What's the cut-off pricepoint to go from GREAT to SOTA, and it is worth it?

FrantzM said:

Jack and Audioarcher

Points are well taken and I do understand the cost involved in high tolerance items on a small scale now/ The reference however about cars is a bit misleading I would say. If you put aside the prestige associated with owning certain cars, you will find cars of extreme performance at more than good prices. i like to think of the Subaru WRX and other " pocket rockets" cars that would 10 years ago supercars a good spanking at the track. 300 Bhp cars are legion and most manufacturers will have one or several in their stable.. Including Dodge or Kia ... And the performance surpasses what we had before ... At a lesser price at least adjusted for inflation and other financial parameters. SOTA in cars are a lot about prestige or pride of ownership the threshold of performance is attainable for much less than before SOTA performace is attained by many cars at less than crazy prices.
On the cartridge and arms side I do find the flight of prices suspect. As a businessperson, you price your wares according to your cost but also to what the market bears.. and our market is tolerant I would think. Case in point, I seem to be one of the few to object to the threshold of SOTA int his thread for example and this is telling... Now Cartridge are routinely over 10K. I have heard some and it seems to me more of a flavor thing than real performance. I have two different cartridges on the same TT but different arms (both circa or slightly over 10 K MSRP) and the differences were of flavor , they did sound very dffferent and to such an extent that I found the differences almost shocking .. At that level there should be a convergence similar to that we observe with electronics ... We audiophiles are fond of hyperbole and we go on the "Night and Day" thing but truly up there with the best the sound is subtly different.. With these cartridges I did find the differences too marked almost forcibly different. I would hope it weren't settings the owner knows a lot about setting tables...

I may have to bow out eventually. THe SOTA hasn't been define to me in a clear fashion. I do feel that there is an artificial threshold that now hovers ont he high end, for example SOTA speakers are to be those at $50K or more... What that does is the tendency to think SOTA performance That leaves some speakers that perform at SOTA levels automatically out of the discussion example Sanders ESL and Magnepan MG 20.7 amongst many. I am not versed in analog enough to give you great examples but I would think the same applies to TT .. I had a Graham arm and it did fare great and was one of the best around. It has been replaced by the Phantom. rarely in the discussion of SOTA arms .. Is it because it is "only" $6K? And we will find the reviewers using the condescending but so much repeated phrase "For the Price" followed by the gushing over the uber expensive or close to unobtainium gear ...

I will oppose these views and have not been convinced of the contrary so far. Having heard 100 K of TTs and such I did find them overwhelmigly the way some speakers will do it ... ( that includes the Magnepan MG 3.7, after a serioous audition one audiophile universe will be severely questioned your speakers amy d better but would they have to cost at least 5 times more?????) ...So now >100K tables are routine and arms and cartridges are happily moving toward $50K. I have to wonder what will we see first the $50K cartridge or the 100 K cables ... Are these SOTA? Do they provide more? Do they? Allow me to question such beliefs...

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Frantz: The WRX achieved its performance through a good design and the use of technology- AWD/Turbos- not extremely fine craftsmanship of machined-tooled parts. (Not dissing the car, we bought one the first year it was available in the States and it was great). But, ever see the motor on an old Bugatti? The tolerances were so close that it didn't need gaskets- it was machined like a watch. There aren't alot of people around who are considered knowledgeable and competent to restore those engines. I had a similar experience recently restoring an english car of similar vintage- even a small part, getting CNC machining done was pretty costly on a limited production scale by an outside shop. More parts= more cost.
The vast performance/price ratio improvements in 'technological applicances' have nothing to do with this. I can now buy an Internet streaming box for 59 bucks to watch TV - it is made of molded plastic (or whatever 'fake plastic' is these days- how's that for an oxymoron), uses a generic wall wart, and when you plug it in, it smells like it is melting.

Whart

let's not get in to everyday electronics because there the price to performance ratio is astronomical. Any cheap router these days can easily take whatever the Internet throws at them . I am in networking and must tell you that 15 years ago a router capable of processing what goes in our house was a ararity , Interfaces capable of 45 Mb/s were expensive now people complain that their Internet access is only 10 Mb/s ...
I as an Internet provider a few years back was buying a T1 for close to $2000/month in the USA ... I am getting close to 20 Mb/s form Comcast at less than $100 including a bunch of HD channels too numerous for me to care and watch...

