More expensive = better?

It seems to be common for people to feel that if you cannot afford something then it cannot be worth the price and anyone that has enough money to afford it is a fool or not very smart. Which of course is not true. While you can add nearly unlimited labor to improve the sound of budget products to far beyond their normal capability (think interconnects, room treatments etc.), but if you take into account personal effort, high end generally products perform in proportion to their price.
 

The high end market is highly competitive and highly reviewed by professional reviewers. It is unfounded conspiracy theories to think all the research and development done by dedicated engineers is really only marketing hype. I have spent most of my life in high technology companies like Burr-Brown and Texas Instruments with the individuals designing and working to bring better sound to the high end community. The investments is in billions of dollars to be able to bring the technology many of you guys think is a conspiracy, marketing hype, or in your head.

Go listen to a top level Wilson Audio / Roland acoustically treated sound room… or something of the like… and if you can speak at all after the experience then you have no appreciation for sound quality or music and should move on to some other pursuit.

Equipment from Schiit Audio and some DACs from Denafrips have my interest piqued.  I read that in general, both brand punch above their weight class, so to speak.  I’m particularly interested in that Schiit “Yaggy” DAC.  I’ve read some nice things about it.  It’s cool to find gear that that is the heels of higher priced competitors.

Schiit Gungnir and Yggdrasil are outstanding values for the money. I own the first as an experiment to help a friend, who purchased a Yggdrasil. Both very good sounding.

It seems to be common for people to feel that if you cannot afford something then it cannot be worth the price and anyone that has enough money to afford it is a fool or not very smart. Which of course is not true. While you can add nearly unlimited labor to improve the sound of budget products to far beyond their normal capability (think interconnects, room treatments etc.), but if you take into account personal effort, high end generally products perform in proportion to their price.

I've yet to encounter the viewpoint expressed in the first sentence.

Much depends on how the pricing is done. If done according to a formula, its likely it will be less expensive with the same or better performance. Technics has long had examples of this with their turntables.

When priced according to what the market will bear the price tends to be higher of course. And the performance may or may not be better. This has nothing to do with audio; its true of nearly any high end industry.

 

 

My system is under 500 bucks ~~~~~~~ My speakers are under $1k, staright up, midrange surpasses Wilson's biggest guns, Dali, Sonus Faber, Rockport, none beats my midrange. Under one K bucks