One To Ponder

[MylesBAstor]

How do you determine if a high-end audio product represents a good value? Does money have anything to do with perceived value? For instance, could a $50K speaker be considered a good value?

[Joe Pittman]

An alternative to value is choice. Think "guns or butter".

[david k]

I find the best of high end vintage, i.e. 1980's & earlier, speakers & tts including arms & cartridges exceptional value. Not only do they sound better to me than all their current counterparts I've heard while costing considerably less, they tend to retain or increase in value.

In many ways Lamm electronics are what I find of extreme value, I have everything they ever made and never sold my demos. Still using the Lamm amps I bought back in the 90's daily, not because I have to but because I still find them better sounding and more musical than any other non Lamm electronics. I know many other Lamm customers who feel the same. I guess longevity of design & overall satisfaction is where I see the value.

david

Lamm gear is built on 'rules of human hearing' that VL codified from hundreds of blind listening tests he did in Russia. Human hearing hasn't changed since then.

I agree, long term satisfaction is a pretty good indicator of value.

[Johnny Vinyl]

It's entirely user dependent and it doesn't matter what the price level is. So yes, a $50,000 speaker can represent good value.

[Goheelz]

We all have different budgets, and so everyone has a practical limit, cost-wise. A 50K speaker is "worth it" if it fits the budget of the buyer, and if it takes the listener where that listener wants to go.

Having said that, the best "value" for many will be a discounted (used, demo) product that is perhaps costly but not full retail. A list priced 100K speaker depreciated to 50K speaker (at least the ones I'm thinking of) would represent excellent value. It's just how food chains work, you know?

[Steve Lefkowicz]

I believe "value" can only be determined buy the end buyer. Someone looking at $100,000 speakers might find a $50,000 speaker to be a bargain and great value. To someone looking at $1000 speakers, neither of them would be seen as having any real value at all. Just like the term "affordable." All items are "affordable" to the person that bought them.

Example, people who bought and loved the 47 Labs Gaincard found it both affordable and based on its sound quality, to have real value too. I found it to be one of the nicest sounding amps I ever tried in my system, but at nearly $5,000 in the configuration I reviewed to have little value. These days a $600 gainclone offers similar sound and real value.

[jonathanb]

A $50K loudspeaker might well be considered an excellent value if deployed in some kind of professional environment. For my personal use, not so much. Even if somehow I could afford to acquire the speakers, I cannot manage to create a listening environment with proper electrical service that would do the speakers justice.

[mep]

Anytime you buy something and you feel like you got more than you paid for in terms of quality of build, sound quality, and how it fits into your system and increases your enjoyment of listening to music, it should represent good value to you.

[jazdoc]

"Price is what you pay; value is what you receive." Value is therefore, necessarily subjective.

[MylesBAstor]

Value may come in different packages but one thing I was thinking about was the price/actual cost ratio. Do the parts, etc. justify the cost? Certainly the markup on products can vary from the normally quoted 4:1 to as high as 10:1.

[Rust]

Value and price. Value vs. price. I suppose perceived value is determined pretty much by one personal financial situation. Let's take the Magico S5 MK II which most consider to be an excellent performer at its price point. My current speakers, with which I am well pleased cost 1/20th the price of the Magicos. I do not believe the Magicos, however good are twenty times better than my speakers.

This does not make the Magicos a poor performer, they are excellent. But from my perspective they have no value at all since there is no possibility I could ever own them. The same holds true for any product, the new Bugatti may be a great car but at a couple of million what does it matter to me?

Basically determining "value" is up to the individual, it's an opinion, and opinions don't always coincide.

[Rob]

Value may come in different packages but one thing I was thinking about was the price/actual cost ratio. Do the parts, etc. justify the cost? Certainly the markup on products can vary from the normally quoted 4:1 to as high as 10:1.

scarcity and low production numbers for the majority of high-end audio components will have a poor perceived value because the economies of scale aren't there. i've been smitten once or twice by a component simply because it wasn't mainstream or easy to acquire and it wasn't "good value" for that reason and may even qualify as poor value.

[Steve Lefkowicz]

Also, I think "Value" coincides with longevity. Spending $xxx on a piece of gear that you keep and use for years has a very high value, while the same price for something you end up swapping out or feeling a need to upgrade in a year or two not quite so much.

[Guest]

Value may come in different packages but one thing I was thinking about was the price/actual cost ratio. Do the parts, etc. justify the cost? Certainly the markup on products can vary from the normally quoted 4:1 to as high as 10:1.

What's the value of design and everything it took to arrive at a good one?

What's the value of the points built-in to MSRP so a dealer can give a 'nice' discount. Thinking mostly here of the cable industry.

I suspect getting into this topic - price vs cost - will take us down a rabbit hole whose end will be something other than a warm fuzzy. But hey - it's your can opener.

[astrotoy]

What's the value of design and everything it took to arrive at a good one?

What's the value of the points built-in to MSRP so a dealer can give a 'nice' discount. Thinking mostly here of the cable industry.

I suspect getting into this topic - price vs cost - will take us down a rabbit hole whose end will be something other than a warm fuzzy. But hey - it's your can opener.

I think these points are very important. There are very few items in the high end that are based on marginal cost. Fixed or sunk costs are the major drivers to determining price - since there is such a small volume. Also firms are poorly capitalized so they cannot afford to price based on potential long term gain in sales volume and a long term amortization of sunk costs.

There are few items that I can think of that have reached a reasonably good pricing model where people are not concerned that the price is not a fair or good one. The one that comes to mind is Oppo, which is priced significantly higher than equipment which basically does the same thing ($99 bluray players at Costco). Yet it is perceived as bargain priced and great value for the money.

There is one general category of high end items that appear to be based on a marginal cost basis, where there is little or no price variation and little competition. That is in the media we buy. Newly reissued records, particularly 180g pressings are all priced about the same, driven mostly by the cost of production. That is the same for new SACD's and newly issued R2R tapes, with few exceptions. One interesting exception is the Electric Recording Company, whose pricing model (at well over ten times the pricing of other new reissues), is based on very limited production, perceived quality and, most important, comparison not to other reissues, but to rare, ultra expensive original copies.

Lastly, the diminished presence of bricks and mortar stores in the high end seems to me to be very much related to a decrease in the perceived value of these stores. They have many of the same issues as small production high end companies - high fixed costs and low volume, in an environment where the major value they bring to the customer, that of knowledge, is undervalued or found elsewhere (e.g. on the internet).

Larry