Law of Accelerated Returns

I just posted in the ONTI Cat8 cable thread about what 2 ethernet cables for a total of 95$ did for my system.

Looking at the nice chart @lanx0003 created, my observation is that inexpensive (or not so inexpensive) upgrades take that Diminishing flatter part of the curve and lift it up again.  

I can’t say for sure, but I imagine these cat 8 cables wouldn’t have made such an audible improvement in the lesser priced system.

That being said, I do believe I’d have to spend a hell of a lot more money to better my BHK300 amps (with NOS tubes) but that’s because they’re sold by a more mass market company with simple casework shared among other components. 

I have a pretty reasonable system and I have in-depth familiarity with a variety of systems that are more expensive than mine. The two biggest differences I've encountered relate to system setup and the room. On the basis of my listening, a very expensive system, properly set up in a very good room, can better my own system by quite a substantial margin. The particular differences are resolution, scale, soundstaging and dynamics. If I had carte blanche (which unfortunately I don't as it would mean moving house, I would change my room before I'd change any other component in my system.

Great post thanks...

I will only add a correction: it is easy to control soundstage with acoustic and also imaging with a VERY LOW COST SYSTEM, like mine 500 bucks...

The only thing added by a costlier one will be dynamic and resolution mainly...

I listened to some high price system and they were like a tempesting dynamic under a microscope...

I prefer to relax with music than to see through a microscope...

My bass and dynamic are good anyway and i feel it with my chest sometimes and i dont need nor want more resolution...

Acoustic is the key of audio....Timbre naturalness of voices and instruments perception and control  is the key of acoustic not  resolution by itself nor dynamic save if they are seriously lacking for sure...

I have a pretty reasonable system and I have in-depth familiarity with a variety of systems that are more expensive than mine. The two biggest differences I’ve encountered relate to system setup and the room. On the basis of my listening, a very expensive system, properly set up in a very good room, can better my own system by quite a substantial margin. The particular differences are resolution, scale, soundstaging and dynamics. If I had carte blanche (which unfortunately I don’t as it would mean moving house, I would change my room before I’d change any other component in my system.

This is the most ridiculous discussion/theory I've seen in a long time. The law of diminishing returns is a proven theory of economics time and time again. Anyone who thinks an upgrade from a $5K amp to a $10K amp improves SQ LESS than an upgrade from a $50K amp to a $55K amp is nuts. Maybe it works from a % spent upgrade standpoint, but I even would question that. And if it is breakeven, it still is not accelerating. The graph submitted above is on the money, but of course there are different inflection points.

I think it is great to experience all stereo possibilities, especially within the specially designed rooms, and if you want to spend the $$ to enjoy them, but please do not try to cost justify them as being of incremental SQ improvements. Value on the other hand, is in the eye of the consumer. If someone is willing to pay double for a very small improvement, then he/she sees the value, and more power to them. Some see the value in how it looks.

Some see it as a luxury item like a Rolex, but I would think most Rolex owners think of them as investments that go up in value whereas stereo equipment rarely does, and I would hope nobody goes into the hobby trying to make money (unless they are a dealer) when buying equipment.

The graph above is linear and is superficial...

Because it does not account for the many important factors at play...

I dont know why i cannot put my own graph here...

Anyway...

@sokogear Why would you think spending double on a speaker would yield a very small improvement?  I would think if chosen well, it would be a large improvement.  
 

Plus we all know a system is the sum of its parts, and small benefits stack up and should amplify each other.  A speaker cable that is 20% better than another is letting you hear 20% more of each of the upstream components.  I’m not sure mathematically my point works, but you get the idea.

The significant increase in spooky realism of a singer being in the room I got from my recent cheap Ethernet cable upgrade didn’t come from nowhere.  The benefit came from all the other money spent around it.

I’m not saying it’s a linear or even a truly quantifiable thing, or that every upgrade will provide the same level of improvement.  

Also one may think that for example two amps sound similar, but a much more revealing speaker may make the difference more audible and reveal a character  that wasn’t heard previously. 

@emailists - I never said spending double on a speaker would only lead to a small improvement in sound. I was refuting the law of accelerating returns that said you would get more improvement spending $5K more on a $50K component than on a $5K one. Each incremental dollar spent on a given component typically will get less and less improvement the more you spend, once you've passed the entry level point.

