Law of Accelerated Returns

@mulveling 

+ 1

The "law of diminishing returns" is overplayed to death, usually promoted by guys who:

• have upgraded poorly
• have a significant system imbalance or underlying issue which precludes high performance
• put a system together by reviews and "deals" instead of by ears
• have a vendetta against expensive gear and people who pursue it
• have never experienced a what a truly amazing state-of-the-art system can do

I like "the law of accelerated returns"! It can certainly happen when some new component, approach, or an identified weak link helps you bust out of a performance plateau.

@mapman …

”It’s true the most important ingredient is caring, not money.”

To a point, but caring and money trump either individually. Let me care and choose and implement state of the art equipment and that trumps just one or the other.

@onhwy61

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.

From the extreme high end systems I have heard, they do a lot more things better than the things you mention.

The most recent I heard was a pair of Estalon Forsa, driven by Pass labs, and besides the things you mentioned, there is an overall effortlessness that most speakers at this price and quality range exhibit, that goes beyond any specific one attribute.

Yes, they produced a realistic scale soundstage of an orchestra as if I was sitting 10 rows back, but they also were able to produce an intimate singer/guitarist performance as if I was I was sitting in the original room with the performer. I could even tell they when they were standing, or sitting on a stool.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

And of course it is "Sometimes yes, sometimes no". Not every high priced speaker is equal, not every high end speaker works well in a particular room, or with all equipment.

@mofojo

I am in USA

If anyone bothers to read my posts I have been rallying against the concept of diminishing returns.

Just today I posted about a $95 ethernet cable purchase (2 cables) hoping it makes a nice upgrade.

If the cables (when they arrive) make just a 1 percent improvement, in my system, that would be around a $1000 benefit. Other upgrades are free, like a cleaning tube sockets, or low cost tweaks like a new AC power outlet.

In a lesser system these upgrades might not be audible, but in a high end system the entire experience can be bettered by some inexpensive or modest upgrade.

While my thesis might be flawed in some ways, my point it that the benefits stack up and pays dividends.

Cdc, what country are you in? 

hilde45

Our dealers will not allow you to listen to such a system unless you have the money to buy it.

I talked to a dealer today who would not allow comparison audition of 2 components. He just said take your most educated guess and buy one.

In the time I spend here ( benefiting from people’s experiences), or obsessing reading mag’s and websites I could more productively spend that same amount of time just listening to it in my room. But that is impossible. It is sad. Hi-end needs to do better than this.

I’ve heard extremely high fidelity equipment that put high end equipment to shame at a fraction of the cost

Yes indeed. Robert Harley’s many edition book is called "A Complete Guide to High-End Audio".

He promotes such things as MQA technology.  I digress - my pet peeve.

I agree the possibilities in high end audio is incredible, the possibilities in high fidelity audio is also incredible though the two aren't always synonymous. I've heard extremely high fidelity equipment that put high end equipment to shame at a fraction of the cost so I don't know if it would be considered high end. But that's my personal experience and  2 cent opinion.

It’s true the most important ingredient is caring, not money.

I know my hifi sounds good and the way I want it to sound to me. Lots of time and sweat and a few $$$s spent over the years to get it that way. Also listening to everything and anything and paying attention over many years, both hifi systems and live.

Not interested the slightest in having a competition. No Hifi Olympics for me. Mission accomplished!

@mapman 

You can’t hit the target until you know where it is. 

When I was a freshman at college, this clever upperclassman would try to get us new frosh to over-consume beers at parties by saying, "You can't know where the line is unless you go over it." Then, once someone was beyond holding their liquor, he'd direct them to go throw up on Ware House, the dorm for all the pre-med students in our complex. Just a fun memory, since I wasn't the one who threw up.

As for audio, I have recently heard some very good systems, but not in the stratospheric range. A couple of them had custom builds happening, so it's hard to know what they cost. What was true, though, was the the owners had really worked for years on them, and what I was listening to -- whatever the sticker price of the gear was -- was the result of a lot of sweat equity, true audiophiles who listened, tweaked, changed gear, listened more, worked on room acoustics, etc. 

To me, the question becomes akin to the difference between the experience in a cozy, comfortable, home which has been domesticated with love over many years vs. a new, expensive, super modern house. One of them is very expensive, and some great features; the other is humble but crafted into the site of aesthetic experience. I cannot see how price plays a role in that kind of comparison.

There is a well respected school of thought, that has been around for quite some time now, that what someone pays for something is less than or equal to what they value it at.

What Mr Harley is on about is something rather different.  Although, as I said, I have only read what he wrote in 2014, not 2022.

@ghdprentice , It is not so much a matter of diminishing returns as it is value.

There is equipment that is a much better value than other equipment of similar performance. Much of this "value" equipment is still plenty expensive. There is a category of "Luxury" HiFi made purely for very rich people who have to drive a Rolls or have it driven for them. Much of this equipment is needlessly complex and over built with things like 300 lb CNCed chassis. I put that stuff in the same category as a Rolex watch. An Apple watch is more accurate and you can put a Mickey Mouse dial on it. You can see Rolex watch wearers a mile away. Their left arm is two inches longer. 

Media people have to extoll the virtues of ultra expensive equipment. It is their job to do so and their revenue depends on it. 

If it costs more it sounds better because it costs more. Many media people have this programing. They did not experience the lowly Roger's LS3 5A

Lastly, we frequently view the past with rose colored glasses. I fondly remember several systems. They were excellent in their day but I shudder to think what they would sound like today.

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.

@onhwy61 

Wow, I try to be courteous, but you are clearly clueless. I am really sorry that your cynicism will prevent you from experiencing some of the most amazing things in life. 

onhwy nails it.

Call it what you will it is  all about how much one values any particular improvement and how much it costs to achieve it.  

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.

I have no wish to speculate on his motives for getting something so basic so fundamentally wrong, but anyway, in my experience price often has very little to do with quality (however defined) so its not an issue..

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.

Harley has been promoting this idea for quite some time. In 2014 he wrote this -

Many audiophiles think of an audio system from the perspective of The Law of Diminishing Returns. That’s the idea that each successive dollar you add to your hi-fi budget realizes progressively less sonic improvement. To use an extreme example, there’s undoubtedly a greater sonic difference between a $1000 loudspeaker and a $2000 loudspeaker than there is between a $100,000 loudspeaker and a $101,000 loudspeaker. The additional thousand dollars buy you much less at the top end of the scale.

.....

My experience with state-of-the-art audio suggests that The Law of Diminishing Returns is a fallacy. In fact, I think that an audio system follows The Law of Accelerating Returns.

Is there any means by which I can read the March 2022 version? I can't seem to find anything from March, possibly only for subscribers.

Perhaps he doesn’t contradict himself after thinking about it for a couple years short of a decade.

nice post and thread @ghdprentice :-)

The room acoustics played a huge factor with those setup you perceived as SOTA.

You can get your setup reasonably close with room layout /speaker placement.

I've made it a point to hear everything I can get to. 

Highest was the Wham/Thor/Spectral/dCS system

in a dedicated music room. I have to say it was intense.

I do not care much about the law only the sound. 

More money doesn't hurt the cause of bettering sound.

I like that the law of accelerated returns, we hear way too much about diminishing returns and never about the former. Aspiration in audio is a good thing it’s what got most of us to where we are now.

I've never heard a half million $ system.

You can’t hit the target until you know where it is. 

Everyone interested in it in any way deserves to hear what is possible. 

Absolutely. There are lots of people, even posters here, that have not heard a top end system.