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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Hafler Complacency
Message-ID: <602@opus.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jul-84 00:28:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: opus.602
Posted: Mon Jul 16 00:28:38 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Jul-84 04:43:40 EDT
References: <1136@ihuxr.UUCP>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 58

>I'm so tired of hearing people talk about Hafler gear as if it was
>straight from God Almighty, himself.

Hold on a minute!  Any damn fool can see that Hafler equipment is not
high-end equipment and makes no pretense of being so.  It is obvious to the
most casual observer that it does not cost anywhere near enough to please
the discriminating audiophile.  Hafler even stoops so low as to offer their
equipment in "kits", whereas true high-end equipment must be assembled with
the utmost of care.  Do you really think that you can handle a screwdriver
as well as a highly trained electronics assembly worker?

(Compressed ranking from referenced article...)
>Level 1)  K-Mart6 "blu-light special" et al.
>Level 2)  Pioneer, Sansui, Radio Snack
>Level #3)  HAFLER, Nad, Adcom, SAE
>Level 4)  Precision Fidelity, Amber, PS Audio, Apt
>Level 5)  Bryston, Acoustat, Berning, Conrad-Johnson
>Level 6)  Mark Levinson, Audio Research

Let's look at some examples of what we're comparing.  Take an amp in the
neighborhood of 100w/ch for the sake of illustration:
	Level 3 - Hafler DH-200  $330 kit, $430 assembled
			vs, say
	Level 5 - Bryston 3B $925; C-J MV75a $1345
			or, perhaps
	Level 6 - Mark Levinson ML-9 $2870;  Audio Research D-120 $2195

>Hafler *IS* a cut above your average Sansui, but please be aware that it
>IS NOT the ultimate in high fidelity.

I can neither refute this nor confirm it.  Perhaps if we knew a little
more, like:
	- what kind of component we're comparing
	- what models we're considering from the various sources
	- what the alleged differences in fidelity are
then we might be able to get on with the discussion.  What IS the ultimate
in high fidelity?

Frankly, if I were going to choose an ultimate high-end preamp and amp, I'd
probably look to Threshold.  I have absolutely no reason to believe that it
sounds one iota better than something that costs 0.1 as much, but it's pretty
looking and rugged enough to meet a mil spec.  (On the other hand, I don't
look at my electronics boxes very much, so they don't have to be pretty.
And they don't get bounced around, soaked, overheated, or anything, so
they don't need bulletproof ruggedness.  So I buy cheapo level-3 stuff and
spend my money on records.  That will change someday - eventually I'll
spend the money on CD's:-)

As it is, all we've got is a gratuitous shot at Hafler.  I guess that's OK,
but why Hafler?  Why not NAD or Nikko or some of the other manufacturers
who market mid-priced good equipment?  If the point is that there's been a
lot of discussion of Hafler equipment in this group (which there has) then
let's focus on Hafler a bit and see what we find out.  The amount of
discussion is probably related to the fact that Hafler is pretty good
equipment for the money.
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
	...Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.