@madavid0 ahh the tyranny of numbers.
Lets for for the sake of argument say that the Kairos is 10% better than a generic arm does that make it bad value?
What if I then posit that the only way of achieving that 10% is by spending on a better arm like the Kairos? No other change anywhere else in this system could yield that extra soupçon of versimilitude. Is the value equation now different?
The fact that in audio everything matters and the better the system the more likely it is that everything matters is what makes it so foolish to talk about “massive” improvements like the amp comparison you suggested. See elsewhere for a discussion of why diminishing returns in audio is quite the wrong framework, in fact at the high end you experience increasing returns from incremental changes as each change (like a better tonearm) unearths a new dimension (and new set of problems elsewhere in the chain)
Lets for for the sake of argument say that the Kairos is 10% better than a generic arm does that make it bad value?
What if I then posit that the only way of achieving that 10% is by spending on a better arm like the Kairos? No other change anywhere else in this system could yield that extra soupçon of versimilitude. Is the value equation now different?
The fact that in audio everything matters and the better the system the more likely it is that everything matters is what makes it so foolish to talk about “massive” improvements like the amp comparison you suggested. See elsewhere for a discussion of why diminishing returns in audio is quite the wrong framework, in fact at the high end you experience increasing returns from incremental changes as each change (like a better tonearm) unearths a new dimension (and new set of problems elsewhere in the chain)