Has anyone made the jump to $uper High end and were disappointed?

@Aberyclark > curious if someone made the leap and deep down realize the "expected" sound quality jump was not as much as the price jump.
> buyers remorse.
> It's not easy to just "flip" a super high priced component.

Blindjim > nice thread. Hope it gets tons of feedback. I’m wondering how many ultra high end flippers will chime in to begin with?

Yep. At those costs, flipping the stuff is a whole other bag of worms I’m sure. I’d need a big bottle of Tums.

I think an easier observation of ultra gear sticking around or leaving quickly are inside reviewers comments. Perennially I see reviewers say, “this ain’t leaving here!!” a few months later or later that same year, that piece is no longer listed as side bar gear and quite often no explanation of why it disappeared is written..

Superb! Gotta have it! Got it! Gone!

I resisted saying ‘wait! What? Purely for prejudicial reasons.

Its all exceptionally fascinating. Why folks migrate about on mega buck levels with audio equipment. I’d vote it is from boredom or ego. Mostly. Then for excellence, albeit pursuing excellence gets tabbed as the why of it when openly confronted.

It also sounds better than, ‘Because I could”.

Even that ‘threshold of or for diminishing returns’ is a subjectively floating point of entry. Or exodus.

@Willemj > The only component that really makes a big impact on the sound and is also expensive is the speakers
> Contrary to what many here believe there is no evidence that ultra expensive electronics have anything to add (let alone cables
> if you do not want to believe measurements, there is also the listening test

Blindjim > speakers are the ticket! Nope. Just part of it.

I’ll take your second inference to mean moving from one $50K amp to another similarly or higher priced amp sheds no greater light into the performance. Experience. Or listening event and as you said, many mass produced low or mid fi amps possess numbers and measure as well or better than the occasional first two years of college education or cabin near a lake costing, amps, sources, etc.

It begs the question then why then are so many systems with decent or incredible speakers not using entry level amps?

‘there is ‘also’ the listening test.

I apologize, but please, tell me exactly who is buying this or that regardless of price using something other than their ears as the final arbiter? Well, maybe their spouse’ opinion too.

I’ve been to my share of retail audio houses and not yet have I seen anyone dragging in an oscilloscope, meters, microphones and measuring tapes. Not one time.

“Also”? sorry. Try ONLY.

15 years ago I read here everything matters. I heard too, if you can hear a difference and are willing to pay for that difference, then you should.

Those statements are the best fundamental rules for achieving system synergy I’ve yet found. I would add as you said the synergy between speaker and room is of high priority, physically and acoustically, BUT it is not all of it. I just could not forgoe that bit on measuring being more important than listening, or associated gear not being AS instrumental to the end result, or we’d all be using X boxes and such to drive speakers.

Albeit I’m most curious as to those who the OP begs input from to add in their perspectives on where diminishing returns are in the uber high ranges of audio and just how much more was obtained or lost in this or that migration of gear?

I dare say not one person here were they to hit the power ball some weekend, that they wouldn’t rush out and buy some ridiculously high ticket gear once the funds were made available .

So merely for the purposes of ‘closure’ , if everyone wants to start a fund so I can get out there, buy a lot of stuff and then report back, I’m all in on being the lab monkey for that project! Really! I would not mind it at all.

I think until that happens enmasse’, or at least by me, the demographic being sought for feedback on this topic will remain silent.

So far I’ve seen one post saying ‘no regrets’ in the ultra high end shell game. Albeit there was no quantification or qualification on the gear acquired or removed.

As one poster previously said, folks with uber ultra dough just don’t knock about these forums much. Apparently not.

For the rest of us, it is all about what we hear, prefer and desire, and perhaps a few other insidious out of whack character traits which seem far more compeling.

Plain boredom can fuel change, it ain’t always about pursuing excellence..

I once saw a pair of Avalong idolons someone had hand painted white. Not a great job either. Their price however at that point was very attractive as near giveaways. The folks who traded them in were quite wealthy and had other obvious priorities when it came to music, ala, ‘décor’. For the man to keep them his wife made him paint them.

To say ONLY speakers or any other single item is the key is flatly ridiculous.

It takes no time at all and darn little investment to begin with just popular speakers $3 to $5K or less perhaps, and start migrating in and out pieces to see what is different and what is ‘subjectively’ better, or not. Unless, of course one is either deaf, brain dead, or can not be honest appraising the results.

Why more expensive? Not every thing made is made the same way, or with the same items, or in the same fashion, an therefore in degrees, sounds unlike the rest.

the rig I’ve put the most money and time into attending to synergy gives the greatest involvement and resolution, or illusions of reality. All the talk of measurements in the world will not deter me from knowing experience, and money do matter in achieving loftier heights of musical presentations because I have like many others, financial limits. Without any limits I tend to think I’d be a lot more capricious with audio gear, and at times, esthetics alone could be a deciding factor.

Ssynergy’ not speakers is the biggest most expensive cost as it involves time, experience and investigation with equipment, rooms and the associated lists thereafter are varied and lengthy.

If one has not yet discovered, in this past time, there is absolutely no, ‘one size fits all’ anything.

I’ve heard as have other posters here, rigs I would not buy with someone else’ money. All about details and not about the music. Too dry. Too wet. Too…. ? and sure, too expensive to justify getting.

Not having great knowledge is easy to overcome. It slows one down but won’t usually stop or hurt them too much. What I think I know can be even more of a pitfall. What bites me on the butt everytime however, is those things I know which simply are not so.

Thus far the axiom “Everything matters” still has merit as applied to building an outstanding audio rig. I doubt those with bottomless pockets feel anywhere near as strongly on this ideology for their’s is the freedom to move about at will experiencing various degrees of cool, great, and beyond with regret or remorse playing inconsequential roles.

But again, I’m certainly willing to find out for sure if anyone wants to start up a Patrion account I can draw from!

10,000 members at $10 each, every month, yep, should take no time at all to find out exactly where the demon of diminishing returns lives in the more than $50K item shelves.