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Naim seems to be having an issue worldwide. Their decision to send a $27K kit to a very popular low-end reviewer here in the US was a spectacular failure and shows how out of touch they have become. Plus there is a lot of talk about their many,...

Fair point.

A2A also took Siltech, Crystal Cable and Pillium from him. Against that he's picked up Bladelius. BTW I'm really happy with Bladelius, it's proving to be a very good pairing with M3. Basically the Bladelius ASK has taken over from my seven box...

Did not realise Boris got punted. He was hardly adding value to the brand, had high retail prices, would sell direct to customers at cheaper prices to undermine any retailers he had and carried no stock - so he was basically an order taker at a...

Steven Wilson Grace for Drowning

What is immutable is Singapore Airlines charging five times the price for a one-way ticket compared to the usual price of a return ticket, just because it's the last day of the school holidays, is a rip off. And it's price gouging. I chose to stay...

Actually it was Esoteric who didn't do themselves any favors. There is a YouTube video of the Esoteric guys discussing the new M1X and they recommended leaving it on 24/7 for five days to reach its sonic peak. No thanks, not for me. And I told them...

And honestly, Stereophile didn’t do the new M1X any favors with its review. Makes me pause before even considering them as an option to allow the ESLink connection. I pull love to be able to test it out with their latest monos but having to keep...

Completely agree.

You completely missed the point and the explanation.

Yep, but my point was, if you had an Esoteric power amp the ESLA link from the C1X solo might win over the voltage mode connection. I don't have an Esoteric power amp to make that comparison for myself.

The example I gave was for full-service airlines on the same route at the same time as the fair comparison, rather than low cost carrier. I can often fly Perth>Singapore return for less than $1000. One way Singapore>Perth for $5610 is a blatant rip...

"Second generation" was my speculative term for the pre -> amp ESLA implementation because the physical implementation differs from the K-01XD->CiX solo (and I think your D1X->C1X). Electrically they may well be the same and my speculation...

You do realize that 1) different airlines have different cost structures and 2) airline pricing is highly variable and dynamic on a daily basis based on a variety of factors such as # of seats left, how popular that route is, how many planes they...

Best to all, Bob

It's not a second generation iteration of ESLA. I read into it some marketing trickery. I'm not sure how much uniqueness there is about the Esoteric current transmission method. Halcro does current mode, so does Krell. And some others also. I've got...

Under solo features on the Esoteric website (it's not called second generation ESLA - that's me): "ES-Link Analog "With the flagship Grandioso amplifier models, Esoteric is breaking new ground by pushing the limits of fidelity in...

If Delta was charging $5610 to fly one way from LA to Miami in economy class, that would not be a rip off if another full-service airline was doing it $3000 cheaper?

Where is second generation ESLA promoted in any Esoteric marketing?

Kenichi Tsunoda Big Band Patricia Barber's last two albums are 352k

I may be the minority but I would for sure. It's like the $20.00 beer at the ball park, either you buy it or not. Someone might call the pricing a rep off but I don't consider it a rip off as long as there is still a choice to buy it or not.

In a post above, I mentioned that I chose to use Esoteric's ESLA link protocol between my K-01XD Player and my new C1X solo over standard XLR interconnects, thinking it's a proprietary feature so it must be at least marginally better. My initial...

Lets reverse engineer this argument , :) Who here would buy a lesser known and cheaper speaker than what they currently have because it sounded better ..? The End ...!

So resale price has nothing to do with supply and demand for that particular item or brand along with perceived value? Let's take Ideon as an example. Are their resale values low because of it being a "rip off" or because no one really knows...

One indication of un-due markup is to look at the used prices they sell for. If it's low, then most likely it's a so called rip-off. It it remains high then it's probably not. In this case Magico seem to hold their value better than most other...

24/192 mqa

Hi all, for the Meitner MA3 owners there is a Conversdigital network card firmware update available. The latest version is now emmlabs_1cup_Bdmrsv v3.9.31. The prior version was 3.9.28. You can apply this update using the mconnectControl HD app....

People don't understand businesses simply pass higher taxes and the cost of doing business onto the consumers. The consumers are blaming the wrong people.

you're not taking into account uncontrolable costs. Industrial property rents in California have literally doubled in the last five years, its now just as expensive as class-b office space on a PSF basis. Add to that, Magico is in Hayword, one of...

Hey Rob - if my point wasn't clear I own that. I was responding to "and the producers in particular are the ones pushing today's sonically unpleasant mastering styles.". Yes producers can influence the actual sound quality, many times they don't...

And I agree.

Ummm, you were the one who first used the term "argumentative"; my use was meant to be ironic, and perhaps I should have added an emoji to make that more clear. Back and forth in forums is (sort of) what it's all about. BTW, what I posted about...

"Pop" music and its sub-genres (such as "modern country") may well have gotten worse, for the most part that is outside my listening. Jazz is vibrant, "alternative" continues to progress, there are newer classical artists producing great music, etc.

I'm just responding to your posts. Sorry if you don't like back and forth on a forum and view that as argumentative. I didn't realize you were to have the last word on posts and no one could respond to you. Sorry. My bad.

Pricing can be a rip off even if you don't put your money down. I wanted to book a flight from Singapore to Perth. One way, economy class. That's a 5 hour flight. Singapore Airlines is charging $5610 for that. That is a rip off. Even the cheapest...

You are wasting your time with them. These people either CHOOSE not to understand reality or are incapable. They prefer to be victims and angry at the world.

If you aren't buying because of the high prices, you didn't get ripped off. If you decide to buy regardless of the price and agreed to pay it, you didn't get ripped off.

Give it up, it's hopeless. He has a "friend" who works in recording studios and his friend knows everything.

The garbage that passes for music today has certainly got worse, that's for sure. That's why the majority of my "mainstream" music listening dies out around the year 2005, and even that's pushing it. More like late 90's.

The new Magico distributor in Australia jacked up prices a lot a few months ago when they took over the brand. They have a different distribution model to the previous distributor. The fact they have S3 and M9 on display in a show room, well, that...

Why are you so argumentative?? What is first hand experience? Sitting in a studio during a recording session? Watching and working with a mastering engineer preparing a release? (I have done both, more than once; more back in the pre-digital age...

I beg to differ. Wilson and Magico are two examples. S5 was released a few years back @ 29k. new S3 is 45K. WTF the replacements for my Maxx3's are 145k - at 120% increase in price( a lot more in AU), I certainly cannot justify the...

Same for me. Dumped Tidal for Qobuz. To me it just sounded better. For me, MQA, take it or leave. Haven't listened to it since 2019 when I dumped Tidal.

Gotta love a pet who has the same musical tastes as you!

I see. You don't really disagree with my post nor do you have have first hand experience. You just wanted to be argumentative for no reason on a forum. Got it. Thanks.

And my point is that is is often not the engineer himself who is making the mastering decisions that result in the final product, but rather the producer and the artist. Sure some engineers “don’t care” or “can’t hear”, but many if not most are...

Same story here. I had Tidal for several years. When Qobuz became available, I got that as well and ran both side by side for about 6 months or so, maybe longer. After that, I dumped Tidal and kept Qobuz. Not that MQA sounded horrible, but it...

With Leedh, Lumin could probably have the worlds best sounding use of replay gain.

99% Amazon Orders...probably from my wife's account:roflmao: