What price the big steps ?

I must admit, the first big step for me in realising music as at the forefront, was selling the dac 64 after the 2 weeks of wow factor had worn off.
Now its a case of selling uber cheap naturalish sounding dac's in an expensive package for a exceeding large sum of money, whoops............ its been already done 47 labs, curses foiled again

 

Come off it WM, it's already been done by virtually every audiophile company who's ever made a cd player. Including Wadia. Would you regard the UK pricing of the latest Wadia models (around £10K IIRC) as justified by parts or labour cost? Of course not. Just because it's in a much bigger box does not make it better VFM in purely parts terms than the 47 Labs stuff.

-- Ian

 

Ian,

I wouldn't disagree, I know the raw product cost to make, pretty close on 21% for the W's, take out the dealers cut, granted it's not cheap, though still more platitable if brought in from the motherland.
However there is a lot of components and materials used, whether you like it, personal taste
Now then, do you feel the R & D costs for the case work on the 47labs, justifies the price difference?, between that and say Mr N's $500ish complete unit with psu?, as the production costs for the dac itself arn't particulary astronomic I feel, and as you've assertained for yourself, sonic differences are minimal at best.
If we look at a %profit per unit, I feel the 47 labs equipment would be somewhat higher, due to far less parts and greatly reducded labour time, due to minimal construction needed.
Prehaps for those style concience guru's who *must* have an understated smooth talking posh box to house it in, prehaps a consortium of owners club togther for the CAD work and make then market their own, then just bang in the attack dac, hey presto an alternitive 47 labs, even the sloane square brigade can be proud of.

 

47 Labs are a company like any other, and are trying to make a living. The transport and DAC as a combo are the best CD player I've owned, and by no means the most expensive. So not bad VFM in user satisfaction terms. DIY is always cheaper, and it's certainly easier to DIY a Shigaraki than a Wadia, but I'm not on a tight budget and was happy to buy the commercially produced item, not least because I really like the transport. It's fun to use as well as great to listen to. Job done. And, of course, as with Wadia, grey imports are much cheaper, and in Japan, its country of origin, it's not that expensive.

The obvious question is does all the extra complexity of something like the Wadia, and with all that compexity its huge price, give a significant improvement over the comparatively entry-level (by the standards of audiophilia) Shigaraki stuff? For my tastes, almost certainly not. It's the naturalism and aliveness of the 47 Labs stuff I like, and I haven't heard anything yet that I've thought did a more convincing job of it.

No doubt, in % terms. But not in absolute terms.

I don't know who the Sloane Sq brigade are, but from my limited experience with rich boys who like electronic toys, something like a huge Wadia box and its heavy milled-from-whatever remote would generally be much more appealing than a small lump of ceramic, a folded steel box, and a cheap generic plastic remote. ;-)

-- Ian

 

Limited experiance with rich boys, now Ian, thats a little untruthful, coming from a guy living in London ?
I would go along with the remote thing, the Wadia one is all but useless unless your 3 inches from the front panel
I Persoanlly don't think the big boxes, are designer sloanie stuff Ian, quite the opposite, they feel there are 'most horrid' just a big slab of material stuck in the listening room/designer lounge, no class/feeling or emotion in the form, just brute ignorance.
However, I'll take argicultural to Lawrence any day
Though, the design folks tend to have the last say these days.
I've a couple of these dac's about the place here, in various states of attire, and while I'll grant you they are natural and alive & do some things extremely well without question, and I'm not going to get embroiled in a they are naff session, because they're not, they are quite good & sufficently different, though for me they still fall a long way short of what I like. Doesn't make it wrong. Parntering is also an important issue with these things, both the Wadia's and the NOS dac's, have heard a lot of both sounding average to pants, in more cases than sounding they way they BOTH should.
Tone

 

i only know nos to refer to tubes. what is it supposed to mean here?

 

Non over-sampling.

-- Ian

 

thanks ian.

 

Well Wadia are obviously different. They have stupid ideas about how to do filtering which results in a 3dB treble droop at 20KHz. This accounts for the smooth HF sound. You could have used a cheap CD player and a pre-amp with a tone control and got the same effect.

 

"Hey sucker, what the hell's got into you!".

