Is Today’s Specialty AV Gear Too Inexpensive?

Roll the tape back about seven years, and I was outfitting my newly renovated home with all of the toys needed for a pretty tricked-out Crestron-based smart home that didn’t ignore audiophile and videophile performance. While I was just starting to use invisible speakers back then, I still had a lust-worthy pair of Focal Sopra No. 2 floor-standing speakers, with a custom matching center in white, that I ended up selling to the new buyer when I flipped the house. At the center of the living room system was a whopping 85-inch Samsung 4K TV. While not set with HDR, it was $10,000 retail back in the day. I was able to buy it at a bit of a discount, because of my role as a publisher in the industry. In fact, I bought two of them: one for me and one for my AV installer who is a close personal friend. I think we paid $7,000 each for the giant flat TVs, and we were pleased as punch to do so.

The Vizio Effect on HDTVs

A year and a half ago, I moved into a larger, Mediterranean McMansion of sorts, which has a downstairs family room well-suited for audio and home theater. This time, although I still owned my old publication, it just wasn’t worth calling in any special favors to get TVs, as I was able to buy a Sony 85-inch LED set that was brand new, packing more inputs, and HDR. I paid $2,995 for it. I was dumbfounded at the price, considering the modern features set, the improved form factor, the brightness, the lack of need to have a $500 calibration to meet SMPTE video broadcast standards. I mean talk about the Vizio effect … wow.

A few weeks ago, I was casually watching The Superbowl and saw a local, regional AV chain advertising a very similar 85-inch set for $1,995. Are you kidding me? Back in the day of CRT projectors, somebody like me (or you) would have killed to have a 4:3 screen that was 85 inches across, and we’d have no expectations whatsoever of getting the kind of impressive light output that these $2,000 monster UHD TVs can deliver. What we might have spent $10,000 to $20,000 on back in the day is $2,000 today, and superior in every conceivable way.

For the consumer, this level of improvement in value and performance is nearly all upside. You get more TV for your television dollar, and can have an experience that blows away what most of even today’s projectors can do, for close to no money. Gone is the need to have the video guru over to calibrate your set, as most brands have multiple settings in the menu that get you inside the SMPTE standards with three or four pushes of a remote button. The issue is more for the dealer. The Vizio effect that I describe above has eroded the profit margins for dealers, so that it is hardly worth selling a big TV, other than for labor and the margin made selling the mount and/or HDMI cable. The days of selling a $15,000 42-inch (thick and noisy) plasma TV into every room of a house, and making big bucks are long, long gone. You say, “Who cares about the dealers,” and that’s fine, but those specialty AV dealers are the same businesses that support the enthusiast part of the hobby. They are the ones who display, install, and support the more high-end, tech-forward stuff, like object-based surround sound, separate electronic components, audiophile-grade speakers, acoustical and interior design, just to mention a few of the things that a good local dealer does that helps keep the AV business rocking. Without these dealers, we don’t get exposed to the new, super-cool AV stuff at places like Best Buy, Costco, or especially on Amazon. Those dealers simply aren’t in the experience business but as an enthusiast – you are.

A buddy of mine from the golf enthusiast world is, of all the things one could do for a living, the CEO of an NFL Football team. His uncle owns the team and, in pre-COVID-19 times, he’s been kind enough to extend invitations for me to sit in the owner’s box for their games, especially when my Eagles are in town. The experience is pretty fantastic, with amenities that are pretty close to over-the-top. Food, drink, comfortable seats, excellent access to the game, and enough TVs to never miss a second of game action or a replay. Oh, and super-clean, well-appointed bathrooms are waiting for your presence – just like at home. When my buddy and I talk, we always discuss the state of electronics, as the NFL knows that they make a truckload of cash dollars on their TV contracts. Not every city’s weather is as nice as it is for my friend’s team, thus not everybody wants to go to Lambeau Field for a few hours of tailgate in December. In many cities (it should be all, considering the past mismanagement of COVID-19 in this country), there were no fans going to NFL games, thus the increasing importance of the television experience. The commitment for a fan to the NFL isn’t too staggeringly pricey and, with eight home games (assuming no playoffs), it isn’t too rough on the schedule, compared to the 82 games in the NHL, or the 160-plus games in a traditional MLB season (half of which are at home). The value proposition in a non-COVID-19 world is, would you rather sit outside and watch a game in real time at the stadium, or be at home with all of your comforts (seating, snacks, drinks, perfect temperature, great sound, no commercials and yet a gorgeous HD picture)? For me, it is easy to select the home version of the game, because of these advantages.