THe old Bugatti you mentioned was a marvel for its time and will be thoroughly spanked by my cousin Joe (just made him up) Nissan Altima in every thing that matters for a car. A car or a turntable has a clear function and whichever way the function is attained the item has fulfilled its mission. The Bugatti engine were made that way because that was the best way available to them to achieve their (by today's standards) modest performance. One can complain about the overuse of electronics but this is what allows a 300 bhp to do 30 mpg.. 10 years ago it would have been a 5 MPG car under the same circumstances ... We shouldn't forge function and for a TT whatever ways the function of spinning silently and accurately the disc is OK by me... and should be ok by us and I am hard pressed to believe that there aren't more economical ways to achieve those close tolerance. A freind of mine has in a his very smallbusiness shop a CNC machine !!!! They have become commonplace. Electronic calipers with micron of precision cost less than $100, tools are less expensive and more precise so what gives? .. Unless the quest is for a visual experience and there it is no longer music we are looking after but something more elusive and so subjective as to mean whatever we want to put in it .... These are rationalizations of high cost and may not be close to the reality. TO me the reality is more commercial, some would call it more trivial or even crass... It is to make money and lot of it nothing wrong with that but performance should be the goal after, at least I naively believe that ... not looks or hyperbole or even psychological constructs (IT is made by so and so, cost 100 K so it is great and good and better than the one at 5 K, of course costing 20 times more .. type of rationale) and we. audiophiles provide the rationale. . Subliminally we fill the blanks and higher price in our view become higher performance in no small ways helped by the glossy magazines and webzines which have to sell prints and wares anyway.
My quest is Quixotic, it will not change much. The prices will continue to increase and the rationales since only word based will nver cease, once you move away from an objective reality it becomes that, anything people want it to be worth ... Same with a painting which will be valued at $10,000,000 simply because someone is willing and able to pay that much for it. The difference to me is substantial however a turntable is a reproducer and shouldn't add anything to the reproduction it is not to produce music. If I were a TT , arm or carts manufacturer reading this debate I would salivate. When the market is filling the blanks like we are such market is ready to accept some judicious and timely price increase ...

Franz- you are right in every respect, but:
1. I think for a turntable to achieve good speed constancy and quiet, it requires a high level of precision. Think about issues of vibration. You might be able to get the specs to read terrific through the use of electronic band-aids, but I'm not sure that's going to sound good. I recently read an older review of the motor design for Grand Prix Monaco turntable and it involved some serious custom work to get noise and speed constancy right. Not an off the shelf component.
2. When I mentioned my experience in the cost of CNC machining, it was for a part that was simply unavailable in the market place. I essentially had to pay an outside shop to create two front steering parts for my own personal use. I was not going to manufacture in quantity, it was a cost I couldn't amortize across the sale of a number of units. So, if a manufacturer has to build or have built a number of parts like this, I would think the time, labor and design would get costly, especially if the number of units to be sold is limited.
3. I'm not advocating 100k turntables. By any means. My own experience, as posted earlier (though I had misgivings about throwing prices around, at the risk of being perceived to be a rich diletante* which I'm not) was that there were considerable differences in the sound between good to excellent and so-called attempt at SOTA turntables. Those differences may not be justified in terms of price. But, they are there.
4. I agree that the price inflation of 'uber' components has gotten to be ridiculous. But, i think that does go in part to choices by a manfacturer to cater to high profit, low volume markets. I commented elsewhere (perhaps in this thread, I don't remember), that it is a trend in all sorts of goods- catering to a very profitable, tiny segment in what amounts to a luxury goods market. And yes, there is of course the bling factor. Someone i know talked about the crazy system he went to tweak in a very well known record executive's place, and it was evident to him, at least, that the guy had no clue as to the sonic benefits of the 100k turntable, but it looked 'cool.'
5.I have no definition of SOTA for this or any other type of component. There's a lot about 'retro' audio I really like. And I have never been interested in the flavor of the month club, to always have the 'latest and greatest' equipment at home. Some of the stuff I have lived with in various systems is positively ancient, to wit, my almost 4 decade love affair with the old Quad. Relatedly,
6. Comparing turntables or evaluating them in home systems is probably the most labor intensive aspect of trying out a different component in one's system. Add to that, the difficulty of getting a dealer to provide home trial of a turntable and the inevitable system-specific masking (call it 'synergy' if the result is positive) and subjective perceptions and biases of the user/listener. The best example of that may be the move to idler drive or similar older turntable drive systems (including the revival of direct drive after years of belt drive turntables) for a sense of aliveness or immediacy.

