February 2025

Dynamic Range And Price Range
Is it great audio gear just because it is expensive?
Editorial By Alan Sircom

  One of the great joys of good audio is dynamic range. But not necessarily in the way you think. Sure, the ability for a system to reproduce the dynamic swings of a good recording is something sublime to behold. Also, that ability for a system to be able to portray tiny dynamic cues within a larger setting (such as being able to hear mechanics of pressing the pedals on a piano in a concerto) is one of those aspects of audio performance we all look for. They are the subtle details that separate the 'great' from the merely 'good'.

There's another dynamic range that is perhaps even more satisfying; the dynamic range of audio products. While many fume over the 'oligarch-fi' prices of ultra-high-end audio, there has been a change taking place across the board. The affordable end of audio has upped its ante, upped its game, and – arguably – lowered its prices.

This last is controversial, but holds. Our rose-tinted view of past price tags doesn't take our past salaries into account. When I started on my audio journey, a Dual turntable, NAD amp and Wharfedale Diamond speakers set me back about £300 in the early 1980s. Which sounds crazy in today's market, but that equates to about £1,000 today, and that system was one of the cheapest ways you could get good audio at the time.

Despite changes to the market and the disappearance of significant numbers of new buyer, it's still possible to buy good audio for around £1,000 today. The names may have changed, but if anything the quality has improved; the semi-automatic turntable I had used to make a lot of clunking noises.

This magazine has standards, and it's easy to think they purely relate to price. They don't; it's always about the music. We extended the coverage of hi-fi+ to include active streaming loudspeakers because they got good enough to hold their own at the price and nothing else. So, seeing a streaming DAC preamplifier that costs less than a USB enhancement device is not only entirely consistent with those standards, but makes us happy that audio at all levels is moving ahead.

However, there's another side to this. There's a tendency toward argumentum ad crumenam and its opposite argumentum ad lazarum. The first – an appeal to the purse – could be summed up as 'it's good because it's expensive', while the latter is 'it's good because it's cheap'. Neither holds water; something in audio sounds good because it is good, regardless of cost. And, while it's exceptionally unlikely that a pair of £500 loudspeakers will outperform a pair of £500,000 loudspeakers, there are always products at any price that punch above their weight class.

We need more products that do that, whatever their price.

Alan Sircom, Editor hi-fi+

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