Law of Accelerated Returns

Expensive systems in well designed listening room do scale type things better.  They can go louder, sound bigger, thunder in the bass and shimmer the highs.  But does that really correlate with listening to music better?  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Harley wants you to maintain interest in increasingly expensive equipment so that you will read the magazine that employs him.  He then gets to play with the really expensive stuff while you just read about it.

Guilty as charged.  Of all the possible things to experience before I die, listening to state of the art audio systems isn't at the top of the program.  Call me pedestrian, but systems in the $35 to 75k area are pretty good.

@simonmoon, I fully agree.

I have limited experience with certain classes of components.  I've never heard a $15,000 phono cartridge, $200,000+ turntables, $150,000+ loudspeakers or for that matter really expensive cables.  The bulk of my listening to systems that are more expensive than mine are comprised of $10k to 30k components.

I am also of the opinion that most of the musical differences between systems are subtle.  The difference between a table radio and a decent $5,000 system is dramatic.  The difference between the $5,000 system and a $50,000 system is subtle.  There are clear sonic differences, but I maintain that from a musical perspective they are overwhelmingly subtle.  Maybe as audiophiles we obsess over these small differences?  There's a whole school of thought about the narcissism or tyranny of stressing subtle differences.  I end with the following quote:

consumer culture has been seen as predicated on the narcissism of small differences to achieve a superficial sense of one's own uniqueness, an ersatz sense of otherness which is only a mask for an underlying uniformity and sameness.

There have been several times in my audio journey when I listened to a system that was beyond my ability to fully process it.  Over time and with experience, our brain fine tunes itself to discern the differences in fidelity.  

The differences I hear in my system to a non audiophile might be difficult for them to hear.  When I point things out, sometimes they can hear it, sometimes not.

So perhaps the law of diminishing returns also plays into not yet having the developed palate to hear the full differences.

I think what he's saying is that the sonic differences are subtle.

To the average person on the street spending $5,000 dollars on a stereo is quite extravagant.  To spend 10x or even 100x that amount is nearly incomprehensible.  I will never say that you can't get better sound by spending more money, nor do I begrudge anybody so inclined.  I just think the concept of accelerated returns in audio reproduction is false.  I find it interesting that nobody has offered actual examples of it happening.