The law of diminshing returns?

Oh, this hobby of ours. I would venture to say that someone with unlimited funds can indulge their fancy for the ultimate in sound reproduction, clarity, reality, sound stage, imaging, etc, etc, regardless of price.

For everyone else, it comes down a matter of priorities and trade offs both financial and acoustical. If your room is optimally acoustically treated to begin with, then you’re more likely to maximize the sound quality of your given system. That being said, a resulting perceived upgrade in sound quality may be the result of expectation, confirmation bias or the placebo effect.

But, assuming that the improvement is in actuality real and valid, then the question becomes, is it worth it? If your looking for the Holy Grail of musical truth then yes, For others more value oriented, possibly not. At what point, do you say, no more, Basta?

At what point, do you say, no more, Basta?

That’s really only answerable on an individual basis after listening to a given product preferably and optimally in your own system.  Fortunately DACs lend themselves well to buying used, which to me is the way to go for the more value oriented with relatively low risk.

I think the audiophile ultimately achieves a balance between price and enjoyment quality. 

In that equilibrium is satisfaction- at least for the individual is able to be satisfied.

When people talk about diminishing returns in hifi, what they really mean is that there’s a limit on how much they personally would be prepared to spend on it. That’s fair enough, but it isn’t diminishing returns. 

Diminishing returns can’t apply to hifi systems because it is a quantitative concept. Sound quality is by definition qualitative and there is no standard scale against it can be measured. 

Everybody’s entitled to their opinions on hifi. However, saying there are diminishing returns doesn’t make those opinions any more valid. It’s just an overused cliche that sounds impressive but doesn’t mean very much.