"The Law of Diminishing Returns"???

Everybody has their own point where spending more money makes little sense. For most audiophile that point would be greater than $1,000/component. Truly great sounding systems can be assembled for $7k, but if you want state of the art sound you would have to spend more than $50k. Where you are on the spectrum is your personal choice. It's like driving on an interstate, those driving slower than you are road blocks and those driving faster are maniacs.

The asking price for most new high end gear is absolutely ridiculous. Then again, if one was to introduce a reasonably priced product that was truly excellent, it wouldn't get the respect that it deserved because it was "too cheap". Folks might say "it offers great bang for the buck" but never really think of it as being "world class" simply because of the low price. Price equates to reputation, status and prestige and reputation, status and prestige are what much of "high end" sales are based on.

Having said that, finding individual components on the used market that you really like and then upgrading some of the internal parts can produce stunning results. The cost for this can be quite reasonable if one is willing to get their hands dirty rather than paying someone else to do the work & order the parts. Even most gear that is VERY expensive will benefit from such an approach. Sean
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im not sure how accurate that theory is, ive had gear that cost very little sound great & at the same time gear that costs a bundle sound like a turd dropping off & vice versa.

with me its been more of which peices work well together & compliment each other.

i think that matching components is more important than the cost factor weather high dollar or ecnomy.

mike.

It's also what you like to hear in music and what you buy. You may find a $1,000.00 DAC that produces wonderful music but I can't think of an amp at the price which will do the same. Same for pre-amp and speakers. However, there is no "break-off" point at which differences become miniscule. I went from $1,500.00 speakers 7 years ago to $5,000.00 ones. The new ones were not 3.5 times better but the improvement was so meaningful that there was no question. Same thing for going from $3,600.00 amp to $6,500.00 one. Difference was more than worth it. However, I have gone from an $8,200.00 pre-amp to $1,500.00 passive and was happier with the passive. I've just now gone from the passive to a $5,250.00 pre which is musically better so easily worth it.