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 1 response by pesky_wabbit

IMHE this is the hardest characteristic to reproduce. Energy created by the room and reflections blur out the third dimension. Channels that have different amplitude and impulse patterns also blur out the third dimension. These three problems compromise at least 90% of the systems out there. Some speaker/rooms will never be able to perform at this level. Others can but are not adjusted correctly. Only by luck can you get this out of the box and only the very misinformed are going to get there by placing little discs next the their interconnects. Do you have to spend a lot of money? Depends what you think a lot of money is. I think you can get there at a lower volume for maybe $50K. The full Monty takes at least $100K for a system with a turntable. Many are spending $250K just for speakers.

A lot of megabuck systems are crystal clear, cover the full frequency range, have cavernous soundstages with pinpoint imaging, but fail to do what some more modest systems can achieve in terms of PRAT. and musical expression.

My workshop system uses a 46DHT direct coupled parafeed amp using custom Magnequest iron - only two tubes in the signal path, into high efficiency full range drivers. I listen nearfield and do not get a huge soundstage, nor is the imaging what you would call pinpoint, neither does the frequency response approach full range. But the speed and articulation is mercurial, and all the musical inflections are laid out with great clarity. This enables me to get a great deal of satisfaction listening to music, rather than using music to listen to a system..