There used to be a “mid range” market for $2000 amps and things. I suspect that those people want good enough sound and will happily just use a fancy sound bar and sub. Especially since Marantz was bought and just started churning out middle of the road shite. There still exists a market for $25,000 Trinnov.

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AdrianB1 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I think I was one of the people desiring a mid range setup, but I found it very hard to justify when the "good enough" is 10-20 times cheaper. Based on perceived value, the $2000 mid range price looks 2-4 times too big for me and there is no sign of adjustment, what you can find at $3-500 is mostly garbage.

Audio is not like a graphics card, but people understand that you can buy at $500 a GPU that is ~ 2 times faster than a $200 one. The low end in audio is tens of dollars and there is nothing good in the hundreds of dollars range.

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NetMageSCW 5 hours ago | parent [-]

A Yamaha RX-V4A is $400 and the RX-V line goes up from there.

(Yes, I like Yamaha audio equipment.)

	▲	AdrianB1 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I like Yamaha, I have an older one in my living room, but for the $550 (local price) I am not extatic of what it offers. The digital part is a joke, it has a DAC in it but I cannot use a laptop as a digital source over USB, it has an Ethernet port, but it cannot use it for an embedded management web site, you need to run a phone app for that. My $15 relay controlling the lights has WiFi and embedded management web site, a $550 AV received does not. Also you cannot play movies, only music, even if it has in it what it takes for that. Figured out why? And this is not Yamaha, everyone is selling the same stuff. You can find cheaper Chinese integrated DAC + amplifiers, WiFi and BT with more modern stuff in it. Yes, the amp part is much lower quality, but you need features, convenience, great user experience, not just good audio. At least with the cheap soundbar you don't have high expectations, no disappointments.