Law of Accelerated Returns

@jerryg123 who has apparently left us brings us a good point which I'd like to elaborate upon.

There have been several times in my audio journey when I listened to a system that was beyond my ability to fully process it.  Over time and with experience, our brain fine tunes itself to discern the differences in fidelity.  

The differences I hear in my system to a non audiophile might be difficult for them to hear.  When I point things out, sometimes they can hear it, sometimes not.

So perhaps the law of diminishing returns also plays into not yet having the developed palate to hear the full differences.

I posted about this previously, but I recently evaluated high end shotgun mics for my film shoots.  

Schoeps make a full size and smaller size of the mic I just purchased.  The smaller mic has the same capsule but different electronics.  Common wisdom in the pro audio world (and manufacturer) is that they sound the same, just without the filter switches.   However,  to my ear I could easily tell the difference in the side by side comparison.  The larger electronics with higher current sounds clearly more dynamic to me.

If I didn't have the experience from listening to high end audio (and a lot of live music,) perhaps I wouldn't have been able to hear what pretty much no one else on the pro audio world

Posers? Who is to say. Of course no one is stating that you have to spend a fortune to get good sound. The point is that when you spend more money, intelligently, you will get better sound. I think that the benefits of being a learned listener is a given. 

Damned young whippersnappers on new Ducati's! In my day you earned to right to buy a nice new bike. Your statements betray the precise attitude I was referencing. 

The law of diminishing returns applies to audio gear the same as anything else. The notion of accelerated returns is just more audiophile blabbing by reviewers. If you don't think diminishing returns applies to this first world hobby then you haven't the slightest idea what diminishing returns means. 

@djones51 If you don't think diminishing returns applies to this first world hobby then you haven't the slightest idea what diminishing returns means. 

And to clarify the issue, the principle is actually called the law of diminishing *marginal* returns.   This concept is rather more nuanced than perhaps people realize.

Robert Harley came close to getting it correct in the passage I quoted from 2014.  (This despite him then rejecting it in audio with some magic logic.)

@mapman 1+++! That is essence is the problem. Very few systems including the ultra expensive ones can produce a SOTA performance. They can be VERY impressive compared to the usual and they can have very balanced tonality and excellent timbre but they do not image at the level available on many recordings.

Many think they have a great image because they hear the guitar over there and the bass in the middle and a cymbal to the left. They can even tell that the cymbal is behind the other instruments thinking they have "3D' imaging. Performing at this level is not all that difficult and can be achieved by pretty much any serious audiophile as they have heard other systems perform at this level and know what they should be looking for. Imaging the third dimension means placing an image in space that has location and depth/size. Imagine you can walk around the image of that trumpet or piano, the third dimension is not the size of the venue it is producing instruments and voices with depth. The instrument and voice have 3 dimensions. 

IMHE this is the hardest characteristic to reproduce. Energy created by the room and reflections blur out the third dimension. Channels that have different amplitude and impulse patterns also blur out the third dimension. These three problems compromise at least 90% of the systems out there. Some speaker/rooms will never be able to perform at this level. Others can but are not adjusted correctly. Only by luck can you get this out of the box and only the very misinformed are going to get there by placing little discs next the their interconnects. Do you have to spend a lot of money? Depends what you think a lot of money is. I think you can get there at a lower volume for maybe $50K. The full Monty takes at least $100K for a system with a turntable. Many are spending $250K just for speakers. The most reliable way to get there is with someone who has a lot of measurement equipment and knows what they are doing. As I have said before, it is exactly the same as video projectors. No projector will project colors correctly out of the box. It has to be calibrated and requires a lot of knowledge and expensive equipment. Some projectors, like the one I just bought, will never get it right because they can not do black. You only get shades of gray out of them. Live and learn.