At what price is one considered an Audiophile.

At what price is one considered an Audiophile?

Our sanity when we open our wallets. But the payout is good for our souls

when a great friend stops by to hear her top 100 recording and declares the listening chair…. “ God’s Seat…”

BTW @whart has is own version of that seat… we don’t trade in envy… just the endless pursuit of better music….

Unfortunately, money spent does not make one an audiophile.  A bit myopic, the audio passionate desire to pursue better sound reproduction, that could be a free tweak or a $30k upgrade. 

@dayglow

"My pet peeve is when one obsesses over the law of diminishing returns. "

I think the key question is: "Did I get my money’s worth?"

Let’s say, for a moment, that the universe inserts a rule where significant differences in quality happen at around 2x the price. A use this "rule" using audio as a basis, where 3db is a significant increase in perceived loudness. This 3db increase also requires 2x the power (or, number of speakers) to obtain this goal. Applying this ’rule", to get a significan increase in SQ from, say, a $300 speaker, we’ll need to be at $600. All is going well enough in this scenario until, we reach serious money. A $30k speaker now requires a $60k investment (and, bank loan?) to obtain.

You might find this rule "silly" and can think of (valid) examples of why this isn’t true. But, the point being, when you start throwing big dollars at an audio system, the upgrades can be quite expensive. And, yes, worth every penny.

If you are really just about the music and not the gear, you can get a streaming system and a really good pair of wireless headphones for under $2K.