PS: I'd still rather drive the pre-war Bug.
* It's the 'rich' part i'm denying, I may well be considered a diletante, I dunno.

Frantz,

You make some good points. I'm not sure what you want the audiophile community to do? Go on strike? Do you tell someone that wants to buy a 100+k turntable to not buy it because it is insane? They are grown ups and it is a free market. If that is what they want to do it's fine with me.

Good luck defining SOTA in this hobby were everything's subjective. There is more to purchasing products than absolute performance. Personally I like to put most of my dollars towards performance but still want a certain level of ergonomics, quality, and looks.

This thread was not about 100k TTs, but whether there is gains to be made above 20k for an entire analog front end. IMO, some of the products I have heard are worth it to me. The only way to get to the performance I'm after under 20k is DIY. Most people don't have the skills, knowledge, or the time to fool with it though.

Sean

Several excellent points already on this thread. I for one am anxiously awaiting Win's expanded thoughts! If you haven't had the pleasure of hearing the Saskia, it ranks as a contender for the world's best turntable. I have fond memories of many hours spent listening to the Saskia at the RMAF a few years ago. In the meantime...

While absolute speed consistency is important for a turntable, I am not conviced it is the MOST important quality parameter. There have been several threads on Audiogon discussing the utility of the Sutherland Timeline device which measures the speed consistency of a single platter revolution. What is never discussed in the consistency during a single revolution, i.e. if the first half of the revolution is at 66 2/3 rpm and the second half at 16 1/6, the Timeline would be spot on. Yet intuitively, we all realize it would sound awful. I use this exaggerated example to make the point that time weighted speed consistency may be a more useful parameter to measure. Which leads to another issue: is wow and flutter more important than consistently incorrect speed, i.e. does stable 34 rpm sound better than 33 1/3 with minimal wow and flutter?

This leads to a conundrum. Despite the designer's best efforts to produce a perfectly consistent and accurate platter rotation, their work may be obviated by poor QC at the record plant, i.e. do the effects of eccentric spindle holes and record warp swamp the marginal improvements/costs of speed accuracy in SOTA turntables?

It has been my experience that other parameters such as isolation from internally generated noise and vibration (from the drive mechanism) and rejection of external vibrations such as those generated by your speakers are also extremely important to turntable performance. This typically requires materials anaylsis, machining and prototype testing, all of which are very expensive.

So far, I've only discussed turntables and haven't touched on tonearms, cartridges, and phono stages; all of which have their unique technical challenges. As a witness to the development of the highly regarded Durand tonearms, I can attest to the costs both in time and materials to produce this SOTA tonearm.

Rarely discussed is set-up. It is my contention that a well-set up vinyl system will sound much better than a much more expensive system poorly set up. System set up seems to be a lost art and many (?most?) high end vinyl systems are not optimized. This costs you nothing but time and patience, but many audiophiles do not seem willing to make this investment.

All of the above necessarily mean that the costs of SOTA vinyl are necessarily high. By comparison, the costs of digital are largely driven by declining costs of transitors and computing power. IME, the quality/cost curve of digital constantly improves, especially with the least costly equipment. Graphically, the value curve of digital is fairly steep and consistently moves to the left. By contrast, the price/value curve of vinyl has a shallower curve, constrained by the cost of materials, machining, etc.

IMO, at this time, the quality of SOTA vinyl still exceeds that of digital. Indeed, at the far end of the curve while the quality of SOTA digital continues to improve, the gap between SOTA vinyl and digital equipment is widening, constrained largely by the quality of software. At some point, SOTA digital may surpass vinyl, as it already has done so at the lower price points. Factor in the convenience, portability and price advantage of digital software, it is only at the extreme of investment that vinyl makes sense to me. While I have an undenieable feeling of nostalgia for the medium (after all who remembers where they were when they download their favorite song), if and when SOTA digital surpasses vinyl, I'll be the first to make the investment.

