"I'm a believer"

I know that if I went out and spent $5K or $10K on speakers for my set-up, it wouldn’t be a wise investment. My listening room is an open-plan living room/kitchen with high ceilings and off-center listening positions. I can’t acoustically treat the room. As it it, my wife complains about the stand-mounted bookshelves I have now.

+1. Very wise! My experience is throwing money at gear to battle an acoustically challenged room is a losing proposition. The room is what it is for the most part and calls more than ever for making smart choices. Often less setup just right turns out to be more.

+1 mapman

+1 bipod72

😊

@bipod72

I can’t disagree with your points. But, I think the key question is: "Did the customer get their money’s worth?" We have to recognize the intangibles in this equation: "owning the best of the best" or at the very least not having your "audiophile" friends look down on you because you don’t own "real hifi gear" -- the stuff the industry gurus say is pretty spectacular, Having a nice "trophy" sitting in the room is ample justification for some. Its not the "wrong" answer for those with the means to do so.

As I dealer, part of our Mission Statement was "Help people reward themselves for being successful." Some days it was a $12.95 wiring harness for a car stereo system. Other days it was a $1M fully automated home with high end home theater. From my perspective, it was unethical to deny someone the opportunity to audition better gear. Something a step (or two) above the price point they were interested in. No pressure. Just expanding their experiences with what high(er) performance audio can do.

For some, a $100k upgrade represents less than 1/10 of 1% of their net worth. A good call. As long as, in their minds, they're getting their money’s worth.

By the way, I own some old cars and a couple of older homes. I do most of the maintenance myself. I get the tool thing.

inna,

anyone that spends $20,000 for a piece of wire is either stupid or has more money than brains, ask yourself this question what can they do to the piece of wire to make it worth $20,000 or $40,000 or $80,000, absolutely nothing and most of these companies that are charging that are using OFC wire which is the cheapest wire for audio that you can buy, anyone that knows anything knows that OCC single crystal is far superior to anything OFC at any ripoff price and that was proven over 50 years ago already so anyone that uses OFC is behind the times and as for speakers there's only a very few companies that use it internally for their speaker wire because it's about 4 to 5 times the cost of cheap OFC junk.

"...there is no other item in high end audio that fall under the "Rule of Diminishing Returns" like loudspeakers."

I disagree strongly with that statement, but hey, you do you.