"I'm a believer"

Wise post as usual from Mike Lavigne who made me think again ...

Especially this line ...

so buying and optimizing a large or very large speaker system is not trivial.

For me this means the embeddings workings controls matter as much as the speakers ...

my best to him ...

For sure if there is no ceiling limit for the sum of money invested , the diminishing return concept made no sense to begin with ...

In my use of this concept i distinguished for a relatively low money ceiling a minimal acoustical satisfaction experience and his maximal relative end point threshold defined by a notation associated for all acoustic factors implied in the perception ....And i distinguished it from the maximum acoustical satisfaction experience and his minimal starting point threshold ...

Then for sure as said Mike Lavigne :

access to successful large speaker installations is rare. so we are left with the idea that there are diminishing returns. nothing could be more wrong. the right large expensive speakers are a great value in terms of ROI.

if there is no limit of money invested these two threshold collapse for sure into a single continuous linear scale where a diminishing return cannot exist because there is always a return that can be evaluated as qualitatively justified ......

For me judging audio experience out of any limit money threshold make no sense ...

It is why in my posts i insisted on the mechanical,ele4ctrical and acoustical embeddings controls of the working dimensions of any system at any price ...

A dedicated acoustic room homemade or made by a pro with a difference in cost of 100,000 bucks ; for example mine at peanuts cost with a grid of tuned resonators homemade and the astounding Mike Lavigne acoustical room , reveal a level of excellence in each case , but these two room cannot be compared at all...

but for me many costlier device present a cese of diminishing return very evident ...

For Mike Lavigne himself if i read well his past posts many costly propositions are only diminishing returns as too much cherries on a cake well prepared already could be ...

All that to say that those who say that the diminishing return dont exist say it in the absolute case with no money ceiling limit which is true as any common place fact can be true , a triviality ...it is meaningless to repeat triviality as any improvement is worth it ... It is not true in any of the two cases, the minimal and the acoustical acoustical satisfaction thresholds ...

Diminishing return exist... For me or for Mike ; but we are not in the same category : i am passed the minimal acoustical satisfaction threshold ... He is passed over the maximum acoustical satisfaction threshold ...if we take into account a RATIO between all acoustic factors levels evaluation...

The computing of the ceiling limit is relatively easy : it is under 100,000 bucks for sure ... Take it around 25,000 bucks for the average obsessed audiophile ... My system cost is now 700 bucks with two vintage speakers and headphone ... iam satisfied and envy no one ...I am proud of my system modifications and embeddings at no cost...😊

But only an idiot will compare my system with the Mike Lavigne one ...

The problem is that this diminishing returns relative threshold exist because S.Q. is not related to price tag and better gear design in a linear way ...

Guess why ?

Because other parameters as the acoustical, the mechanical and electrical working dimensions play a great role...

Especially acoustic ...

For example a costlier speaker can sound way worse than one  less costly if the acoustic working dimension are not set right ...No speakers at any price beat their room ...

Most people who dont believe in diminishing returns are gear fetichist in a way or in another ...

my "fetish" or passion or hobby was acoustic and music  not high end gear collection...

I don’t believe in the "diminishing returns", at least not as a universal truth. When you’re in to the subjective the value of the return is up to the one who spent the money.

A bit rude but well said  though ... 😁😊😁😊

Quality of design does not mean ACTUAL quality of sound ... It means ONLY potential quality of sound ...

Actual experienced sound qualities need controls over the three working dimensions of any gear at any price to be OPTIMAL : mechanical,electrical and acoustical ...

Quality of design is not in any way LINEARLY correlated with price tags ... This does not means that there is no relation between price and sound quality ...

Put all this together and the question about "how expansive is it to anyone" to reach some satisfaction level had not so much meaning in term of price...

All vintage speakers at low cost are not trash ...As my Vintage Tannoy dual concentric Gold , a design marvel ...

All contemporary low cost speakers are not all trash either ... My actual low cost modified and well embed small speakers beat all headphones i ever listened to and their basic price 12 years ago was 100 bucks ...In spite of their good reviews i disliked them a decade BEFORE modifying them because i had no other speakers to work with ...

Their ratio sound quality/cost is insane AFTER modifications of the resonator box with a new refined and more complex porthole and after mechanical and electrical and acoustical embeddings ...

Now very costlier speakers will beat them for sure as my Tannoy would have too well embedded but not by a so far margin ...

it is why i am happy with them ...

