@immatthewj wrote:
I’ve owned three tube amps (I still own my first one) and the best sounding I ever owned were a pair of monoblocks that could be a bit unreliable so I replaced them, but they were the amps with the highest MSRP.
I own three preamps, and each successive preamp cost more than the last one and each one had sonic characteristics that were distinctly better than the one it replaced.
YMMV, but my experience has been that every increase in sonic performance that I have ever experienced has required an increase in expenditure. To me, that does not seem all that unreasonable.
From my chair the monetary value, as a necessary indicator, is too simple, contingent and crude a measure - indeed misleading. To a point I'd concede price can be factor, until it isn't, and when it all gets mixed up in a complex context of the interdependency of many factors (not to mention subjectivity), things get tricky, and stubbornly trying to maintain price as a measure (for all) to go by is simply missing the bigger picture.
A proper design isn't the really expensive part, nor its proper implementation. Audiophilia on the other hand has a tendency to run amok with wild expenditures in select areas that's more about idiosyncrasies, catering to exclusivity and/or trying to make up for or work around a range of design restrictions. Did I mention cables?
Primary factors however are time, experience, (again) proper design, implementation, adherence to physics (speakers, acoustics and coupling/decoupling), a sense of the holistic/seeing the forest for the trees, an open mind and, dare I say, a sense of anarchistic adventure. The latter is particularly important in the face of PR bullcrap being thrown about, dogma, conservatism, and not to mention the tendency to bow to business and community consensus - including the appeal to authority.
To reiterate: price can be a factor, until it isn't. From here on there are bigger fish to fry.