I think I understand the basis of BeethovenRocks' argument, and I agree with the concept. When you look at very inexpensive receivers (or DVD players, or whatever other mass produced product you want to name), there is a point where the low cost comes at the expense of good design, construction, and quality control - units that quite simply don't work the way they should. As you move up the price tag food chain, the overall quality level will typically also improve. (There are cases where the overall quality does not improve but the added price is due to effective marketing - the Bose Acoustimass speaker systems spring quickly to mind - but we'll let those be the exceptions that help prove the rule.) At some (impossible to define) price point, you should reach a point of rapidly dimishing return.

Look at the DVD player market, for example. There are a number of manufacturers (almost to the point of being countless, it seems like sometimes) making very inexpensive players. In theory, they all play discs the same way. At the bottom end of the price range, however, you have a significantly higher percentage of players that exhibit incompatibility with complex discs, players with unacceptably high failure rates, and players with shorter life spans. A $79 DVD player may be able to provide as good a picture on a standard definition TV as a $900 DVD player. On the other hand, the $79 player is also more likely to not work when you first take it out of the box, to simply die for no reason after fairly little use, or to have some other unfortunate design weakness.

With surround sound processors, you have a somewhat different environment. When the Model 950 was still available, it was the least expensive SSP on the market that I was aware of (looking solely at "new from the manufacturer" products). Later this year, AV123's LMC-1 will probably take over that title (at the same price point that the 950 had at the end of its production run). Because of the smaller and more demanding market for SSP's, there has not (and likely never will be) a "$99" bracket where the product "worked" but was clearly identifiable as "cheap" to the point of almost not working, so we've always been looking at a market where we focus on much more relative subtleties.

I understand, but now I hear the 990 sounds better than the 950, why is that so when they are both PRETTY GOOD EQUIPMENT?

my buddy had a sanyo that was a tv tuner,radio tuner,vcr,dvd,but the amp was in the sub,so i think you are right

it was a real turd too.

Some of you have gone off the deep end in making extreme price comparisons. No, a Yorx brand won't touch a Mark Levinson, but that was not what I was talking about originally. Let me give you just one real-life example of "golden ear" absurdity.

In the late '80s, Stereophile, along with its sister publications, hated CD sound until one of its writers declared that he had FINALLY found a way to make CDs listenable (and I do not exaggerate the emphasis): Polish them with ArmorAll, said he, not to mention put a rubber band (an expensive one, of course) around the CD, put a weight on it (if possible; many players then opened to the top), and paint the edges green with a special pen made of pixie dust, I suppose. Of course, you had to play them in a $4,000 transport and matching D-to-A converter. They preached this gospel with a fervor Jimmy Swaggert would admire.

At their '89 show in New York, they put on a single-blind test comparing a doctored CD played on a very expensive transport vs. an untouched CD played on an off-the-shelf Philips unit. Both players were connected digitally to a common and expensive D-to-A converter. Seven varied musical examples were played each two times. The idea was for test participants to decide if they were listening to the same player/CD or two different players/CDs. More than 1,630 people took part, and not one of them got a perfect score. If I recall, only one or two got six out of seven. Stereophile took a very long time publishing the results and did as little as possible to bring attention to them. Later, it was discovered that ArmorAll could damage the CD substrate.

In short, you could have obtained the same results with 1,630 deaf participants making guesses. Why? Because there was no difference to be heard, notwithstanding Stereophile's enthusiastic endorsement of every CD tweak and overpriced transports. Anyone disagreeing was literally insulted as having an inadequate system, hearing, or both. I know. I disagreed vocally at the show.

I could give you other examples.

This, in fact, makes total sense, since the only changes in this a/b test are in the digital realm. Despite the preponderance of snake oil in terms of CD weights and digital cable magnets, since it's all 1s and 0s, there is no effective difference without a D/A.

This is quite different from comparing pre/pros, whose whole purpose is to act as the analog gateway for digital (and analog) signals. Like speakers, pre/pros deal with analog signals, although the signal path is more complex in a pre/pro. If you believe that similarly priced speakers can sound different, does it not follow that pre/pros would be capable of at least some variety in sonic characteristics?

I see you're from Red Lion - is that the Red Lion in chester or york county?