Nice post, Doc.

when i got started in this hobby (compulsion?) and paid full retail for everything (thats before i learned the secret handshake ) id justify the price of admission by buying into the aura surrounding the designers. i dreamt sugano-san lived in nachi overlooking a serene vista of waterfalls, perfecting his nihonga and wearing the traditnal yukaya/geta; where at his work bench he'd give birth to his exclusive masterpieces. nothing could be further from the truth he like many japanese 'genius' were the upshot of the post-war industrial revolution and had humble beginings as ordinary staff engineers.

i got the chance to corner the maker of a very well known cartridge brand. i had to ask what made a cartridge worth $1,000 and another $4,000. his short answer was "the way they measure" i come to finf out only two people at this company made all the cartrifdges for world consumption. they all started life the same way using identical generators, cantilevers and styli. the differences lay in the hand production wherein some are more 'perfect' than others. those that measure best become the premium model and those that dont move down the line depending on how 'perfect' they are. they're then disguised with diferent bodies (wood, metal, etc) to distinguish the top model from the bottom. i also gathered that the difference is so minute the performance gap could easily be closed by the least bit of improper set-up.

since then i view the cartridge biz with a jaundiced eye and recognize the difference bewteen the 'best' price-wise and the almost best could be much less than you think. i recognized not all cartridge mfrs share this same practice but the pricing is universally similar. i know the margins on cartridges are great and far better than electronics and only bettered by the highest margins - cables.

Jazdoc, Good post. I hope that digital continues to advance enough to overtake vinyl. I like vinyl but it has allot of flaws that are as of now not fixable. I think at some point a better technology will come along and replace both traditional digital and analog. Whether we will live to see it I'm not sure.

I have not heard the Saskia TT. It sounds like an interesting product. I wonder if Winn will be showing it at RMAF this year?

Cheers,

Sean

Very valid and interesting points above, but by definition I try to stay away of a price point vs estimated performance as a rule of thumb. One can awfully spend $20k on an analog rig or hook it to the worst possible combination along the audio chain (not to mention poor setup or room acoustics as Jazzdoc mentioned).

I do beleive in the diminishing return curve thou and for a turntable/arm/cart combo $5K is my current price point.

I think a better question is where does that sigmoidal curve flatten out the law of diminishing returns kick in?

Audioarcher

Fair enough, my objection remains the amount that seems to define the SOTA is high ( a subjective evaluation by the way ). I am not asking that the audiophile community to go on strike, not realistic. I would have liked to se the community be more exigent, toaskformore of an objective criteria of excellence. I will repeat that the audiophiles do not seem to be interested. Meanwhile some community of enthusiasts have asked objective criteria of excellence and are repeaing the fuits of their insistance, Photgraphy for example but computer, video and home electronics (we'll get back to AV later )... The market has that power and an educaed and informed customer can steer a market in a the right direction. Our Industry has chosen the path of Luxury goods.. where there is no performance requirements only reputation and subjectivity (Wine and jewels come to mind) .. yet there is an objective reality for the reproduction of music to abide to. We want to reproduce as close as posible to the original signal ... or construct and some equipment carry this out, repeatable and consistently better than others. What makes them better performer? Objectively? We don't seem to be interested in that and we regularly decry atempt by (some) manufacturers to do so.. Witness the clamor about the findings of Harman about some speakers or the dim view we tend to have for Bang and Olufsen although we regularly use their ICE module in some our amps but that is an aside...

I believe by introducing the notion of SOTA and a price threshold without defining objectively what we mean by SOTA effectiveley skewed the discussion from the start by effectively equating price with performance (even forgetting the fact that the level fo peformance wasn't defined and will not be defined in this debate), the level of performance in audiophile parlance is now directly proportional to the expense... Performance is equated with price however vociferously that we will post or profess the contrary. Thus a 100 k speaker is superior to a 20 k one


I believe that the SOTA in TT can be addressed in objective terms. Speed accuracy is a measurable quantity,no amount of talks about micro and macro variations would convince of the contrary, this can be measured. Intinsic noise of a TT can be also measured , repeatably confidently. Immunity to extraneous noise, resistance to airborne and mecahnical vibrations, likewise. Interestingly enough I would think that several of the best TT do well in this regard and the return of the mighty Direct Drive at the forefront of the very best Turntable is a testimony to that, so are the frequency controlled motors and other stuff. The springy spongy stuff that made the Linn Sondek so sensitive to the vibrations do not find their ways in the best TT out there and whiel I have not seen the measurements i am certain they are great in most instance... Yet we sreadfastly refuses measurements int this area. I maybe cynically think think it is convenient to the Industry to push measurements at the background. The more subjective the more leeway to count on reputation and price...

