Really, I cannot suggest SY's advice here enough. It's an exercise in futility.
Are you guys telling me that Olive has never ABX'd amps? Does he just presume that they basically sound all the same? Does he depend on earlier work from Lipshitz and Toole? Why, then, am I attacked for NOT doing ABX testing on my amps?
As far as my amps are concerned, there is the normal amount of profit in every price range. If an amp is extra expensive compared to its little brother, it is because more MONEY has been put into the design. You know: more and better parts, much bigger heatsink, etc. The outsides look much the same as far as finish, etc. I challenge any of you to make an equivalent JC-1 power amp for less than a few thousand dollars. Go for it! We have 3 different but necessary mark-ups in every amp. We have the manufacturer's profit (Taiwan based) and we get the landed product at about 1/4 the retail price. The Parasound individually tests each and every amp here in California, and has to warranty every amp for a certain period of time, and then advertise and sell them to individual dealers. The dealer then takes 40% or more off the retail in order to keep their operation going, where they have to demonstrate the product for the customer. Some outfits short circuit this cost by doing mail order, etc, but we cannot lower the retail price, because it would hurt the usual dealers that have to make their 40%+. You guys are like teenagers when it comes to the cost of doing business. '-)
As far as my amps are concerned, there is the normal amount of profit in every price range. If an amp is extra expensive compared to its little brother, it is because more MONEY has been put into the design. You know: more and better parts, much bigger heatsink, etc. The outsides look much the same as far as finish, etc. I challenge any of you to make an equivalent JC-1 power amp for less than a few thousand dollars. Go for it! We have 3 different but necessary mark-ups in every amp. We have the manufacturer's profit (Taiwan based) and we get the landed product at about 1/4 the retail price. The Parasound individually tests each and every amp here in California, and has to warranty every amp for a certain period of time, and then advertise and sell them to individual dealers. The dealer then takes 40% or more off the retail in order to keep their operation going, where they have to demonstrate the product for the customer. Some outfits short circuit this cost by doing mail order, etc, but we cannot lower the retail price, because it would hurt the usual dealers that have to make their 40%+. You guys are like teenagers when it comes to the cost of doing business. '-)
But John you are famous for being rubbish at doing business. JA made a point of that in one of his pieces about you.
Parasound is NOT my business. I have NOTHING to do with them, except for designing the circuit and testing the prototype.
It is true, THAT IF I had used the Parasound business model, I might have advertised slightly more and doubled the retail cost of the Vendetta Research SCP-2. I wish now that I had done so, but I gave up 25 years ago, because I tried to sell the product at a 'fair' price, short-changing myself in the bargain.
It is true, THAT IF I had used the Parasound business model, I might have advertised slightly more and doubled the retail cost of the Vendetta Research SCP-2. I wish now that I had done so, but I gave up 25 years ago, because I tried to sell the product at a 'fair' price, short-changing myself in the bargain.
John, there's a huge difference between a divorce of cost and ostensible performance (especially, ESPECIALLY at the luxury end), but that's not the same as earning your keep. It's understandable that your products are expensive. It's also understandable that many would question the value of those products.
I don't know for sure (and it is me, not "you guys" btw) but I would not be at all surprised. But also, don't assume that everyone in here believes in every aspect of Harman's testing procedures or the lack of same.
The focus in almost all the divisions has been and remains on loudspeakers. In Levinson land there are measurements and probably sighted listening tests, but in Northridge I doubt there has been any amplifier testing of the DB sort.
We all live and learn. Well most of us, there are a few lost cases. But unless you effectively sold the vendetta design to Parasound for the JC3 the vendetta name is still talked about in whispers enough that it would sell if re-launched. How many in this crowded and limited high end market is of course another question...
I tested the Vendetta SCP-3 phono stage just today on my test bench. I have no idea if I will ever put it into production.
Hmmmm... sorry, Billy, what did you say you were famous for?
Pretty snide, nasty and unnecessary comment from someone who trumpets that they never paid more than 300 English Pounds for anything??
John, apparently (like many others on here) not only engineers, designs and builds his own, he's sold his work and lived off it.
What have you BUILT in audio? Designed?
As I asked before, how about pix of your system, etc...??
Geez man, you had to ask for advice on how to make your two way - what were they, ESLs or were they ribbons, with a
woofer on the bottom into an open baffle!! Where the heck do you get off saying this stuff??
Quite frankly, being a money grubbing SOB is not a great qualification, is it?
It's an affront to say that about anyone, John or not, anyone.
Many of the world's greatest artists died essentially penniless, while money grubbing SOBs trade their work now for millions - while they were alive, people told them that they were "not good at business".
My, my, my.
_-_-
Here's Daniel's post, to which I was responding: "Counterproductive, in fact. Long-term testing means you have taken way too long a time to make the comparison and thus lost the ability to compare with anything remotely close to a non-remodeled memory."
Extrapolating my response to a general call for long term memory testing is too far a stretch.
Instead, I'm saying that testing using *only* short term listening and quick switching does not necessarily test for things that may appear with longer term listening. We're very deeply black boxes, and I distrust *any* broad assumptions, just in principle. Perception, attention, judgment - all ephemeral, yet not.
My main point though is that I'm sick and tired of reading continual ragging of JC. It's really getting old. The man has worked out a flawed (what isn't?) method of working through a difficult landscape. I find his refusal to be subjected to a high pressure and deeply flawed "test" by hostile testers refreshing.
Much thanks, as always,
Chris
Glutton for punishment? 😀 Old (any) CA chardonnay is definitely an acquired taste I would probably run away. This is where food etc./audio analogies fall apart.
Actually there is quite a wide range of styles now, with some ageworthy to a point. But I'm not storing cases expecting it to turn into a Coche-Dury Corton Charlie.
Of course with the Villa Mt. Eden I tasted one or two before buying it more vigorously. Never had a total dud in the lots, and the price was right. I wish I could remember how old they were when I drank them.
Post Parker stuff you can keep that too, !969 Fleurot-Laroze Montrachet at $15.99 in 1975 nothing ever came close. Nothing from C-D ever rang my bell and the prices are just stupid.
As I have been saying, DBT taste-tests show that if the alc % and the acidity is controlled, people can't tell the difference between the wines!!
Apparently they can tell Ripple, Thunderbird, and some others apart from red wine.
Apparently.
But those are "good enough" for many... it is reported.
Apparently they can tell Ripple, Thunderbird, and some others apart from red wine.
Apparently.
But those are "good enough" for many... it is reported.
I completely understand what John was saying about pricing an item at what we feel is an honest and reasonable price for a product we designed and built. I made that same mistake with my earlier horn systems, priced them much to low for the audiophile market, didn't go anywhere, dealers wouldn't touch a product that sounded that good for that price, would have taken away from sales of much higher margin products. I still have about a dozen of the enclosures and the horns to go in them and I keep thinking to just sell them as just that a very limited production at stupidly high prices, they would probably sell that way! I still have the tooling to make more but a limited run would make them exclusive and that could be the way to go. Make the money once and move on to what I am working on today.
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