The HDMI Impact on High-End Audio

Let’s talk about today’s electronics in terms of price and value. Years ago, in the pre-HDMI era, high-end audio companies (think: Theta, Krell, Meridian, Sunfire, B&K, and many others) could make AV preamps that were audiophile-grade components, as well as suitable video switchers, plus 5.1 surround sound-capable. HDMI had a disruptive effect on the world of high-end AV preamps. Hollywood studios demanded that their content be on lockdown in the digital world after seeing what peer-to-peer sharing (Napster, LimeWire, etc.) did to the music business. This made the barrier to entry to the AV preamp world a whole hell of a lot more complicated. Licensing technologies quickly got really pricey. In-house engineering became trickier and more labor-intensive. If you wanted to keep up with the ever-changing surround sound formats, God help you if you were a high-end audio company with under $20,000,000 in yearly sales. The costs alone of paying the DTSs and Dolbys of the world could be hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit of product category. Ouch.

High-end products either stopped being made (think the Krell Evo AV preamp at around $30,000), or companies tried their level best to use an upgradable card-based system to stay relevant (think Meridian 861 or Theta Casablanca). Many other companies (think Sunfire, B&K, Krell) just stopped making AV preamps completely. If you don’t buy chips by the tens of thousands, it is hard to compete with the likes of Harman (Mark Levinson, Lexicon, JBL Synthesis, ARCAM) or Sound United (Denon and Marantz) in terms of price and performance. When you look at the features set of a $500 Denon receiver, it is hard not to be truly impressed. Perhaps the internal amps aren’t like a rack full of Crowns, but for the money, that $500 receiver could be a very powerful AV preamp. I am using a Marantz SR 8012 (their former top of the line unit that was favorably reviewed here) as my AV preamp, paired with a seven-channel Halcro amp. Some of my effect and height channels in my new theater are powered by the $3,000 receiver, which, when you really get down to it, is one hell of a value in today’s AV world, compared to what I have paid in the past for amps, and Meridian, Mark Levinson, and Classe AV preamps.

The Best Value in Home Theater is NOW

Dare we delve into the world of today’s affordable, performance-oriented speakers? What $2,000 buys you today in a floor-standing speaker is so much better than it was, say 10 years ago. It might be the most improved category! Add to that the improved finishes and aesthetic, and you’ve got speakers that can dress up nicely in your room, as well as rock it. Oh, let’s not leave the subwoofer out of the conversation. Under-$1,000 subwoofers have the ability to room correct, have ultra-high output and basically take the low-end load off of your front speakers. This brings the cost of your high-performance system down, while getting better and better results in your media room. The icing on the cake here is room correction. Today’s AV receivers have drastically improved room correction, which can easily and effectively fix the issues with your system and, more importantly, your system in your room. Yes, physical room treatments are where you want to start, but if your $1,200 receiver can fix nine meaningful maladies in your system, you can feel safe selling that old Sunfire AV preamp on eBay for $200. It can’t keep up. And it isn’t even close.

For consumers, what you get for your money today is better than ever before. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you have to pay for the nth degree of performance, unless that is the goal that you are chasing. That level of excellence will always be elusive but like breaking the world speed record – it is a hell of a lot of fun, too. In the meantime, enjoy the fact that you can spend less today than ever before on an AV system that can rock in ways money couldn’t buy mere years ago – and that is a damn good thing.