I am sure you can get tremendous improvement doubling your expenditure on speakers, and sometimes no improvement or even degradation.

@emailists + Yes, it may be a relatively smaller expenditure that improves sound to a much greater extent than that expenditure's incremental or percentage of total system cost. And yes, this much greater than expected performance requires a total system that has the resolving powers to expose this.

In picturing this in my mind I can see my system living atop 10,000 ft mountain, this relatively small expenditure may allow system to live atop a 15,000 ft or perhaps higher mountain.

I recently experienced this very thing with a series of relatively small expenditures, boutique tubes and optimized optical network that allowed my system to live at far higher altitude than previous.

Law of diminishing returns is existent up until the insertion of particular item or items that take system to much higher plane.

@sns -we’re talking about individual component cost, not treatments or tweaks. That is why some of the more questionable tweaks are more popular with those with expensive systems. The incremental cost of these items are an extremely low % of their system cost and represent little risk if they add nothing  or minimal SQ improvement.

Excluding time and effort and focusing on MSRP within model ranges, the least expensive is most commonly the worst value, ime. I actually hate to get to generalized about these things but believe law of diminishing or accelerating returns are both moderate views. The weird part is snobbery in audio (of all things) or the anti-elite culture warriors mocking others trying to take their system up a notch.

The law of diminishing return in engineering is so evident!

In acoustic optimization  we exceed almost any gear upgrade, if we already start with relatively basic good design...

People really think that the sound come from the gear...

They dont have a clue about acoustic...

Price tag is more idolatry than bigger S.Q. ...Diminshing return enter the scene very rapidly...

It is the reseon why some one million bucks system may sound relatively annoying or even bad to some ears...

Acoustic and psycho-acoustic are the key...

Price tag is for consumers....

I am not one now thanks to acoustic...

While acoustics are important, a real instrument no matter what acoustic environment it is played in, is easily identifiable as a real instrument. Acoustics can’t create dynamics, timbre, leading edge, inner detail, bandwidth or fidelity. 

A talented musician I know plays a very crappy acoustic guitar they painted on.  It doesn’t matter where she plays it, it’s a tinny, brittle sounding instrument.  
 

While acoustics are important, a real instrument no matter what acoustic environment it is played in, is easily identifiable as a real instrument. Acoustics can’t create dynamics, timbre, leading edge, inner detail, bandwidth or fidelity.

A talented musician I know plays a very crappy acoustic guitar they painted on. It doesn’t matter where she plays it, it’s a tinny, brittle sounding instrument.

100% this, again. 

first part is right...

The natural sound of an instrument is there nevermind the room...in any room an instrument have a dynamic, a timbre a color, RELATIVELY different and linked to the location of the listener and to the geometry, topology and acoustical content of the room.......

While acoustics are important, a real instrument no matter what acoustic environment it is played in, is easily identifiable as a real instrument.

But sorry, the second part is meaningless... it is acoustic properties of the system/ room that give to the sound, dynamic more or less, and timbre more or less and all other acoustical experience factors...This is science and called psycho-acoustic science and physical acoustic science...

it is the reason why it matter the most to adapt the system and the room acoustically... A guitar will not sound the same in a bad or in a good room...Same thing is true for an audio system and way more huge...An audio system will tremendously change his character  in a room which is optimally controlled acoustically and in a bad room .... It is EVIDENT fact...

Acoustics can’t create dynamics, timbre, leading edge, inner detail, bandwidth or fidelity.

the last part of your post means nothing , it is a common place fact: a good musician can play on a bad piano and make it less worst so what?

i think you dont have a clue about acoustic and his relation to psycho-acoustic power sorry....You are not alone...

Most people think they listen to their dac or speakers or amplifier not knoweing how the room affect hugely what they hear...... 

Too bad @mahgister is the only one who knows how to make a $500 system sound better than most (all?) $100K systems with careful placement of a shag rug, pillows, and some tapestry 😭

This hobby would be so much easier if only this valuable knowledge had been taught in school! I have literally never needed to find the volume of a sphere via double integration, but I still remember that useless crap :(

mahgister - is this more of a sith power, or jedi?

