What Do You Get When You Spend Megabucks?

If good sound is not an issue, you will get nothing! Many of these posts or claims are just silly.

The consensus seems to be "Anyone who spent more money than me is just trying to gratify their ego."

My system retails for more than I care to think about (I of course, did not spend that much on it.) but I have never regretted a purchase based on the slim margin of improvement.

I am happy with how my system sounds now. Timbre's are more correct the sound stage is bigger, deeper, and more defined. All of these attributes come at a cost. Did I spend too much? Some might say no, a starving man in a Chinese prison for owning a bible might be speechless at the idea that it is possible to spend that kind of money. Who's right?

I had $6000 speaker for a long time and I was very happy with them. I sold them recently to replace them with a $16,000 speaker. The differnce is not marginal or subtle. Ultimately they do the same thing that my very first stereo (bought from Readers Digest around 1976) did. They play back the signal sent to them. The RD system sounded better than my transistor radio. It seems many think I should have stopped there.

At what point have others determined that I need to be satisfied? How good should my system sound?

No system is ever going to sound like live music. Live music is an absurd standard by which to judge a system! Musical satisfaction has more to do with the imagination than the stereo! Determine to enjoy what you have, and you will enjoy it, but don't make silly statements about diminishing returns to condemn what someone else has determined is justifiable.

Typical good post by Onhwy61. I agree with your main premise, that you can get excellent sound for $7500, and beyond that the law of diminishing returns kicks in. What you get when you spend the extra money is, IMHO, (i) top quality bass reproduction, although your room may be a limiting factor here, (ii) effortless power, scale and soundstaging for full-scale orchestral reproduction (which will never equal the real thing, no matter how hard we try, but will at least start to hint at it) and (iii) a bit of naturalness, refinement and nuance in the little things that make music more meaningful to you and which just isn't quite all there in the less expensive stuff. That last point is purely subjective in how much it is worth the extra money. Given the many hours of enjoyment I've gotten from my system, it has been worth it to me, but in all likelihood I could live just as happily with the $7500 system, and will probably have to when I retire to smaller quarters.

"Money, doesn't buy happiness and size, doesn't matter." (Tattoos available on request.)

Maybe and maybe not.

It seems what's important is having the talent for using the quantity you have of one or both, wisely.

I think the answer has more to do with what percentage of what you have that is available to you hobby. Some time ago my 'hobby' was touring on a bicycle. By 'touring' I mean I went so extreme as to circle the world on a bicycle.

So, what has this to do with your question? simple. I circled the entie continent of Africa on my bicycle and in the Sudan I got myself invited to a Safari Camp that was serving just one man and his wife. Over the camp fire the fellow told me that he was paying something like $50,000.00 for just over four weeks in Africa.

I told him that I had budgeted roughly $1,800.00 for six months in Africa (camping, eating from the markets. etc.) The poor fellow....gagged. I had to remind him that his $50,000.00 constituted much less of his savings than my $1,800.00 did of mine.

so, what's the point? Spend what you can afford and...enjoy!

the synergy and room comments above are the most appropriate IMO. My system is in the $25,000 new price range and, to me it smoked a local shops $90,000 reference system. Their $10,000 8 ft Transparent speaker cables left me wondering, not wanting