Let's see you know nothing about electronics right? Do you know what I2S is and why it is supposedly better? And what about power supplies, any idea how easy or hard it is to make a regulated supply? And that word "pro" obviously is important to you? And Phillips, those bastards only invented CD, so they obviously can't build a good player! And an optimized "output stage" yeah yeah?

It looks like you took the marketing departments "voodoo science" to heart and brainwashed yourself into believing that your player sounds better.

You're doing your credibility no good by simply repeating a whole load of tosh, which I doubt that you can explain, but looks like it came from the sales brochure.

Yeah, but we all know Merl is a wind up artist

What a load of crap! The difference between any two (competantly designed) cd players is smaller than the variation between a supposedly matched pair of loudspeakers.

Nope, you've lost 5K on a cd player, money which could have been better spent on therapy for your easily led nature, or a better pair of speakers

 

Oedipus, you are correct I know little about electronics, do I need to, i listen to music, not electronics, I was posting these things in the hope that you would explain why they are not better, as to the word pro, that makes little difference to me but is in fact the full name of the mechanism, the phillips drive is one of the best there has been, however it was initially built to a budget, bow have just upgraded what they felt was degrading the sound. Have they achieved this, who knows, i haven't heard a stock mechanism

You are a very bitter little person aren't you, the only tiome you pop up on this forum is to post contentious replies from well meaning posters, you are the sad one in need of therapy, why should you care what I have spent my money on I noticed a difference and the price I paid for it was worth it, I have no need to know how or why this works, it just does to these ears, but then you wouldn't know that as you've not heard my system have you?

When you have then come back and argue properly, and argue about the things you have experienced rather than read about, you must be a sad lonley little man, spose your pseudonym kinda fits in a way.

Why is it that the naysayers take great pleasure in telling the rest of us that it can't be proved therfore it doesn't exist, no one has met God, but it doesn't stop people beliving in him, I suggest they may be jealous, coz their wife won't let them have a proper hifi, and they're too scared to argue with her.

Anyway oedipus I won't respond to any more of your posts, as either you know too much for me, or your so sad it's not worth the bother, you work out which one it is.

 

oedipus,
one question. why are you here? you obviously hold the conviction that all hi fi sounds the same (with the possible exception of speakers and rooms). so please, get yourself a bush mini system and some b&w 802's and be happy.
leave those of us who want to discuss the relative merits of cd players, amps, pre's, cables, speakers, stands, etc. to our own colonic explorations. 'cos that makes us happy. or does making us unhappy make you happy? if so you have my pity.
cheers


julian

 

well that about sums it nicely julian

 

Please don't anyone take this the wrong way, but here's a little thought experiment for you, and I'd be interested to know how it goes. Suppose just for a very short moment that oedipus is right (I know it's difficult, but give it a go ). Would you still resent what he's saying?

 

oedipus aka datty Mr. Andy Townsend master of the understated electronics whizz kids hand book, speaks lots yet says nothing.
Should have stayed in the uK Andy, saved on the air fair,

 

Yes, it's his reasons for saying it and the manner in which it is said that leads to the resentment, plenty others are on your side of the fence Pete and I don't resent any of you,

 

Further away the better Tone, time differences mean we don't have the pleasure of most of his posts while we are awake.

 

AK - lose the insults, there's no need for it . I would suggest to you that oedipus has a great deal of experience and that he knows a fair amount more about how it all works than you (or I) do.

He argues his points very clearly, without malice and doesn't ever descend to personal insults despite the many thrown at him. If you aren't able to argue back in a respectful way then it won't just be his posts you won't be responding to.

Michael.

 

I'd second AK, I've no issue with people not liking my kit or disagreeing with me its the manner in which its done that either warrants a retort or not, so go ahead PeteH.

As an aside there is many a day when the NAD S line stuff seems a really good option.

 

Mike I was responding to the insults thrown at me by oedipus, such as "sucker" in need of therapy, easily led and the condascending tone of his unprovoked attack, do as others do unto you.

Ps he may know a lot about the science behind it, but he knows little of my perceptions, or how i respond to the stimulus I hear, and he hasn't heard my kit in my room, oh and he knows little of manners and etiquete, as can be seen from the amount of friction he generates, I reckon he does it just because he gets a kick out of it, and as such deserves all the insults he recieves.