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Does upgrading you system have to be on a logarithmic curve?

Has anyone else noticed that the higher you go in sonic quality the more it cost to get an incremental increase in sonic quality. For example if you buy a 300 stereo from Walmart it sounds ok then you go a spend 3000 on one and the jump in sound quality is huge. Now to get the same percentage jump in sound quality you need to spend 9000 then 30000. So I am at the 30k+ threshold what do you have to spend to get the same incremental jump. This is more of a rhetorical question has anyone else experienced this.   

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fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,591 posts
 

Have you ever been experienced?

russ69's avatar
russ69
3,501 posts
 

The law of diminishing returns for sure, not sure about the curve being hyperbolic or logarithmic? 

spenav
424 posts
 

The last 10% is the most expensive 😀

carlsbad's avatar
carlsbad
1,551 posts
 

the last 1% is very expensive.

 

akg_ca's avatar
akg_ca
2,237 posts
 

It is not logarithmic, but rather linear, if you concur with the old-time experience.

For all us old-timers here, we remember the simplified anecdotal guideline casually referred to as the “Rule of Fourths”.

This was an inverse relationship that had its genesis in hi-end audio.

Simply put, once you chose to further upgrade while you now play in the high-end gear sandbox, upgrading further with a performance improvement expectation, generally required a four-fold dollar expenditure to get a 25% step-up in audio performance.

My take:

Because upgrading while striving for system synergy is a difficult and variable journey, throwing just money alone at it may parrot this homily and provide merit, …but … it still may not necessarily satisfy another parallel time-honoured adage:

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

- Warren Buffett

 

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