Sorry if it seems that I have derailed the thread but I think those should be said and the question answered to what constitute SOTA. Else the debate will remain solely about price.. And if this is the case the $ 650,000 TT, once it is produced will be the best TT ever ....

Frantz, One has to use their own judgement to decide what is right for them in life. My advice is to go out and hear as many systems as possible and decide for yourself what is relevant for your tastes and budget. No one can tell you in advance what that might be. Objective SOTA does not always equate to the most pleasurable sound in this hobby. I don't know how arguing about what is SOTA in this thread is going to help anybody to make an informed decision about whats best for them.

This hobby isn't cheap and if you really want to know how far the rabbit hole goes bring lots of cash. I've wasted more money than I'd like to count on things that did not work out. Still my curiosity about how much more performance is possible keeps me going down that hole. It is what makes this hobby interesting to me. I've had more than good sound for some time now but keep on exploring new things. It's not necessarily more expensive stuff I want to try just different things. As many have said price is not always a good indicator. Still it costs money even if you sell your old stuff to help pay for your new stuff.

Sean

Audioarcher

Objective SOTA does not always equate to the most pleasurable sound in this hobby. I don't know how arguing about what is SOTA in this thread is going to help anybody to make an informed decision about whats best for them.

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for
This donesnt't address my objections at all but I will reply to your points. There is no clear objective measurements for what constitutes SOTA and there is little interest in the industry to come up with metrics that would attempt to describe it.
I have no doubt the best at a given point in time is expensive. I had a 50 inch Elite plasma I purchased for about $6500 and I bought a Pioneer Elite Blu Ray for 1500 or so, right now a $50 Blu ray provide same or better PQ with an assortment of "apps" ... in many other realms price goes down while quality and or performance improves steadily... Can we say the same thing for High End Audio? Or do we have to resort to subjectivity again? The very fluidity of the notion of SOTA without any objective criterion makes it impossible to ascertain the term with any degree of precision and or repeatability... So what are we left with with? Vague , lame attempts, subjectivity galore and ultimately price it is clear tus that a $5000 TT can't be SOTA if there are so many models costing up to 30 and in one particular case 130 times more .. They have to be better, they are likely SOTA or more SOTA .. Right??? ...

@jazdoc

Good post but I am not sure this is such a problem the laws of physics apply and the notion of inertia is exactly that ... Nowadays platter are massive and the variation in speed are bound to be minuscule.. Flywheel effects are a true and proven speed stabilizer and its value has been known and used for several years on enverything that we need spinning a a steady rate.. i am not convinced that it is an issue, not yet. There is still a lot of work in vibration mitigation and record centering has only been attempted by one manufacturer : Nakamichi. There are still progress to be made in TT.. My question remains : Do they need to cost so much? And so far there is no answer only attempt at explanations centered around the subjectivity of music reproduction, which of course follows industry attitude and orthodoxy...

I will bow gracefully now but I am ..lurking

MylesBAstor said:

I think a better question is where does that sigmoidal curve flatten out the law of diminishing returns kick in?

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Myles, that's easy. It is summarized here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life

Frantz,

The business model of mass market gear is totally different than the niche high end audio market. If everybody wanted the kind of gear we are interested in then we could benefit from economies of scale like mass market stuff does. Also it would be worth it for big companies to invest in research to advance the performance of hifi gear. Sadly this is not the case and probably never will be.

I don't recall anyone in this thread claiming that if something costs more it must be better. I know of a few things that are better IMO than gear that cost much more. Others may have a completely different opinion than mine on the same gear. This is what makes it difficult to pin down whats SOTA.

Frantz,

I have no doubt the best at a given point in time is expensive. I had a 50 inch Elite plasma I purchased for about $6500 and I bought a Pioneer Elite Blu Ray for 1500 or so, right now a $50 Blu ray provide same or better PQ with an assortment of "apps" ... in many other realms price goes down while quality and or performance improves steadily... Can we say the same thing for High End Audio?

