‘need a pound of money’
$100 = 1g.
454g x $100 = $45,400.
this is not enough money to significantly determine where the law applies IMHO.
for someone with a bare bones rig, the cost won’t be a ton to upgrade.
for someone whose boasting a VAC & von S outfit with uber costly snake oil ladden cabling, the cost could be the same or immensely more.
its more about ‘synergy’ than anything else.
there is just too much stuff out there! the main issue though, is every account comes from someone with different ears, from differing settings, rooms, etc., and as such each account becomes ‘subjective’ to the ensemble and the auditioner.
my rule of thumb is much more meager because of a lack of funds and a lack of interest in becoming a new thingy junkie.
the obvious clue is within all the ‘too much stuff’ there is a ‘whole lot of different’ sounding gear, despite it being better or not.
which ‘different’ suits you best?
I’ve only found out synergy is king.
I’ve heard rigs that cost overall in retail speak, say 30k or so, vs those whose totals range towards 60K or more, and the one with the most synergy won.
. in this instance, the lesser of these two rigs got my attention and vote. each was very nice. in the cheaper outfit, the dAC/PRE AMP and amps were of the same brand. The less costly rig simply sounded more realistic. tangible.
since that event the owner of the ‘lesser system’ costwise, has been thru the mill bringing in and taking out a wealth of far more costly gear and I’ve not heard many of his rig’s itterations. but if the buy, try, sell, and repeat syndrome remains ongoing, there is a fly in the ointment somewhere.
the best sounding rigs I’ve heard in friends homes or at dealerships have had one thing in common, synergy. same same power trains for sure. sometimes even the same digital device of the same brand as the power train.
the audio waters get really murky when we feel, and we often do feel, we know what will work best, or better and detour from going with ‘built in synergy’ and adopting the likewise makers devices into out riggs ass much as possible. albeit, money, or feasibility could be concerns there too.
Same same removes a ton of variables limiting the mystery usually but to loudspeakers. often simply buying a ’turn key’ outfit could be ones destination system. maybe. but then theres the ‘money’ issue again!
I’d need about 20 lbs. of $100s and a lot more paitience than I have to even scratch the surface in divining some sort of answer for this question still, it would of course be a subjective one at that.
does money correlate to better? quite often.
just ‘cause its expensive doesn’t mean it will improve things already on hand though. well, not everytime. nor does it mean you will realize evewry bit of its ability either if but that one thing is exchanged.. then it becomes about ‘optimization’ as much as it is about synergy.
visiting the 2019 Fla. Audio Expo which I posted about here, of the more than a dozen rooms, only a few clearly stood out above the rest IMO. curiously, in these few demos, only the wires and speakers differed from the source and power train brand. one of the most expensive setups wherein it used different sources, cables yet the poewr train was the same brand, did not impress accordingly, again, IMO.
Good luck.
