Well, I agree but we as pro or at least semi-pro musicians are keepers of the faith so to speak. The general public knows squat. They don't care about absolute audio quality or the quality of musicianship either. It's up to us to uphold the quality of the product and it's been that way forever with all the trades. Most people can't tell if a piece of jewelry is top quality workmanship or not but other jewelers know and the good ones have pride in their workmanship. Same thing for pretty much anything that's commercially produced from furniture to cars. I happen to be a big fan of Mercedes. I've never been in a position to buy a new one but have bought 5 ot 6 used ones for 25 years now including my latest 2001 CLK 430. I paid 7K for it, it's great car, the rear seats fold down for loading stuff for my gigs and it literally looks like a 50K new one.

There's maybe 5% at the most of users who can tell the overall sound quality and the quality of the players but the other 95% haven't a clue. That doesn't mean we all start producing crap because nobody will notice. Therefore I buy the highest quality stuff I can afford. I know my EMU 1820M with the external audiodock is much better quality than anything built into any PC and I don't care whether a listener can tell the difference or not.

Bob

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