A Question of Value
I get e-mail -- thank goodness. It means there are readers
out there, which is a huge relief to a writer. We spend all our time alone in rooms
writing, and our worst nightmare is that there’s nobody outside the room
reading. As John Atkinson once remarked, "Readers make writers. The act of writing is
like masturbation -- it’s a solitary vice unless someone reciprocates it."
And while it’s always a joy to get congratulatory mail
telling me how smart, perceptive, or handsome (hey, it could happen) I am,
it’s the less adulatory missives that teach me more. Sometimes they reveal that
I’ve been unclear, or haven’t thought through a product’s ramifications --
and sometimes, they make me realize that concepts I accept as givens are, in fact, not
universally shared.
That happened recently, after I reviewed the McCormack UDP-1 ($3495 USD) universal
audio/video player. My review was a rave, basically. I awarded the unit four stars
each for performance, use, and value. That bothered reader Rhymes With Nantucket, who
wrote: "How can a $3495 universal player get four stars for value?"
In one sense, RWN is right -- $3495 is a lot of money, and
you can buy a universal player these days for well under a grand. I haven’t heard any
sub-kilobuck universal players that reproduce CDs as well as the UDP-1 does, so I
don’t consider them true competition. On the other hand, you could also buy a
dedicated CD player, a standalone SACD player, and a DVD-Audio player -- good ones
-- for less than that. If that’s true, does 3500 smackers represent value?
That depends. I like convenience, and having a single
player is the whole point of a universal player. I also rely primarily on CD as my digital
source, so excellent CD performance is a must. My favorite CD players remain the Ayre CX-7
($3000) and the late, lamented Classé CDP-10 ($2000), so the McCormack isn’t
light-years beyond either of them in price. But that presumes that the Ayre and the
Classé represent good value themselves -- and they’re pretty expensive
compared to many CD players, certainly any mass-market model.
That’s precisely why the whole question of value can
be so sticky. I think value is a complex and frequently shifting skein of factors. Price
is certainly one of those factors, but only one.
High-end audio is, by its very nature, a marginal
enterprise. Ideally, at least, the field is less concerned than are mass-market audio
manufacturers with maximizing profit, and more concerned with maximizing sound quality. Of
course, if high-end manufacturers ignore something as basic as making a profit, they
won’t be around long, so it should come as no surprise that high-end gear costs more.
But how much more is "right," and how much is too much?
Those are judgment calls, and I calls ’em as I sees
’em -- and my calls may not be transferable to your reality. Part of the
problem of judging price is that my wallet might not fit in your pocket.
I’ve been an avid audiophile for a few decades now, so
I’m less shocked by the high end’s pricing structure than might be someone
who’s just discovered it. Even so, there are prices that make me gasp -- a
classic example being the $350,000 Wavac SH-833 monoblocks, which Michael Fremer reviewed
in Stereophile in July. Is that too much? I’d say so, especially if you read
the measurements that accompanied Mikey’s subjective impressions.
But what am I saying? Would the Wavacs’ $350k price be
more justifiable if they measured better? Probably -- I can’t imagine spending that
kind of money on an amplifier, but if I did, it would settle my mind considerably if I
thought it was "the best."
That raises some questions, however. Apart from the issue
of whether anybody is buying $350k amplifiers, is there anyone buying them who doesn’t
believe they are the best? Who’d spend $350k on the world’s second-best
amp?
Okay, that’s probably a bad example. I haven’t
met anybody who didn’t snort and roll his eyes when mentioning that particular
product. What about a $20,000 CD player, such as Linn’s CD12? Surely that’s too
much for a CD player. It’s certainly too much for me to spend on a CD player.
I paid that much for a car once, and it wasn’t even new. However, when I reviewed the
CD12 for Stereophile, I was stunned at how much better it was than the
"cheap" $14,000 transport-DAC combo I’d been using as a reference. I
didn’t want it to be -- and I certainly couldn’t understand how there could be a
significant difference -- but having heard it, I had to report that there was a
difference.
That’s my job, after all. I suppose you could make the
argument that the $14,000 transport-DAC was also vastly overpriced. (I know someone
who’s examined that company’s books, and who assures me that there wasn’t
as much profit in those components as you might think.) But it was a popular combo that
attracted a great many purchasers -- all of whom, presumably, thought it represented good
value.
The fact is, I couldn’t afford those products either
-- but while my ability to afford products has a profound impact on my purchasing
decision, it’s not a universal value.
That’s why I attempt to describe what it’s like
to use a product -- from its ease of use to its remote/hand interface to its (of course)
performance. You may have a different reaction to any of these factors, but if I do my job
correctly, you’ll be able to determine from my description what your own reaction
might be.
Which brings us back to the question of whether or not a
$3500 player is a good value. In the case of the McCormack, I think it is. It is,
as I’ve already mentioned, a heck of a CD player -- one worthy of comparison to the
not too differently priced Ayre CX-7. That it’s also an extremely good SACD and DVD-A
player just increases its utility and, yes, value. Plus, it’s well built and a
pleasure to use -- which are less universal traits than I would wish. My 20-plus years of
experience with both McCormack and its parent company, Conrad-Johnson, tell me that anyone
buying the UDP-1 will be very fairly treated in the unlikely event they ever have any
problems with the unit -- another bold check in the plus column. And finally, the UDP-1 is
a product that I would spend my own money on, which is always the test of last resort. In
fact, my mentor in audio reviewing maintains that it’s the only test that
matters.
It’s entirely possible that you can buy a better
universal player than the McCormack UDP-1. It’s a lead-pipe cinch that you can buy
one cheaper. But as far as I know, you can’t buy a better universal player cheaper --
and to my way of thinking, that makes it a good value.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
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