I think the law of accelerating returns applies to those who have developed an appreciation for the difficulty in making progressively smaller improvements, so they notice those small improvements and realize the achievement they signify. Their senses are tuned in. They really care about the subtleties and get great satisfaction from them, so much so that they perceive them as not subtle at all. I fear sometimes they perceive them even when they aren’t real, or are confused by some other facet being out of adjustment. Just the notion that something is better can create a changed perception for those who are hyper tuned. Such tastes can be a curse or a blessing. I speak from my own experience.
Law of Accelerated Returns
I think back over the many decades of pursuing high end audio and I realize some of the most inspirational were listening to state of the art systems. Systems I could never dream of affording. I occasionally would get up early and drive the two hours to Phoenix in hopes of finding no one listening to the state of the art system in “the big room” at one of the four or five high end audio stores there in the early ‘90’s.
One such time I was able to spend over an hour with the most amazing system I have ever heard: Wilson WAAM BAMM (or something like that… all Rowland electronics, Transparent interconnects). The system cost about over $.5 million… now, over a million… although I am sure it is even better (I can’t imagine how)..
But listening to that system was so mind blowing… so much better than anything I could conceive of, it just completely changed my expectation of what a system could be. It was orders of magnitude better than anything I had heard.
Interestingly, as impressed as I was… I did not want “that” sound, as much as I appreciated it. It still expanded my horizon as to what is possible. That is really important, as it is really easy to make judgments on what you have heard and not realize the possibilities… like never having left the small town in Kansas (no offense).
I keep reading these posts about diminishing returns. That isn’t the way it works. I recently read an article by Robert Harley in The Absolute Sound called the Law of Accelerated Returns that captures the concept perfectly. March 2022 issue. The possibilities in high end audio is incredible. Everyone interested in it in any way deserves to hear what is possible. It is mind expanding.
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Sure, SOME of it can be due to an increased appreciation of subtleties, cultivated over time in this hobby. But also, we each have completely custom systems with complex electrical, acoustical, and mechanical interactions. This makes for LOTS of potential performance bottlenecks. If you upgrade poorly, you will not properly address these bottlenecks, and you may exclaim "diminishing marginal returns!". If you do this for a while and then finally address the most significant issue, you may have a revelatory experience and exclaim "ACCELERATED returns!". There’s truth to both sides. But like I said before, I feel the hand of "diminished returns" is overplayed online - so what are we supposed to do, give up and try to force enjoyment of diminished system performance? That's too lazy and passive for how I prefer to approach this hobby. The "diminishing marginal utility" law is Economics 101, where everything is grossly oversimplified so that it can work nicely with infantile mathematical models. The real world is much more nuanced and complex than that. |
I listen to this with a 500 bucks system in my acoustically controlled room.. Then... Is costlier gear better? It is common place fact to say yes... But acoustic for example matter more than any brand named choice especially if the basic gear is already well chosen... Simple scientific and experimental fact.... In acoustic there is an "optimal" possible return for ANY gear choice which is over anything else or over most possible upgrade..."accelerating" return is like diminishing return a very fast end process related to engineering quality /price ratio... Optimization process are slower and deeper process with no link to any marketing conditioning... Optimization ask more for TIME consumung listening experiments than money consuming upgreading spree... You cannot replace acoustic improvement with a change of brand in gear, but you can upgrade any gear without changing it when you adapt the room to it.... |
@asctim Yes, what you say has a lot of merit.. Normally, marginal, or incremental, return is easiest to understand if only one thing is changed at a time. Even that can be tricky with audio. Should something else be changed as well, like knowledge or appreciation through learning, this complicates but does not invalidate the principle. This is why the words "äll other things being equal" are often used. Actually (and I digress), the more you learn and discern about what matters, you may find yourself spending less than you otherwise would have on that next bit of kit. The landscape has changed and any meaningful comparison with the previous change becomes problematic. I suspect that may be the opposite intent of Mr Harley’s editorial. I hope I’ve understood you correctly. {edit - having taken my time tapping that out I now see others have contributed in a meaningful manner so anyway...} 2nd edit - to be abundantly clear, I am talking about marginal or incremental changes in sound quality or spending, like little bite size portions - I speak not of levels of, or total, enjoyment or expenditure. They are increasing, even when marginal may be decreasing.
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