Arny Krueger wrote:
"max graff" wrote in message
oups.com
Hi guys,

I was auditioning some lovely Mcintosh amplifiers this
weekend and came across a sales guy commenting "Mark
Levinson amplifers are just overrated peice of yuppy
trash".

As if Mcintosh would never sell any of their seemingly less overpriced
products to any yuppy with the coinage and the desire.

I know that all the top-of-line Lexus models carry MLs.

A simple case of branding by Harmon International, who own the name.

Mark himself has lost the rights to both his name and his sexy wife, the
author.

But car stereo systems don't mean much to me. High-end
2-channel home audio does ;-)

What means more to you, sound quality or bragging rights?

Any comments would be very much appreciated.

Well, these are "any comments". ;-)


In my view, both the statements in the Subject line are true for most
"high-end" equipment.

As Don said, as far as sound quality goes, almost any modern piece of
electronics will sound the same when you don't know the brand. Buy on
facilities and looks, as hopefully you'll be living with it a long time.

Having said that, high-end equipment isn't just about performance, looks
and build-quality come into it a great deal. ML equipment, as is Krell,
MF, Audio Research etc etc are very well built, perform superbly, are
well engineered and therefore are "good". They have achieved Brand
values that allows them to charge premium prices which other brands
can't. I remember years ago Sony, Technics, JVC and others had a
"premium" range selling at similar prices to other High-End brands and
which I'm sure was just as good, but very few shops carried them and
enthusiasts shunned them. Their Brand just couldn't carry the price.

So the earlier advice seems sound. There's nothing wrong with ML, and
they are well built etc, *but* performance-wise, you can get the same
for a *lot* less money.

S.