You can laugh , it is me who laugh the last ... 100 bucks speakers with 4 inches woofer in the race ( 50 hertz now ) ...

There is a minimal acoustic satisfaction threshold which is correlated with the diminishing returns  zone ...

There is no rational at all for me to put a price tag as you did for speakers diminishing returns threshold ...

It is a subjective threshold linked to each person audio history and needs ...

It is an objective threshold also related to the way each speakers is mechanically, electronically and acoustically embedded in a room ...

I will not speak about the huge transformation of any speakers when it is put under acoustic control; i can for example speak only about the vibration/resonance problem put under control ...

Doing so with vibrations control with any speakers will change timbre and imaging and soundstage and well done will transform most speakers completely ...Add to this the electrical noise/signal ratio control and the room acoustic and any relatively good speakers at relatively low price will rival or trail not so afar any costlier speakers especially those not well embedded as it is generally the case ...

Give me a straw and if i put it at the right location i will change a room or a speakers performance ... I did it ...Mechanical equalization exist too ...I use it right now ...Electronic equalization dont replace mechanical equalization nor the reverse ...

The pitch discourse of speakers sellers dont include the mechanical electrical and acoustical NECESSARY embeddings for ANY speakers to do his optimum S.Q. Consumers dont like to be informed that they must WORK, EXPERIMENT AND STUDY after buying ... 😊

Some speakers do better than others without any embeddings controls, that does not means that they dont need it ... And speakers well embedded reach way more  easily the minimal acoustical satisfaction threshold ... It is why the diminishing returns point is way lower than most people think about ...

There is a point of diminishing returns with loudspeakers and I put it in the 40-50 thousand dollar range.

Saying that the diminishing return point does not exist or vary arbitrarily , is speaking of audio experience as the average audiophile ignorant of acoustics and which believe that only the gear design matter and the price tag ...

There is difference between my low cost modified speakers and more refined and costly one, this is a commonplace fact nobody can contradict and some are ready to pay the price for them ; once this is said this does not means that acoustic factors , as dynamics, transients, timbre, imaging , soundstage, immersiveness and other spatial acoustical qualities cannot be manifested as objective factors that can be reach and put under relative controls at low cost passing over some minimal acoustical objective satisfaction level ...Speakers well embedded at any cost transform themselves completely ...This fact is not recognized by most ...

There is three embeddings controls set for any speakers at any price ...Each well designed speakers at any price will be able to give an acoustical minimal satisfaction and more if we learn how to put speakers in the right environment and under the three main controls dimensions : mechanical,electrical and acoustical ... Add to that some effective tweaks ...

For sure i could upgrade my speakers but i am so happy i dont need to do it to listening music without too much evident defects ...

The upgrade will cost too much for what it will give me ...How much, it depend of the acoustic factors manifested in the right balance with my system for my ears , it does not depend of price as much as from a new adequate embeddings for the new speakers ...

I will give an exemple :

My low cost speakers are designed with a rear porthole...

It is only that : a hole ...

Any speakers is an Helmholtz resonators . if the porthole is simply a hole of a certain diameter in my case or a tube inside, this does not means that the hole or the tube are adequately designed as refined as they would be optimally ...With my small speakers for example at this hole without a neck, i add a complex bundle of straws of different size and volume to fine tune the porthole for greater extension in the bass but way more than that a redefinition of the timbre and soundstage expression ...

No speakers designers will claim that their speakers must be mechanically electrically and acoustically embedded and modified to work optimally before or  after the consumers gives his money  ... Not one ...They will claim that their speakers are perfect plug and play ...

But all  speakers need that three embeddings and sometimes modifications ...

When well embedded in a room we reach this point of diminishing return, which vary for low fi, mid fi and high end , but which point exist so evidently that i will class good designed speakers in two categories : well embedded in a house or not well embedded more than with a price tag ...

+1 mapman

+1 bipod72

😊

i concur with your post description...

I will only add that sound perfection does not exist and as you said it is true ...

But the acoustic factors scientifically really exist that described all aspects of good sound in acoustics ...

Because most people focus on gear price tag for audiophile experience not on acoustics factors which are way more deep than only room acoustic , they accept to spend money but they dont invest the big amount of time in the acoustics necessary studies and experiments ...

