The law of diminshing returns?

@mulveling 

DACs, turntables (not including carts & phono stages), and cables are perhaps the best subjects for diminishing returns. The "extravagance tier" models employ absurd over-engineering plus gimmicks to justify their cost.

In fact every audio maker is using off the shelf DACs and they use the manufacturer’s toolkit to design and load firmware to behave a particular way to control the behavior of the DAC.  Some manufacturers will use features of the DAC (e.g. external clocks to the DAC as well), but none of this makes high-end DACs intrinsically better or more expensive.

Most of the cost of higher-end equipment in general isn’t the quality of the parts or even the firmware of the DAC, it’s really more about limited sales means a manufacturer has to charge more for their product. 

They can’t take advantage of the economies of scale to reduce prices nor do they want to.

The "law" is just an equation, y = 1/x.  It doesn't just apply in some cases or to some people, it applies in all cases.  Though subjectivity & opinion can bend your world any way you want,  this doesn't change reality.  "Diminishing returns"  (1/x) applies in a wide variety of applications and natural systems. 

In the plot of -1*(1/x) below (-1 is just to flip the plot horizontally as people, in this case, are trying to maximize y), the x axis would be cash, the y axis would be "perfect sound quality".

Great post!

I will only add that the psycho-acoustics dimension add to the physical engineering dimension and  made it an inescapable dimension of audio ..

like the trade-off principle in engineering ..

Then those claiming that this principle dont apply to a "high class" of audiophiles whose status is over this principle with no budget limit spoke non sense ...

 I create the concept of "minimal acoustical satisfaction threshold" to descrive the state of satisfaction of low cost system/room  and "maximal acoustical satisfaction threshold" to describe the state of satisfaction of high cost system/room...

In these two cases according to "the principle of diminishing return" there exist an "optimal acoustical satisfaction threshold" ...

 Snobism has nothing to do with acoustics or design engineering and their  trade-off relation in Room constraint... 

The "law" is just an equation, y = 1/x.  It doesn’t just apply in some cases or to some people, it applies in all cases.  Though subjectivity & opinion can bend your world any way you want,  this doesn’t change reality.  "Diminishing returns"  (1/x) applies in a wide variety of applications and natural systems. 

In the plot of -1*(1/x) below (-1 is just to flip the plot horizontally as people, in this case, are trying to maximize y), the x axis would be cash, the y axis would be "perfect sound quality".

 

Oh, this hobby of ours. I would venture to say that someone with unlimited funds can indulge their fancy for the ultimate in sound reproduction, clarity, reality, sound stage, imaging, etc, etc, regardless of price.

For everyone else, it comes down a matter of priorities and trade offs both financial and acoustical. If your room is optimally acoustically treated to begin with, then you’re more likely to maximize the sound quality of your given system. That being said, a resulting perceived upgrade in sound quality may be the result of expectation, confirmation bias or the placebo effect.

But, assuming that the improvement is in actuality real and valid, then the question becomes, is it worth it? If your looking for the Holy Grail of musical truth then yes, For others more value oriented, possibly not. At what point, do you say, no more, Basta?

At what point, do you say, no more, Basta?

That’s really only answerable on an individual basis after listening to a given product preferably and optimally in your own system.  Fortunately DACs lend themselves well to buying used, which to me is the way to go for the more value oriented with relatively low risk.