😁😊

First: i always insisted here on embeddings control method, mechanically, electrically and acoustically for any system at ANY PRICE...

Second: mocking me friendly is welcome you are very polite and i appreciate your post... but I never pretend that my 500 bucks system could compete with costly one on an engineeriung point of view....I am not totally stupid... 😁😊

Third : yes embeddings controls especially acoustic make miracles for any system at any price mine included...BUT CANNOT TRANSFORM A LOW COST OR BAD PIECE OF GEAR IN A BETTER ONE COMPETING WITH HIGH END DESIGN.... i wrote it with big character to be understood...

So great it is NOW i am satisfied by my modest system in his optimal controlled environment and dont dream about a better one... WHY ?

Is it because i boast about my system? Not at all it is because my ratio Sound quality/price is over the roof...I know that to upgrade really my system it will cost me around 15,000 bucks... I dont want to go from 500 to 15,000, even if it will be better and it will be better because i know precisely what i could buy to do it... Because of all my embeddings optimized controls i know the LIMITS of my actual system...Most people upgrade WITHOUT knowing what their actual systemn can do at his peak or optimal working ....guess why?

But most people here at least half of them own system way better than mine.... Often unbeknownst to them they put them in a not so good controlled room acoustically...

This is the reason why i spoke about acoustic importance...

I discovered that myself by years of listening experiments not by plugging gear in the wall...

Is it clearer?

I am not Jedi i read about acoustic and Helmholtz and some other less known facts in audio thread...then read about Helmholtz resonators and diffusers...I will not spoke here about all others devices...The main important one are created after Helmholtz...Then instead of calling me a Jedi with magical power, call me a humble student of some acoustic science and psycho-acoustic one...

my deepest respect for you.... i like your humor....😊

Too bad @mahgister is the only one who knows how to make a $500 system sound better than most (all?) $100K systems with careful placement of a shag rug, pillows, and some tapestry 😭

This hobby would be so much easier if only this valuable knowledge had been taught in school! I have literally never needed to find the volume of a sphere via double integration, but I still remember that useless crap :(

mahgister - is this more of a sith power, or jedi?

Anybody with a mid Eighties Delco AM/FM radio replaced by equal $ Jensen Coax w Pioneer deck has, HAS experienced BEYOND accelerating returns….

 I don't begrudge anyone with the means to pursue the ultimate. 

That said, I can't help but wonder whether it's not true that "ignorance is bliss".

I can be very obsessive and am not at all sure that being exposed to 100K systems would make me happier, knowing I could never afford one, myself.

Furthermore, as I'm not engineering-minded, were I able to spend 100K, there's no guarantee I'd end up withy a system that I'd enjoy more than my current 25K system. 

I actually haven't heard many systems. I attended a couple meetings of a local audiophile society and felt very out of place, as the emphasis was very much on gear. No-one wanted to talk about music. 

Interesting experience indeed that reflected a fact which can be verified here in Audiogon...

The ignorance of acoustic and psycho-acoustic science is proportionate to the perveived attention FOCUSING on the gear "tasted" sound...

People in acoustic experiment focus instead  on timbre perception and music perception  to create the best audiophile environment in their house/room/system...

Ignorance of acoustic is the common link among the subjectivist and objectivist complete underestimation of the power of acoustic control to deliver and TRANSLATE the recorded initial acoustic event in another acoustic event in your room  ...

We listen to the seaker/room relation not to an amplifier ALONE....Or to a dac alone....

It is the reason why i dont feel i am a "normal" or the regular audiophile....

I dont mind about the gear after i chose a very good one to begin with... The audiophile work begin AFTER the gear is chosen... Upgrading is a deception BEFORE you can control the mechanical, electrical and acoustical embeddings  working dimensions of the system...

I actually haven’t heard many systems. I attended a couple meetings of a local audiophile society and felt very out of place, as the emphasis was very much on gear. No-one wanted to talk about music.

 

@mahgister 

"We listen to the s[p]eaker/room relation not to an amplifier ALONE....Or to a dac alone...."

Yes!  And along with synergy between room and gear, there is synergy between components. For these reasons, I never buy anything I cannot try out in my room and return, if necessary. 

