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About AudioEnz |
A good bang for the audio buck
Bargains galore.
By Max Christoffersen
October 2000
We've all heard the promotional push - "Buy now this is the last
shipment at this price."
Well, never before has that been more true. As I write, the Kiwi dollar
(if you can call it that) just went through 39 cents to the greenback.
Face it - the advertising pitch is right. If you are going to buy audio
- do it now. Do it today (stop reading this and go part with your cash
now!)
Looking around local retailers and specialist dealers there are bargains to be had from home theatre receivers to rear projection TVs to cables and accessories to speakers. Local audio pricing has always been a hit-and-miss affair and I could never figure out some of the prices for imported products vs the same model advertised overseas. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose in the comparison.
The net has certainly introduced a means of immediate comparison to
audio products abroad and I too have bought goods on E-Bay and had them
arrive landed at a third the cost of similar products on local shelves.
It's always a risk and always without warranty support or back-up.
Buy local and at least you get to eyeball people instead of trusting
an e-mail account that may or may not be kosher.
"You get what you pay for," has always been a popular anthem
for those in the high-end of audio and to an extent they are right. But
one high end product has dropped from the high end stratosphere to the
teenagers' midi-system more than any other. Looking through 1990s audio
mags, I uncovered a 1992 review of a Marantz CD-Recorder. Only eight years
ago this unit sold for $7000US with the discs at $80US. Now my teenage
son owns one. Only he paid less than $400NZ and the discs are damn near
a dime a dozen.
Sure it's not a Marantz and it's part of a computer system. But the development
in optical recording technology has been near miraculous - not just for
the its quite incredible fidelity, but for its price. And that trend is
happening elsewhere, particularly where processing chips is concerned.
Now if only amplifiers, high end speakers and video signal processors could be similarly priced. But maybe I speak too soon.
For those wanting video processing the DVDO (out of the US) represents
one of the most affordable video scalers yet available. During the 80s
and 90s any form of video upscaling was likely to cost anywhere between
$5-10,000. So how does $699US sound for a ground breaking line doubler
with performance pushing the much vaunted Faroujda?
Too good to be true? You would think so. Only like many other products
the DVDO represents a huge bang for the buck and it does appear to introduce
high-end video performance to the masses, at the right price.
Overall the bang for the buck factor seems to be hitting hard everywhere.
While prices are going up, product performance also seems to be improving.
New multi-channel amps, progressive scan DVD, dedicated HT projectors,
digital room treatments - all at a price of course, but the equipment
on show does make for serious lust makers.
It is a great time to be in audio with all of the exciting new developments
and genuine breakthroughs that really do push the performance envelope.
But how much to spend? Well for me I like an audio bargain and I think I found the best bang for the buck (literally) in audio in NZ. I've always wanted a genuinely scary bottom end and I found it in the Clark Synthesis tactile transducer.
But at $500US ($1100NZ ) I'm not about to buy another quickly, but what I can buy is the Aura bass shakers and cushions complete with amplifiers at $37. Thirty seven dollars!
If you're looking for a genuine bang for the buck the Aura transducers
(available from Jaycar Electronics in Auckland) are fun, cheap enough
to experiment with and good enough to change your perspective on audio.
At $37 what have you got to lose?
A quick look through any of the mainstream dedicated audio dealers will
uncover a great deal if you look hard particularly at last year's model.
So if you're buying - buy now. Buy like it's going to be part of your
system for a few years and buy it because it's the right product at the
right price at the right time from the right place.
After all - the next shipment is going to be more expensive and that is no longer a promo-pitch. That is hard cold fact.
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