The reason they call them "Golden Ears" is because they make you shell out more gold to satisfy them. If you have the misfortune to have an organic variation that makes your ears better and more accurate listening instruments, that is a curse, not a blessing.

I think the $1000 figure is a good guestimate at where the average person will start to see diminishing or non-existent returns for each dollar they spend. But that point is going to change based on an individual's organic predisposition as well as to how much time they have invested "Learning to listen" critically.

Bottom line, I don't think a $99 system will be sonically equal (on average) to a $1000 preamp driving the same setup. IO think that is true even if the $99 system is just used as a PRE/PRO. I migrated to separates slowly, and I could hear a difference between my $200 Kenwood Receiver as a Pre/Pro and the Rotel I bought, and so could others who came to listen.

So all of the supporters of this arbitrary magic price minimum (ie $1000) would have to say either one of two things.

1. Sonically there is no advantage of moving from the 950 to the 990 considering they are both good quality.
or
2. That the 950 is the equal of a $99 piece of cr*p.

I guess I just want to know what side you fall on?

Someone thought that my "golden ear" example was too obvious, that comparing "snake oil" was not the same as comparing amplification devices. I agree that CD preparation is snake oil, but the $4.000 transport vs. the Philips wasn't. In any event, the specifics of the test are not the point. That so-called experts make outlandish claims of audibility their own tests disprove, is. If you weren't happy with the first example, here are two more.

Golden Ear Foolishness Example Numero Dos

In 1988, Stereophile performed its first single blind test at its then annual show, this one comparing the Adcom GFA555 and VTL amplifier, the latter being tube monoblocks about eight times more costly than the mass-produced, solid-state Adcom. (Speakers used in the test, as they were the following year, were B&W 801s.) I was not involved in this test, but Stereophile published a lengthy, detailed article. Testing was performed in the same manner as previously described here. Once again, participants fared no better than guessing - with one possible exception, and I say "possible" because the numbers are not definitive. On a Telarc CD of the Faure Requiem, a recording with rich, natural bass in a church, participants were correct about 64% of the time. I suggest that if sharper-eared participants heard anything, it was the superior damping factor of the solid-state Adcom, i.e., it better controlled the 801's woofers. Nonetheless, the "golden ears" at Stereophile continued to tout the glory of the VTL and tube amps in general.

Golden Ear Foolishness Example Numero Tres

This one is from those record-philes at The Absolute Sound. They were present when the venerable Mercury Living Presence recordings were transferred to CD. While admitting they could not hear the difference between the finished CD and the analog master tapes, TAS nonetheless concluded the recordings sounded better on record. They never explained how records were able to improve on the master tape.

These are magazines ostensibly on the cutting edge of audio, staffed by so-called (often self-proclaimed) experts. For certain, they have a major effect on the audio retail market in spite of the fact their opinions are scientific claptrap. Worse, they have influenced decades of audiophiles to fear admitting the emperor is naked. Folks, too often he's butt neked!

Double blind testing is usually a humbling experience. Having participated in a number of such tests over the years and dealing with double blind testing in other scientific fields, I can unequivically state that the results with auditory tests involving electronic components are usually unrevealing and that differences can easily be obscured rather than highlighted.

One such test involved comparing two CD players in the 1988. One of the players had a patently defective DAC that truncated the data to about ten bits. Listening to the player at home induced a pounding headache after two or three tracks of just about any disc that I tried. Gritty, grainy, hashy, noisy, and "electronic" are all terms that could be used to describe the sound eminating from that forlorn component.

Several musical selections were chosen for the test and included both classical orchestral material and a pop track. The playback system was of high quality and both players produced nearly the same output voltage, so no complicated level matching was necessary. Four experienced audiophiles were involved, and each listener could take as long as needed for the tests. Only two of us could consistently identify the defective player. I had the advantage of knowing what to listen for, but passed only on the classical selection. No one could pass with the pop music despite repeated attempts. Following the conclusion of the test, I sent the defective player home with one of those that couldn't pass with either program. That next day he called and explained that the CD player must have been damaged in transport to his apartment, because it sounded terrible! The moral of the story - be very careful when interpreting data from this type of auditory test.

I haven't seen anyone in this thread claiming that you have to spend $1000 to get good sound. In fact, the baseline discussion (which is essentially an absurdly exaggerated case) has been a purely theoretical one between $100 vs. $1000 - nice round numbers an order of magnitude apart.