There is only one question that is important when it comes to buying electronic equipment: how much have you got to spend?

Walk into any electronics store, wake up one of the salesmen, tell him you want to buy, let’s say, an amplifier. His first question, if he feels like helping you at all, will be centered around just how much money you’ve either got in your pocket or are prepared to write a check for or charge. Once you’ve answered that question, he’ll show you the equipment available in your price range, starting with the units he gets the biggest mark-up on.

The retail pricing structure of electronics breaks everything down into three categories: low, moderate and high. When buying an amplifier this means $200 or less, $250 to $350 and ver $400. Most manufacturers subscribe to this type of entertainment electronics economics and, with the exception of a few companies who still believe in the theory that you produce the best at whatever the price of the craftsmanship involved, you’re pretty much locked into accepting these lines of demarcation.

The problems with this system center around the low price category. A lot of shit is turned out in this area with the price not really reflecting the value you’re getting. If you pay under $200 for an amplifier, you can’t really be certain of what you’re getting. Manufacturers and dealers seem to feel that if you ve only got $200 to spend you re not really a serious audiophile and won’t notice the short cuts they’re taking to give you a lot of chrome and fifty watts for $149.50.

The advantages are that if you have got a substantial amount of money to spend buying an amplifier, say $300 to $500, you’re going to get a unit which will be up to the state of the art, functioning to the full capacity of the electronics involved in amplifying and shaping a signal for reproduction.

Most of the brand name manufacturers are pretty straight forward about this pricing hierarchy. They want you to know what the quality of the unit is that you’re buying in the hope that eventually you’ll come back to them when you decide to upgrade your sound system. And, be warned, upgrading is part of the electronics game. It’s the whole Detroit car syndrome: you buy the stripped down Ford this year because that’s what you can afford, but you continue to dream about the day you can relax in the sumptuous gran: deur of your Lincoln Continental. In the amplifier line, Kenwood is one of the manufacturers who is very direct about what they’re selling. Recently they’ve introduced what they themselves describe as their “new luxury amplifier,” the Kenwood KA-8004, with a retail price tag of approximately $400.

Totally transistorized, the KA-8004 is a very simple, direct unit, which passes on frills to give you the three major factors that are most important in sound amplification: stability, tonal quality and dynamic range. Kenwood’s engineers have concentrated on making sure that the amplifier performs as dependably as possible in these areas so that you’ll hear whatever sound is on your records or tapes coming out of your speakers without the addition of any other signals such as low frequency rumble or high end hiss. They don’t do this by simply cutting off some of the bass, signal and some of the treble signal (a frequent electronics trick incorporated in cheaper amps), but t?y anticipating the problems inherent in playing records and tapes and compensating for those problems through internal filters and amplification stability factors. In other words, it is possible to do just about anything with the electronics of sound reproduction these days if you’re willing to spend the money, and if you’ve spent the $400 that this unit costs, you’re getting your money’s worth.

Additional features of the KA-8004 include inputs for two phones, two auxiliary signals and two tape recorders. You can, in fact, record and playback between two tape recorders with this unit while both tape decks are connected to the amp. Power is rated at 55 watts per channel, and you can run three sets of stereo speakers simultaneously in three different rooms, with selection of which to run when through switches on the front of the amp.

The pricing game isn’t just for amplifiers by the way, the same holds true for almost any; type of audio equipment, especially turntables. You can buy a Garrard for anywhere from $50 to $200 — about the range that turntables run. The breakdown at the moment is $75 or less for a cheap turntable, $100 to $150 for a moderately priced turntable, and $200 for what the industry refers to as a transcription turntable, although that term doesn’t happen to mean anything. Garrard is the biggest offender in this area since the consumer can’t help but be confused when the salesman offers him the same brand name for anywhere from $49.95 to $199.95 and has trouble explaining the exact difference involved in the price changes. United Audio Products’ line of Dual turntables have adopted a better tack. All Duals are priced in the same general category, between $100 and $200 and they’ve designed their equipment to show you that you really do get what you pay for. Thus you feel much more secure buying a lower priced Dual, in terms of the essential quality involved, than you would buying a cheap Garrard. Dual has just introduced a new turntable, their 1214, which is the lowest priced model in their line at $109.50 and which I’d recommend to anyone who wants a turntable with record changer facilities. The Dual 1214 has all the basic features of higher priced Duals such as a very dependable motor, a low mass tonearm that can track down to less than two grams, and a factory Set anti-skating system. IB 3 m

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