There are many people with a lot of money. There are therefore many people working to get some of that from them. Cars so fast that there is literally no place to drive them. Clothes that are used once then discarded but cost as much as a house. And there are Sound systems.
Many if not all the really expensive stuff is not as good as the price. You could staff a factory with vestal virgins bred specifically to hand assemble tube amps and not justify the prices some charge. It is what Thorstein Veblen described as conspicuous consumption. Spending unreasonable quantities of money to show you can.
The silly money gets in the way of ordinary people trying to enjoy a pleasant hobby. Silly money also encourages people to explore many unreasonable alternatives to playing recordings in your home.
Speakers can cost a few hundred bucks to middle 6 figures. The vast majority are no better than what you can get for 3 figures. Most are based on flawed assumptions. Dipoles suck cuz they just muddle the sound. Having spent gobs of money people will do back flips to justify them. They tend to have large radiating surfaces which have excellent acoustic impedance matching to the room. That is heard as “presence”. But that is not worth the extra wave fronts bouncing about the room to me. Same goes for omni speakers. Hell the list is long.
The basic sound sources have silly money too, but you can get 97% of the best sound with far less than 5 figure costs. I like Vinyl as in the most general sense it is the most honest and with good equipment you can extract amazing sound from it. If you have access to master tapes I envy you. High bit rate digital is intriguing and if you have the cash and can deal with the business model go for it.
The amplification chain is craziest of all. Preamps may use any one of a half dozen basic technologies as can power amps. I think silliest of all is the fetish of ultra LOW power triode amps. These can cost thousands yet put out tiny power usually well under 10 watts. If you listen to Yo Yo Ma at conversational levels then enjoy. Rock, Orchestral, or anything with LOUD bits look elsewhere.
The basic Technologies are Tube in Class A, and Class AB designs. Transistors work in Class A, Class AB, and Class D. FETs ( which are transistors that sort a work like tubes ) work in the same classes as tubes.
“Class” refers to the type of circuit. Class A is a gain device that modulates the entire wave form positive and negative. Class B is a gain device that modulates only half the wave positive sharing its work with a separate device that does the negative. They switch between them. Class AB is a mixture of both where at the cross over between positive and negative some sharing occurs. Almost all Amplifiers are AB if they have any power worth talking about.
Class D is different and is always transistor. Some people call it “Digital” but the D was the next available letter and does not denote digital per se. It uses the facility of transistors to switch on an off really fast. They work by turning on a device full power then turning it off. The length of the on time determines the signal amplitude once the carrier frequency is filtered out. Effectively a pulse code modulated (digital) signal is used to drive them. These can be very powerful and electrically efficient. They also demand very accurate conversions from analog and excellent filter components. These can be amazing.
With all these methods people have tried them all. Some work some not so much, all have flaws. If you have to ask the price.....
The most massive power amps ever built were transistor Class A. They run HOT. The gain devices run at about one half full current at idle. The sound is free from distortion from the switching in AB types, but depend on the linearity of the transistors. They also depend on the accuracy and stability of the “neutral’ terminal with is part of a highly regulated power supply. Only operate in cold climates or where electricity is cheap for the machine and the Air Conditioners.
My beef with tubes is simple. I like the sound, but I question the accuracy. Fans insist they are more accurate than any other type of circuit device. They also insist by changing brands or specific production runs of tubes you can adjust the sound to your preference. It is called Tube Rolling. If doing so alters the sound that is PROOF that it aint accurate. But they sound nice. My preamp is Tube.
They also are fragile eventually will wear out and are stupid expensive to replace. At least in preamps they last a long time and can be affordable.
Affordable drives most of my choices. It is simply because if I want to have music I need something I can afford. When I buy stuff it represents good stuff from bygone eras. If there is something obvious I can do to tweak it I do that.
My turntable is a Sony 2251 La which was an Absolute Sound recommended component in the 70s. The previous owner had an SME arm but kept it so bought a Grace 707 with a Shure V15 iii. At the time that was a HOT setup with a couple of tweaks including the correct pico-farads. I now have a Signets Cartridge that responds to over 40 khz. There is a cork mat which has an amazing effect on the sound. It is dialed in.
I have described the preamp and amp elsewhere.
My speakers I built. Over 40 odd years I have built many speakers. The current ones are the best I ever made. I think they are better than any I have ever heard. I have heard many examples of new designs in shops that are simply not as good. They are smallish. Roughly the size of my Advents, but with much better bass, and imaging, and clarity over the whole range. They are also unobtrusive and are mistaken for end tables usually.
I avoid the crazy money stuff. Sometimes I wonder what people hear.
