Many have rightly pointed out that diminishing returns can occur for different people at different levels of time or money. It also appears that, short of $250,000 retail, incremental sound quality improvements do continue. For me, returns on investments drop dramatically at the price point where my wife and friends think I've gone crazy! Fatparrot's doubling hypothesis works for me. At $10,000, things were good and I couldn't justify more -- I was happy. After a while, my wife began to accept my illness and I got more sophisticated (sicker?) and was able to move to $20,000. Now my wife knows I'm nuts and I'll have to wait a long time to get to $40,000. Of course, I can't justify that to myself right now. Maybe I should spend a few thou on some tweaks though ...
Law of Diminishing Returns; where does it kick in?
I think that most of us who have been in this hobby for a while have experienced the "law of diminishing returns", the point at which spending a lot more money produces a little bit better sound or just tradeoffs.
I would like your opinions on where you believe this occurs in Speakers, Amps, CD players, and cabling.