The law of diminshing returns?

@raesco - 

There is another way to look at this all which puts diminishing returns in a very different light. We commonly refer to diminishing returns in relation to cost of a singular things, like a car, or a DAC, or an amp. In the audiophile world, very little in truth separates the differences in sound quality between a very affordable DAC as example, from highly priced offerings. It is the typical case in fact, that the most highly vaunted components offer a mere improvement of perhaps just a single percent and a half over less regarded ones. This one and a half percent of realism gain for the huge amount of dollar spent is what typically informs the phrase, diminishing return, which, for each item, component, or room acoustic correction measure taken alone, may be too small to even detect without A/B/A test listening. The most dedicated audiophile, however, will research as much as possible to ensure the greatest value for the dollar, and who will spend as much as they can possibly afford to pursue the most sophisticated components, connectors, sockets, signal and power cables, power supplies and distributors, isolation devices, grounding solutions - basically every technology they can find and afford for every little delta gain they can manage.

This is where the balance shifts.

You see, each percent and a half realism improvement builds on the previous, the collective weight of which can amount to between fifteen to twenty percent overall gain to effect which can be so profound, the entire chain of improvement can no longer be called a ‘diminishing’ return. And while the value of that total return, in truth, can only be determined by each and every one of us independently, those who have actually heard the deep realism that such combined improvement brought will testify to the disbelief and amazement that was felt with the experience. 

My sense of it is that our hobby is far too profound to be limited by a phrase which applies more to objects evaluated in isolation than the entirety of relationships that an audio system is. 

In friendship - kevin

My sense of it is that our hobby is far too profound to be limited by a phrase which applies more to objects evaluated in isolation than the entirety of relationships that an audio system is. 

It is precisely because the principle of diminishing return is not about the gear and the price "per se" alone...

 This principle (not a law) is about the relation between the subjective/objective  perceived  acoustics factors of the system /room and of our own hearing positrive or negative biases,  and the subjective/objective contribution of the gear pieces design price to the experience.

This relation cannot be avoided and at some point we loose by investing more money on the gear  without investing more on acoustics material aspects and investing time in our hearing education.

Without  the necessary acoustics education there is inevitably very swift diminishing returns... We  may buy unnecessary piece of gear or the wtong one at the wrong price..

 As an example :  There is no relation between a system /room before and after his optimization... Then if the optimization is not well done the diminishing returns may occur with a gear upgrade  and arrived too soon very rapidly.

If we learn how to optimize a system/room now we are in a better position to upgrade it without too much immediate diminishing returns, because we had increase our actual system working peak and our own hearing knowledge  and acoustics concept luggage ...

P.T. Barnum was right.

I will admit that I am not what I think is a true audiophile. The belief that a power cord sounds dramatically different, but that difference is too subtle for those less sophisticate than the princess and the pea must be a bicycle tire pump to the self-esteem has far passed returns that diminish into undetectable for me. 

There is the story, known to some here, of a man who tied up his family building the ultimate sound system and listening room. He spent years and over one million dollars building it. when he finally finished, this large acoustically advanced room had only one sweet spot and one listening chair. He also was diagnosed with ALS when he finished and lived only one year to listen to his perfect system. 

I think it is possible to go too far with this, or any other hobby. I designed and built my own amplifier and was satisfied several years ago. Now, I listen to the performances of compositions that appeal to me. 

@kevn + I've based my many decades of building systems on this exact thing. Nearly countless incremental improvements are possible, while each in isolation may conform to the law of diminishing returns, taken in totality they provide much more value, may even be transcendent.