“Money can’t buy happiness, But it could buy me a boat, it could buy me a truck to pull it, It could buy me a Yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets”…it’s all relative.
As you grow and mature in this hobby, you learn through experiences what sounds good to you and usually at lower costs because NO ONE spends 100k on their first system, LOL. Once you learn what makes audio gear sound great to you, usually, one will try to seek sound qualities they like in equipment as they swap, trade, sell, or buy other stuff in their journey to audio bliss. Quality may increase with more costly items; however, not always. Think thin metal bezel or plastic and thin gauge chassis for some things at lower costs while higher costs products may have thicker gauge chassis and copper reinforcement. This adds to the cost and may or may not increase ones perceived notion of better sound. Technically speaking, how does a .001 THD product compare to a .0001 product in terms of listening? A more costly product will usually yield better specs, but how does that translate to the subjective and perceived sound that is output to a listener? As others have stated, more costly does not necessarily equal better sound. But, if one were to take the time and look for quality products and listen to them, then it is highly feasible that higher cost products will have better quality or different sound, but at what cost?
At the end of the day, in this hobby,you have to gain experience, and learn from others to understand the cost/quality quotient of audio products that others speak of. They have been there done that.
The perceived luxury of an item due to its cost is something that is in all industries. In reality, once you establish an individual benchmark for value versus quality, that is your “giant killer” range. So what’s your number? Others may have higher or lower.
