Are audiophile products designed to initially impress then fatigue to make you upgrade?

Think about what happens when you upgrade.  First impression is "wow, I can tell a difference".  Second, you listen for hours and hours,  thinking "I should have done this before".  After a few days or a few weeks the novelty of improvement wears off and this new sound is now your standard or reference, if you will.  So we look to upgrading in the future.  And so on.......

I've written about this here and in my blog in the past.  Whenever I read a reviewer saying "these speakers sent me back to my music collection and I was hearing things i have never heard before" I'm always suspicious this is the case.

A ragged frequency response can differentiate a product.  If you attach a high price tag to it they will then claim the difference is worth the $$$.

A lot of it is people thinking some things matter when they don't. The industry encourages this, of course.

As jnovak has noted, I believe bigtwin has hit the nail on the head on this one! It would be great to get a bona fide neuroscientist's take on this. To one degree or another, I believe all serious audio and/or stereophiles are junkies, especially those who are constantly "upgrading" or otherwise tweaking their systems. After a while, we kind of become accustomed to and comfortable with the systems we put together and constantly wonder what would sound better and provide a bigger thrill.

I also believe onhwy61 makes a very valid point here, too. Although I don't have access to data that would validate a statement like "the majority of audiophiles put together a system and run it until it breaks or some major life change intervenes", this certainly rings true for me, personally, and almost all of my audiophile friends. For example, I've only owned 2 turntables in my audiophile life (i.e.  a Phillips 212 Electronic that I purchased in 1972, which was still working until I replaced it around 5 years ago). Additionally, I've only owned 3 amplifiers since 1972, still have all of them and all still work fine, although the Sansui 2000x really needs to be recapped. The only two audiophile level components I've ever owned that failed after many, many years of faithful and flawless service were an old Denon cassette deck and a Sony CD player. Generally speaking, good, solidly built components tend to last and perform well for a long time.

Man if audiophiles think they have it hard, try being serious about cycling where every few years there's a new trend or technology push and suddenly your functionally and fully capable custom bicycle is obsolete in some way. Of course there will always be people in both hobbyist realms that get caught up chasing the dragon. In cycling, there was a trend towards road bikes being as light as possible with every component fabricated out of Titanium or carbon. A custom built bike might cost upwards of $10K or more. Now the trend is do-everything gravel bikes that can race for hours or carry gear for long bike-camping trips. Much the same way audiophiles buy themselves new cables or some accessory and they get the immediate wow factor and then become accustomed to that sound and it's not as fresh and exciting as it was the day they plugged the new accessory or component in.

I'm selective about what I buy and buy the best that I can afford without taking out a second mortgage. So my bikes that I build up myself are intended to last me years and years of enjoyment. The same with my audio equipment. I upgrade when it makes technological sense to me. I don't begrudge someone who cycles through components looking for that "insert multiple adjectives here"______________ sound. I enjoy window shopping but honestly, I have a young family to raise so I can't justify thousands of dollars on a hobby that, if you let it, has no end point. The pleasure of the hobby is taken over by the active pursuit of some immeasurable perfection that does not exist.

I do cost benefit comparisons on my hobby purchases because once I buy a piece of equipment - bike stuff or stereo stuff I don't want to have buyer's remorse and I intend to keep it for a long time. Warranty, rate of repair, quality of build, ease of self-service (if applicable) all inform my purchases and when I'm slapping my hard earned credit card down on the digital countertop I want to be sure it's what I want/need and that I will get the most out of it.