Does upgrading you system have to be on a logarithmic curve?

keep crackin the whip @roxy54 !!

love it!! 

shanesrain,

You might want to delete your post when you sober up.

Great sounding audio gear was built in past decades. That's what I buy and use! Present day stuff has little appeal.

Most of my equipment I've bought at deep discount, either new or ex-demo.

I built my first real hi-end system during the 1998 crash then built another during the 2008 crash.

EUR,GBP and JPY are at very low discounts to the USD now and anything you buy in Europe and the UK will have an additional 20% VAT deducted for export. Most gear can be easily re-configured for different voltages.

Cables don't wear out and popular brand names provide excellent value, even though they are expensive.

Find a dealer who'll treat you well and appreciate your repeat business and upgrades, they've always got demo gear they want to sell.

My system  runs about $40K, so I can’t comment about benefits that might accrue if I went into the level that some here have.  I do know that at my level any change that I make tends to be a lateral move.  At first the new component sounds like an improvement, but eventually I realize that it is just doing something in a different way, and I start to miss what has been lost with the change.  I suspect that I would have to leap into a bracket that I just don’t want to ascend into.

  I suspect the logarithmic view applies more to digital.  My bias is that well built digital is so good that not much more can be obtained by pumping more money into the source.  Analog however might repay greater expenditures, as more resources translate into overcoming the limitations of analog.  Overbuilt massive  turntables are bettor at suppressing vibrations for example.

i can't comment, can't find my slide rule 😂

I have grown my system from a $350 affair in 1972 to it’s current state of around $150K. I have methodically and incrementally invested over the entire time. I have spent thousands of hours learning, experimenting with cables, cords, and components. I have spent thousands of hours traveling all over the world with every portable musical device / combination you can imagine.

Large investments components has brought me larger and greater jumps in sound quality along the way. The very largest differences were the most recent and the largest investment.

If, let’s say you measure the frequency response or something… sure diminishing returns.

But it is about the music…. and the ears / brain can be an astonishingly sensitive instrument. “Great sound quality”… is about peeling back layer after layer of what that means… an enormous onion… layer after layer of nuance to bring pleasure to the listener.

Of course, it is a matter of values. I really value high quality sound… that is musical, nuanced, incredibly accurate… like brass sounds like brass… not trebly distortion like most of us though cymbals sounded like when we were young. So, for me the gains have increased with investment.

Audiophilia is all about the real love of musical reproduction. Most people think we are crazy… why walk down this diminishing return return curve. But those of us that fell in love with really great musical reproduction as youth see the reward as accelerating return. That has absolutely been my experience. I am absolutely ecstatic with my current systems (see my UserID).

There is a small minority of audiophiles that have stated once past a certain point the sonic benefits of expenditures accelerates at an increasing rate of return.  I think that's ridiculous, but anybody can have an opinion.

There is no great sound to be found for under $100k or so, speaking new suggested prices. So unless you can and want to do that just enjoy your system as it is. And I am talking one source system. However, if you must keep upgrading as most of us, including myself, double the cost, assuming that what you buy is not overpriced.

It is not logarithmic, but rather linear, if you concur with the old-time experience.

For all us old-timers here, we remember the simplified anecdotal guideline casually referred to as the “Rule of Fourths”.

This was an inverse relationship that had its genesis in hi-end audio.

Simply put, once you chose to further upgrade while you now play in the high-end gear sandbox, upgrading further with a performance improvement expectation, generally required a four-fold dollar expenditure to get a 25% step-up in audio performance.

My take:

Because upgrading while striving for system synergy is a difficult and variable journey, throwing just money alone at it may parrot this homily and provide merit, …but … it still may not necessarily satisfy another parallel time-honoured adage:

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

- Warren Buffett

the last 1% is very expensive.

The last 10% is the most expensive 😀

The law of diminishing returns for sure, not sure about the curve being hyperbolic or logarithmic? 

Have you ever been experienced?

At that $30,000 level things are different not better. Also, excellent SQ has been achieved along time ago, now things are just way more sensitive. A lot of people that play only digital sources never even realize this.

Matt M

I've definitely noticed the hype is exponential, but not the sound quality.