Yes there is a synergy or his lack of synergy between gear and UNCONTROLLED normal room...

But we can recreated the room and midify it to correlate to our specific audio system..

This modification of a room by mechanical controlling method inspired by Helmholtz iswhatintereste me and what i spoke about..

Then acoustic method can be used to make any room to be synergetically optimal for any gear...

Then you can buy anything which is "relatively good" and before upgrading it you must work on the room to makeit working at his peak level quality wise...

Upgrading before that is waste of money and ignorance of what you try to evaluate because you try to evaluate his quality in an uncontrolled room...

Yes!  And along with synergy between room and gear, there is synergy between components. For these reasons, I never buy anything I cannot try out in my room and return, if necessary. 

How much one appreciates a certain improvement and how much it costs to get it are the two most important factors to consider.

@mahgister 

"Upgrading before that is waste of money and ignorance of what you try to evaluate because you try to evaluate his quality in an uncontrolled room."

I don't believe there's much more I can do (beyond rugs, curtains, soft furniture) to control my room. Nevertheless, the sound of my system has continued to improve over time, via gear upgrades.

I'd agree that upgrades that do not produce significant improvements could be deemed a "waste" and that lack of improvement could be attributed to "ignorance".

In other words, if I had no idea regarding what, exactly, I wanted to improve and just bought gear randomly, hoping something would somehow change for the better, that would be wasteful and ignorant. But that's not my approach. I can't afford that approach! 

I don't upgrade unless I can clearly identify what it is I want to change and I do a lot of research. Also, I generally will not buy anything I cannot return. My main goal the last time around was improving bass grip and clarity in the lower mids. Replacing the integrated I had with a Hegel H390 proved massively successful in these areas but also, dramatically improved resolution, overall. Speaker/amp matching was so much better that it was as though I'd gotten a new set of speakers along with the amp. I am not speaking of subtle improvements, here. 

Would I prefer to have a better-controlled room? Sure. Should I therefore decline to attempt to make any improvements in SQ via gear upgrades ? Not in my opinion, based upon the success I've had so far. It may well be that I will reach a point at which I can no longer compensate for weaknesses attributable to  the room. But if I had never tried upgrading gear, I would be tolerating much, much poorer SQ than I enjoy at present.  The same would be true had I never begun participating, here;  there is no question that AudiogoN forum members have been instrumental in the gains my system has made. 

I perfectly understand you and i concur with your opinion...

I just say that upgrade process cannot replace acoustic improvement...

We are not all in the same life condition...

Then there isno unique raod for all, we must make our own...

my deepest respect to you....

...and mine to you, sir!

@stuartk 

+1

My system’s gear has been stable over many years.

I always thought my system just wasn’t capable of portraying large scale orchestras. Maybe the stand mount speaker with an 8” woofer and subs with 10” woofer was too small, or the room too large. (28x30x about 14’ high)
Maybe the cones were reaching break up, or the amp wasn’t powerful enough.

But over the last year I’ve done some minor upgrades. One being some inexpensive speaker cables from Underwood Hifi, (the diamond and gold, in Biwire application). I also cleaned the tube pins and sockets in my preamp which hasn’t been done in some time. The most recent addition was the $95 (for two) cat8 Ethernet cables I previously posted about.

Listening to the Rachmaninov symphonic dances on Athena Records 24/96 aif files tonight, I realized the system can now indeed do large scale symphonies. Sure maybe not as well as one of the large Wilson’s, Magico, YG, etc, but certainly the system is now in a new class.

Total cost of upgrades were about $750. I’d call that an accelerating return, or at least not a diminishing one.   I could also throw the $650 EtherRegen added a couple of years ago in there as one of the upgrades, but still total, a very small percentage of the system cost that made a vastly better system. 

@musicaddict:

"Those are pretty much my thoughts and experience as well, in fact I cannot think of a single sentence you wrote that I disagree with"

Well, thanks. Seems to me what I wrote is pretty much just common sense for those of us who have limited capacity to treat our rooms. BTW-- I live in a forest and no doubt have too much glass, as well!  

There's is the better performing and there is the most costly in my findings much of high end is just adding zeros to prices to attract the wealthy into considering them worthy. YMMV