050 or so. There are many many excellent loudspeaker choices near and under $1050 today. I write about three such in my column in the June issue.
I keep a 1966 Allied catalog around for reference. The Marantz 7 was $285 and its wooden case $24. The 8B was $285 and its case $10.50. The 10B was $600 and its case $36. The total for that is $1240.50. AR3s were $225 each. That system totals $1690.50 then, and $11,002.66 today. My point being that a top-shelf system back then was not cheap, and comes quite close to the reported average of Stereophile readers' systems.
What that analysis admittedly omits is the fact that if all you want is to listen to music to accompany other activities, there are much cheaper ways to go about it. Many sub-$1000 "executive" systems today sound better than many over-$1000 systems did, back in the day.
I don't think general or specific inflation can explain the recession of the hobby, but you can read 1,000 well-chosen words on the topic in the August issue!
Cheers,
JM
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Follow Ups
- I must respectfully disagree re: price of "admission." - John Marks 05/23/0815:29:29 05/23/08 (0)
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