Letters: Stuck in a Time Warp

I periodically read in TAS a letter from a reader irritated by TAS’ preoccupation with ultra-expensive gear, but without ever questioning the sometimes-idiosyncratic price of that gear. Your standard reply is that TAS also pays attention to more modestly priced products, but that’s somewhat beside the point.

Take the price of loudspeakers. In 1997, the Thiel CS6 loudspeaker took first place in the ranking of the German audio magazine Stereoplay. That model was priced only about $7000 [it was actually priced at $7900—RH]. Since then, all hell has broken loose, with sky’s-the-limit pricing. Nowadays, such a speaker might wind up halfway in such a ranking. At the top end, one would find loudspeakers costing $200k or more.

Hardly anyone can buy such a thing, or has the room and associated gear to drive it. Some manufacturers can justify such pricing by touting original research (Magico, YG); others not so much. The market is flooded with models containing the well-known, off-the-shelf Accuton drivers mounted in a shiny wooden cabinet, costing $25k or even $50k, all without a word of criticism from TAS. You act as if this situation is normal. Well, it is not. 

For instance, take the Apertura Enigma MkII reviewed in Issue 320. Two standard woofers, a tweeter that may cost something, an (ugly) wooden box, price: $30k. Why does this cost $30k? As always, the reviewer states that the box may be better than stuff “costing many times more.” Really? Give me the thing, and I will tell you what is not so good about it. There is no such thing as a perfect loudspeaker. Would this thing be the first with seamless integration of cone and planar drivers? Really? 

The Magico A3 “is too good for $25k!” Of course, because $25k is just coffee money—if your name happens to be Bill Gates. How can a loudspeaker be “too good” for $25k? Don’t you understand that you are irritating and losing your readers who earn normal wages?  So, now, I would like to know why a simple design like the Apertura Enigma MkII should cost $30k. It is your job to explain that to me, right? I guess the main enigma about this ugly thing is its price.

– John van Polen

RH replies: If I understand your argument, because a magazine 25 years ago rated a $7900 speaker as its top model, it follows that today’s speakers that cost more than that are overpriced?  

First, there were many better and more expensive speakers in 1997 than the Thiel—it was hardly the state of the art. But it’s an interesting exercise to convert $7900 into today’s inflation-adjusted dollars ($13,772), consider what speakers you could buy for that money in the here and now, and compare those to the Thiel. For roughly $14,000, you could have your choice of the MBL 126, Audiovector R3 Arreté, Bowers & Wilkins 804 D4, or the Sonus faber Olympica Nova, to name a few. The real question is: “Do those speakers offer more or less performance and value than the Thiel CS6?” As good a speaker as the CS6 was, I would argue that today’s comparably priced speakers deliver better performance and greater value.

But your ire seems to be directed at the proliferation over the last 20 years of higher-priced loudspeakers. There’s no question that there are many more expensive speakers today than 25 years ago. But that trend is simply a reaction to consumer demand for better performance. Designers have embraced exotic materials and design techniques to push forward the state of the art. A single capacitor in a Magico crossover, for example, undoubtedly costs more than the Thiel CS6’s entire crossover, even adjusted for inflation. I have no doubt that if you rebuilt a CS6 crossover with today’s state-of-the-art capacitors and inductors, its sound would be utterly transformed. If all these speakers were overpriced as you suggest, the market for them wouldn’t exist. Companies such as Wilson, Magico, and YG Acoustics are operating at maximum production capacity and expanding their factories to meet consumer demand. The market has spoken.

It appears that you would prefer to live in a world in which designers didn’t pursue higher and higher performance. I’m reminded of the old Russian joke about a farmer who hates his neighbor because the neighbor owns a cow. A sorcerer offers to grant the envious farmer one wish. “Kill my neighbor’s cow,” he says.