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Law of Accelerated Returns

I think back over the many decades of pursuing high end audio and I realize some of the most inspirational were listening to state of the art systems. Systems I could never dream of affording. I occasionally would get up early and drive the two hours to Phoenix in hopes of finding no one listening to the state of the art system in “the big room” at one of the four or five high end audio stores there in the early ‘90’s.

One such time I was able to spend over an hour with the most amazing system I have ever heard: Wilson WAAM BAMM (or something like that… all Rowland electronics, Transparent interconnects). The system cost about over $.5 million… now, over a million… although I am sure it is even better (I can’t imagine how)..

 

But listening to that system was so mind blowing… so much better than anything I could conceive of, it just completely changed my expectation of what a system could be. It was orders of magnitude better than anything I had heard.

 

Interestingly, as impressed as I was… I did not want “that” sound, as much as I appreciated it. It still expanded my horizon as to what is possible. That is really important, as it is really easy to make judgments on what you have heard and not realize the possibilities… like never having left the small town in Kansas (no offense).

I keep reading these posts about diminishing returns. That isn’t the way it works. I recently read an article by Robert Harley in The Absolute Sound called the Law of Accelerated Returns that captures the concept perfectly. March 2022 issue. The possibilities in high end audio is incredible. Everyone interested in it in any way deserves to hear what is possible. It is mind expanding. 

 

 

ghdprentice

Showing 2 responses by danager

danager's avatar
danager
889 posts
 

Look, if you throw $500K of high-end gear in a spare bedroom, it’s gonna sound bad

I don't agree with that at all.  For $500K you could make a tent sound good.  Now would it sound much better than a $250K system?  I couldn't tell you that it would sound $250K better but it should sound better.  Would it sound better than a $5K system?  Darn tooting it would.  Money spent well does relate sound quality as it does with everything else.  

I'm not saying it's practical, something I would do or really couldn't imagine how you would actually spend that kinda money on bedroom but saying it would sound bad is total BS

danager's avatar
danager
889 posts
 

@mulveling 

Sorry I missed it what were you trying say?

I was just quoting your words from your post that I disagree with and  I didn't realize that it was hypothetical.  I suspect somewhere somebody has $500K worth of gear in their bedroom and it sounds fabulous. 

Really the point is no matter how much money you spend playback  can't sound better than the original source but it can be indistinguishable. 

To me sound is binary it's better or it isn't price and how much better is irrelevant. The graph of sound quality vs dollars doesn't level out it just doesn't rise at the same rate and it doesn't dip at top end.

Now in the real world,  your / my system price is relevant but my point remains the same.   Money well spent will improve the sound until that final result is  indistinguishable from the original but like infinity indistinguishable can never be obtained. Part of it is we don't have access to the masters and part of it is that reproduction adds artifacts that we can hear with enough training.  

If I'm wrong please point out the flaws in my logic as my bank account would thank you.

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