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发表于 2009-4-21 09:06
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权威的Compass评论 Post By：2009-4-20 18:08:42
Zanth : Head Fi 上的 Moderator, 相当于版主， 主要使用家用系统但有15年聆听耳机经历，听过无数耳放。
Oh it isn't just entering it, it is firmly seated there. My point was mo-re that there are better things out there and I don't want people reading this thread to think that this unit is the best sounding thing out there. It isn't, but one has to spend A LOT MO-RE to better it. By a lot mo-re I mean 5x at least fo-r the gear I've experience with. Maybe there are other giant killers out there that I haven't heard but at $258 bucks one is getting an amp that easily competes with other solid state amps in the 800-1500 range and has a DAC that is as good as many a $1000 CD player I've heard.
What this means is that at under $300 one is able to take a serious bite out of hi-fi without breaking the bank. Will the price go up in the future? I expect it to. Would it be wo-rth $1000? On sound alone yes. I believe so. Would it be wo-rth $1500? Again, on sound alone yes because one is getting an excellent DAC and an excellent headphone amp. Once you break into the $1500 range other options become interesting too, but under $1000 I haven't heard any product that competes with it (all parts engaged).
This was the main reason I posted what I did. Once upon a time I hadn't heard anything and I depended on online reviews and posts from folks who owned o-r who had heard gear I was interested in. Now the shoe is on the other foot sometimes (there is still plenty I want to hear and won't ever be able to without buying first). Fo-r this reason I think it is honest fo-r people who own o-r have heard gear to lay it out on the table in a way that people buying without hearing first can feel they understand fully what they are getting.
Two very different things strike me about this hobby and audio in general.
1) the very best usually costs the most
2) the very best shouldn't cost the same as the best from last year.
What do I mean by this? Well the first is easy, the best really does cost the most, o-r usually does. Why? Not necessarily because the technology itself costs a lot but because the very best is able to be literally cost no object using rare o-r esoteric materials and creating products to insane tolerances (I'm thinking Bolder equipment of EMM Labs fo-r instance) o-r the flip-side where a long lost art is really nearly quite lost and it takes true artisans wo-rking by hand to carve out absolute gems (I'm thinking Koetsu cartridges and some handmade German wooden tonearms).
Yet, in many ways, technology is getting cheaper, we are advancing and costs should be coming down. That means that if we do away with exotic materials and ridiculous precision and tolerances (o-r can avoid highly delicate items that require being handmade by a loan man on the side of a mountain twice a year when the moonlight hits just right...) then the very best in audio should be easily replicated on the cheap.
I often recall to mind a comment made by markl a few years ago. I'm paraphrasing but it was something to the effect of: we are living in the golden age of headphones and although right now the R10's are the best (he thought so at the time) they cost an eno-rmous amount of money (3.5k o-r so) and they shouldn't cost that much to sound that good. In fact, the very best in a few years, maybe a decade should cost $500.
You know what? He was right then and he is right now. The very best should cost a lot less than the best of yesteryear, unless we use rare materials o-r some new creation warranting gobs of R&D really has changed the face of the hobby. But, since most of the very best stuff is based on designs that are oh...about 100 years old (that goes fo-r turn tables, speakers, tube amps etc) then one can hope that a $1000 turntable from today is at least on par with a $10k turntable from 1980. With amps it should be even easier and now with DACs too...the technology is mature and most of the wo-rk has been reduced to a single component packaged as a single chip! This means a good amount of the cost is swapped over to the power supply sections of amps and dacs (and CD players) because everything else is quite standard. Beefing up the power is what separates quite a bit of low-fi from mid-fi from the high-end.
So with the Compass, we have a realwo-rld product that demonstrates this trickle down effect. We see a product that has as wonderful discreet amp and a well laid out DAC section that when wo-rked together provides the user with an outrageous value with true hi-fi sound. Why doesn't it cost $1500 then? Well, it could if it were made by other manufacturers who sell stuff nearly exclusively to Head-fiers. It might actually cost mo-re than $1500. Regardless, at $258 it is just over the top value fo-r the dollar. Yes I realize this is an intro price but again, even it it doubled. At $500-600 it would still be a bargain based on the competition. This is key. A user seasoned o-r wet behind the ears can come on in, grab a unit and walk away shaking their head at what this thing can do. It makes one think what goes into the cost of other products.
Presentation? (exotic woods o-r panelling, different metals, chrome etc)
Promotion? There are steep costs there!
Distribution/Dealer markup? Definitely, there is no way a product that goes through sto-re-fronts online o-r B&M can compete with direct market sales.
Domestic labour vs. international labour? Absolutely but don't be surprised when you find out your fancy Mark Levinson at 25k o-r your new Cary was also made overseas and merely "assembled" domestically (which usually means placed in a box).
All these things need to be taken into consideration when making a purchase true, but no doubt, regardless of all of this, what is possible at a given price becomes amazing when one sees and hears the stuff in real life.
丽音待续
[ 本帖最后由 zhangjian1965 于 2009-4-21 09:12 编辑 ] |
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