@mofojo
I am in USA
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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From the extreme high end systems I have heard, they do a lot more things better than the things you mention. The most recent I heard was a pair of Estalon Forsa, driven by Pass labs, and besides the things you mentioned, there is an overall effortlessness that most speakers at this price and quality range exhibit, that goes beyond any specific one attribute. Yes, they produced a realistic scale soundstage of an orchestra as if I was sitting 10 rows back, but they also were able to produce an intimate singer/guitarist performance as if I was I was sitting in the original room with the performer. I could even tell they when they were standing, or sitting on a stool. This is just the tip of the iceberg. And of course it is "Sometimes yes, sometimes no". Not every high priced speaker is equal, not every high end speaker works well in a particular room, or with all equipment. |
@mapman … ”It’s true the most important ingredient is caring, not money.” To a point, but caring and money trump either individually. Let me care and choose and implement state of the art equipment and that trumps just one or the other. |
The "law of diminishing returns" is overplayed to death, usually promoted by guys who:
I like "the law of accelerated returns"! It can certainly happen when some new component, approach, or an identified weak link helps you bust out of a performance plateau. |
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