The law of diminshing returns?
Came across this article today, just wanted to share it for your perspectives. https://hometheaterhifi.com/blogs/expensive-dacs-what-exactly-are-you-getting-for-the-money/
This kind of article is there just to increase traffic and discussion in the forums. The same guy wrote a 12k$ DAC review recently with the opposite conclusion. Don't buy a 200$dac if you have a high end system... https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/dac/emm-labs-ma3i-digital-to-analog-converter-review/ His conclusions: The EMM Labs MA3i D/A Converter is a superb electrical engineering accomplishment. Its standout feature is vanishingly low harmonic distortion. Remember, though, what gets to the speakers is limited by the highest distortion component in the signal chain, including the speakers, for that matter. If you obtain a DAC of this quality, you need to be sure your other components are worthy. And, if your other components are really high-end, don’t buy a $200 DAC. |
I'd suggest that the law of diminishing returns almost always applies but that the breakpoints are highly individual and driven based on how much value is placed on audio (preferences) and resources. If you don't value audio, then spending $2k on a system may be a waste relative to your bluetooth speaker. If you really value audio but have have limited resources, then perhaps you can justify buying a $3k integrated but not $8k in separates. If you are Jeff Bezos and you value audio, no big deal to buy a $90k PC (but you may pass on that audio barrier breaking new $1 billion amp as you'd get more personal utility value out of a another yacht). |
The law of diminishing returns applies to most everything after a certain price point or engineering level. That is not unique to Audio equipment. Thus, rehashing this tired statement feels to me meaningless. Credit to the author of the article who actually in a structured way breaks down why digital to analog conversion is a LOT more than just the DAC chip itself. (Not to mention that some higher-end DACs don't use an off-the-shelf DAC chip at all, but use other D-to-A implementation technologies.) But what does a statement like "A $20,000 DAC doesn’t deliver 20× the objective performance of a $1,000 DAC — physics doesn’t allow that. Shocking, I know." add to the conversation? I think we all understand that a $300k Porsche does not go 10x faster than a $30k Subaru, nor does it cut down to 1/10th the time to get your dinner pick up order or get to the grocery store. What else is new?
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A Ferrari or Porsche that costs 3x more than a base Corvette may not measure a whole lot better on paper but is a very different and more rewarding driving experience to a good driver who knows what they’re doing, which I think is an apt analogy here. The gist of the article is that you pay big $$$ for pricier DACs for relatively small improvements in measurements, but IMO it understates that although the incremental measurement improvements may be small on paper the sonic improvements can be transformative and not small at all. This article leans just a little into the ASR camp to me, and frankly this writer’s reviews are not ones that I rely on if I want to know what something sounds like or if I’d want to pursue it. In short, I think he’s better at measuring equipment than assessing and communicating what it sounds like after having read his reviews for years, but that’s me. |
