Turntable prices. Is my mind going?

At least you admit that you "don't know". That's a good place to start, rather than to think that if it's cheaper, it must be as good or better. as some do.  There's a great line from the movie "A Thousand Clowns", which came out in the early 60s and is one of my favorites.  Martin Balsam plays financially successful older brother to Jason Robards who plays a sort of devil-may-care beatnik type who is financially careless at best. (There were Beatniks in the 50s and early 60s.)  The two brothers are having an argument about life philosophies, and Martin Balsam says to Jason Robards, with irony, "I get it. If I'm so smart, why aren't I poor?"  The take home lesson for audiophiles being sometimes there is a correlation between cost and quality, but not all the time.

The take home lesson for audiophiles being sometimes there is a correlation between cost and quality, but not all the time.

There is for sure a non linear correlation between price tags (which are not cost) and design quality.. Not linear or as you said "not all the time".

But there is no correlation save a very loose one between acoustic perception of the system/room S.Q. and the price tags of the gear for many reasons linked to acoustics and psychoacoustics among others...

The most costly piece of gear is the room and it is the forgotten piece when audiophile spoke about S.Q. in their non dedicated room (living room ) . Or in a room with only a few panels... 😊

On a '"cost-per-gram" comparison nothing beats the $16K Grado Epoch cartridge!

Mahgister, Perhaps I misunderstand you but your agenda seems to be that one can make cheap gear sound as good as or better than very expensive gear, if one is possessed of a certain wisdom regarding room acoustics and other more superficial tweaks. I think one needs to have both kinds of skill, the skill to spend money (what exactly is worth the expenditure and what is not) and the skill to modify the room and judiciously apply a few tweaks (perhaps) to maximize the listening experience, which in the end is always going to be judged subjectively. But you also cannot turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

Mahgister, Perhaps I misunderstand you but your agenda seems to be that one can make cheap gear sound as good as or better than very expensive gear, if one is possessed of a certain wisdom regarding room acoustics and other more superficial tweaks. I think one needs to have both kinds of skill, the skill to spend money (what exactly is worth the expenditure and what is not) and the skill to modify the room and judiciously apply a few tweaks (perhaps) to maximize the listening experience, which in the end is always going to be judged subjectively. But you also cannot turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

First : you put in my mouth a completely ridiculous claim, I never said that a low cost system as mine at 1000 bucks can beat a better designed and costlier system when this costlier system/room is UNDER CONTROL in the mechanical,electrical and acoustical working dimensions...

I said that a balance between all acoustics factors (i dont speak about mere room acoustic here ) can be optimised and must be optimised to reach a S.Q. level much better according to the system design range of possibilities for sure , modulo the controls over electrical,mechanical and acoustical working dimensions.

By the way the use of Hemlhotz resonators devices and principle are not a cheap tweaks. I dont buy tweaks. i created mine.

Second: Knowing why, how and with what piece of gear to upgrade imply no skill at all about money but imply learned concepts of acoustics with an (S) which most confuse with room acoustic parameters.

There is a subjective core to acoustics, but the objective appreciation and judgment of what is a good system/room is grounded in very precise concepts and parameters including our own ears measurement and HTRF ...

Then ....

A good system/room is a subjective impression but not so much as you think ...

It is true though that all my posts for 8 years now claimed that it is possible with basic knowledge to create a good system/room experience at relatively low cost between 1000 and 20,000 bucks , passed over a minimal acoustical satisfaction threshold if we learn how to do it...

I battle against upgrading race consumerism of people who are lazy and think S.Q. came from buying and only from buying and mostly from buying gear... it is FALSE... it is worst than false it is an half truth that misguide most people ...

Acoustics concepts rule audio ...Not price tags ... And dont reduce acoustics to room acoustic with a few wall panels here ...

Crosstalk is an acoustics concept...

Reverberation time is an acoustics concepts...

Timbre is an acoustics complex concepts ...

etc