Does money buy better performance for AV products?
A few weeks ago we bumped into an article claiming that most audiophiles and home theatre lovers actually do not live on a big budget. It is just where their priorities are. It is what they choose to spend their ‘sanity money’ on. It got us thinking however; for which purchases do you splash out when you are building your home theatre set-up? And when are you just paying for branding and marketing?
We give you our humble opinion in these matters.
It is a rather burning question in the audio-visual world: does more money equal better performance? The short answer is yes… to a point. It basically depends. There are definitely no absolutes and there is also a situation for everything. What might not matter to one person might be of utter importance to the other.
But let’s just break it down into categories.
When it comes to cables, we can give you a very easy answer: price does not matter. Your only worry when it comes to cables is to make sure that you have pure copper cables at the right gauge (AWG, see an earlier blog). Apart from that, it is good to know that there is no engineering involved whatsoever in the development of cables. All you are getting for the higher price of a branded name is a fancy jacket and a good story. It is all about marketing and while we have no doubt that cable manufacturers believe their own stuff, a higher price is only going to give you cosmetics, not better performance or better quality.
Av receivers however is a completely different story. A lot goes on in an av receiver: HDMI switching, audio processing and decoding, powering speakers, base management just to name a few. It is a highly engineered product built with a low margin, so every cent has value.
While of course you can go overboard, the bottom line is that more money will buy you more features, more channels, more power and a higher amount of decoding. This is definitely an area where you spend as much as you can afford.
A similar argument can be made for home theatre projectors. This is definitely a fast moving market and a projector that was released 3 years ago gets labelled a ‘dinosaur’. New technology however comes at a premium and when we are talking people on an average income, we kind of feel we like to go with the same advice as the av receivers; buy the best quality and performance your wallet can afford, without making it a painful experience. You want to future proof to a certain extent, but it is very easy to get lost in the latest and the greatest while ending up with a massive hole in your wallet. Balance, wisdom and research are the words here.
Speakers, amplifiers and blu-rays are a bit of a ‘yeah maybe’. When it comes to these products price definitely matters at the lower end of the market. Simply put, you spend too little, you will get poor sound or image.
On the other end of the spectrum however, you start paying for cosmetics, pseudo-science (like misapplying science but making it sound legitimate or using exotic materials in places where it doesn’t matter) and the marketing hype. If a pair of speakers costs the same as a swimming pool, they must be great, right? Well… they may be great, but if you want to know whether you get value for money, you might get a different story and a much more economical pair of speakers might give you equal or better performance.
Another thing to be aware of is that you can over-engineer speakers relative to the size and features of the room they are in. Bigger is not necessarily better.
And last but not least, as consumers, it is good to be aware of the marketing that goes into price setting and since we are talking about av lovers on an average Joe income, these things are an important consideration.
To sum it up, our advice is to spend your money on your speakers and your av receiver instead of the fancy cables. And as with anything a bit of research is never a bad thing. You want the best bang for your buck.
Give us a ring or send us an email if you want some help in making any decisions for your audio-visual set-up, large or small. We love to help.
The Rapallo Team