They became then obsessed fetichist and brag about their fetisch chosen  object sold by them as a solution to all problem ( for exemple EQ or cables or tube amplifier etc )  ... The gear and cables are their hobby ... My hobby was for few years acoustics thinking and experiments to create a good audiophile experience at any price with anything reasonnably good and with synergy for sure to begin with  ... Acoustics principles and facts dont change with price or specs  of the gear ...

And for those who dont know how to read, i dont claim that my speakers at low price beat more costly one in performance ... I claim that there exist a minimum acoustical satisfaction threshold and we can pass over it at low price if we understand basic acoustics ...

There is definitely a Rule of Diminishing return just as there is the Sunk Cost Fallacy. I suspect that the Venn diagram of those two circles would be close to one circle in some cases for certain audiophiles. For example, someone subconsciously suffering from the Sunk Cost Fallacy has spent years and enormous amounts of money in their pursuit of perfection and yet never attain it as perfection does not exist. So each subsequent purchase is rationalized as moving closer to audio perfection. Yet the reality is they would not / could not admit - even with hard facts - that the recently purchased $100K speakers are marginally better or equal to the $10K speakers or even the $5K speakers because they suffer from the Sunk Cost Fallacy. The diminishing returns set in long ago for each dollar spent.

The Rule of Diminishing Return applies to many industries where the marginal performance gains do not justify the cost, yet at the high-end market of consumable goods, the real reason is justification for many that they can exhibit how they can "afford" to pay $150K for certain speakers, or $200K for a vintage Jaguar, or any luxury item for that matter. Some may actually know they’re getting no real qualitative improvement for their investment because the point is to exhibit their wealth.

Room dimensions, furniture, occupancy of the room, wall hangings, open or closed door and the list goes on and on. All these with even the most minute of change are factors in what we hear.

Because most people never tried to acoustically control a room , passively and actively with mechanical devices as resonators. they cannot imagine the deep audible powerful impact of the presence of even a single straw of specific dimension and location in a room .. Period...

Remember that a speaker is a resonator among possible other resonators in the room ...their distribution matter ...

I too have heard speakers that alone double my investment in my whole system, and walked away thinking ‘what am I not getting’ for that kind of money. And others times I hear speakers that I would think of as small room system speakers and thought ‘why in the heck did I spend what I spent’ .

The reason why this is so, is because the acoustic control of the couple speakers/room/ears is the main factor in audio not the dimension of the speakers or his price tag or even measured specs ... Any speakers well designed of any price in an adapted room will sound at least reasonnably good if you give it to someone knowing basic acoustic ...

It will reach and pass the minimal acoustical satisfaction threshold ...This threshold exist not only subjectively but objectively ... As the diminishing returns threshold which is also a subjective/objective FACT determined by subjective history of the owner and objective qualities of the design and acoustic coupling ...

Very important post  which must be read by any beginners ... Thanks ...

udio Nirvana at the end of the Yellow Brick Road journey to Audio OZ is a variable reward to different people . This is a well travelled philosophy approach … And yes …achieving it does not have to be tied to an ever-expanding or increasing wallet outlay to attain a like favourable outcome.

I spend three times as much time being entertained on my $5000 “B” system than my $50,000 “A” system. 

This is, of course, nonsense.

Of course the OP point to a real problem here ... And It is not non sense at all..

Most speakers are much better than they seem, you need appropriate source amplification and cabling to make them sing.

Speakers must be not only driven by the right synergetical amplification ,

They must also be embedded mechanically well : vibration resonance control are mandatory ..

They must be also connected to the house/room/system electrical grid , then the control over the signal/noise ratio is mandatory ...

Least but not last thinking that cables will replace acoustic embeddings controls of the coupling speakers/room ,because you even do not mention it, is pure blissfull ignorance ...

In any case, so -called law of diminishing returns is subjective,

Another half truth from you : the diminishing returns TRESHOLD is a ZONE which is subjectively and objectively DETERMINED by acoustics precise concepts and experience and not merely by "taste", it is also determined  by  qualitative design grounded in psycho-acoustic experience not by price tags as the main factor ...

if your hearing is good enough

The hearing must not so well be as "good", it is not enough at all , but trained in ACOUSTICAL experiments in a room ... And musically educated ... We must learn how to hear and what to hear and this has nothing to do with the numbers of audio pieces you will buy and brag about here ...

your wallet is even better $20k for a cable that makes things sound just a touch better is a good move.

This sentence is so preposterous i will only quote it ... 😊