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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. 

 

 

ghdprentice
noske
783 posts
 

I can’t think of any valid examples of comparisons where marginal returns in audio gears is increasing.

The reason is that the fundamental technology must remain constant. This is mostly an engineering issue, and usually there are more features as you pay more and this is a similar issue. So, I should stop now. But just to illustrate -

A trite example, about as generic as I can think of - balanced connections added to a DAC. Topping, Gustard and others have this kind of range, and they cost more.

The balanced is supposed to be better than just RCA.

Let’s pretend that the percentage "betterness" is more than the percentage more than you paid, and Harley announces that he has discovered increasing marginal returns.

This isn’t correct. He’d be wrong. There are two different technologies on the table.

There are plenty of other examples.

Edit - there maybe obvious engineering thresholds. Below the threshold, blah!! Just add one more tiny component, and it goes from blah to actually OK, a hundred times better. This is hardly relevant to what Harley is talking about - high-end, or at least pretty good stuff to start with.

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kingharold
304 posts
 

Just curious, but when people say they have a $25,000.00 system or a $50,000.00 system is that a total of MSRP of equipment they own or is it what they paid for their equipment?  I bought much of my system used at around 1/2 MSRP.

ghdprentice OP
8,128 posts
 

High end audio equipment is seldom discounted more than 10%.

Post removed 
mulveling's avatar
mulveling
2,235 posts
 

Just curious, but when people say they have a $25,000.00 system or a $50,000.00 system is that a total of MSRP of equipment they own or is it what they paid for their equipment? I bought much of my system used at around 1/2 MSRP.

I used to worry about this on "price point roll calls", but over time I find I’ve passed most lines any way you slice it, and the next line up is impossible for me to attain :)

The reality is it doesn’t matter that much. Measure the cost anyway you like, within reason. Some things are more "solid" values than others. Amps like McIntosh hold value well against MSRP over time - and their vintage tube amps have actually appreciated greatly in value. On the other hand you have greatly "fluffed" MSRP listings from the likes of some small cable makers (I remember "Black Mountain Cable" did that here, years ago) and some other direct sales internet companies - nobody is gonna be impressed by a $50K system comprised of that crap.

Anyways, onto another topic - I do take issue with the growing continent of folks who treat the room like it’s some magic box that is simultaneously capable of:

  • Making expensive gear sound like crap if you don’t meticulously treat the room with lots of treatments. A lot of this seems to be aimed at pushing acoustic panel sales...
  • Making cheap gear sound like true high end if you DO meticulously treat the room (I really don’t agree with this point).

I don’t fall in the "room is a magic box" camp. I think of the room like another major component of a system, but not as an all-powerful arbiter to the resultant sound quality. Look, if you throw $500K of high-end gear in a spare bedroom, it’s gonna sound bad. We all get that. It’s not an interesting use case to keep hashing out. And I’m not disagreeing that some investment into room treatment is a great value. But at this level of gear and discussion, the assumption should be that someone spending big $ is going to put it into a room of adequate dimensions to let it breathe, and spend time positioning things optimally. One you have that, the actual gear composition of a system will typically shine right through - whether good or bad!

I have a local friend with a room that’s currently untreated (but he’s planning to change that soon). We’ve swapped amps, preamps, cartridges back & forth over the past year. EVERY component has shown its own consistent sonic signature between these 2 very different rooms, CLEAR AS DAY. And both rooms are capable of sounding superb. But when you put disagreeable components together - bad sound is the result. The room is absolutely a factor, but it’s not magical.

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