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Good point and I think we agree...somewhat . Where the price is driven by computing processing power, prices drop over time, driven by Moore's law. Hence why under a certain price point (pick yours), digital delivers a greater bang for the audiophile dollar. Unfortunately, as you alluded, the price of vinyl reproduction has not been pirmarily driven by those factors. Obviously computing power allows analog designers to model materials, etc much more cost effectively than previously but the cost of time and materials seems to march in only one direction...upward. So I would conclude, that yes, unfortunately, SOTA for vinyl reproduction has been and will remain expensive for the forseeable future.

Please do not misunderstand my previous post, I strongly believe in utilizing objective measurements for analog development and QC. I am just unaware of a single magic, measureable parameter that determines relative 'goodness' of a vinyl system, much less SOTA.

As to whether the cost of SOTA vinyl is worth it, that's an individual decision. I am reminded of the story of Benjamin Graham (author of the value investing bible "The Intelligent Investor") who was called to testify in front of Congress in the mid 1950's when stock prices finally surpassed their pre-1929 crash highs. When asked about stock prices Graham explained "Stock prices seem high, stock prices are high, but stock prices are not as high as they seem." Meaning relative to the previous 25 years experience stock prices seemed high and by historical valuations they were high, but relative to the instrinsic value of the companies, they weren't as pricey as they seemed. I think a similar statement can be made regarding SOTA vinyl reproduction.

So does $6500 for VPI Classic 2 ($3499) with a Lyra Kleos ($2995) give you 85+% of the best out there for instance? Then you could throw in a SRA or any other base you want.

My experience with turntables is large, but of those only two aspired to SOTA - the SME30 and the Forsell Air Force One with air flywheel.
I owned all the 9" tonearm SME turntables and the 30 was better by a large margin than the other two. The Forsell sounds very different, but in the same class as the 30. The few times I listened to more expensive turntables was in unfamiliar systems and can not say that there was something much better than form those I own.

None of the less expensive turntables I have listened to persuaded me they were in the same category. So for me SOTA in turntables is expensive - although due to distribution costs overseas the models I refer cost a lot less in Europe than in the USA and turntables manufactured in USA cost a lot in Europe.

FrantzM said:

Whart

let's not get in to everyday electronics because there the price to performance ratio is astronomical. Any cheap router these days can easily take whatever the Internet throws at them . I am in networking and must tell you that 15 years ago a router capable of processing what goes in our house was a ararity , Interfaces capable of 45 Mb/s were expensive now people complain that their Internet access is only 10 Mb/s ...
I as an Internet provider a few years back was buying a T1 for close to $2000/month in the USA ... I am getting close to 20 Mb/s form Comcast at less than $100 including a bunch of HD channels too numerous for me to care and watch...

THe old Bugatti you mentioned was a marvel for its time and will be thoroughly spanked by my cousin Joe (just made him up) Nissan Altima in every thing that matters for a car. A car or a turntable has a clear function and whichever way the function is attained the item has fulfilled its mission. The Bugatti engine were made that way because that was the best way available to them to achieve their (by today's standards) modest performance. One can complain about the overuse of electronics but this is what allows a 300 bhp to do 30 mpg.. 10 years ago it would have been a 5 MPG car under the same circumstances ... We shouldn't forge function and for a TT whatever ways the function of spinning silently and accurately the disc is OK by me... and should be ok by us and I am hard pressed to believe that there aren't more economical ways to achieve those close tolerance. A freind of mine has in a his very smallbusiness shop a CNC machine !!!! They have become commonplace. Electronic calipers with micron of precision cost less than $100, tools are less expensive and more precise so what gives? .. Unless the quest is for a visual experience and there it is no longer music we are looking after but something more elusive and so subjective as to mean whatever we want to put in it .... These are rationalizations of high cost and may not be close to the reality. TO me the reality is more commercial, some would call it more trivial or even crass... It is to make money and lot of it nothing wrong with that but performance should be the goal after, at least I naively believe that ... not looks or hyperbole or even psychological constructs (IT is made by so and so, cost 100 K so it is great and good and better than the one at 5 K, of course costing 20 times more .. type of rationale) and we. audiophiles provide the rationale. . Subliminally we fill the blanks and higher price in our view become higher performance in no small ways helped by the glossy magazines and webzines which have to sell prints and wares anyway.
My quest is Quixotic, it will not change much. The prices will continue to increase and the rationales since only word based will nver cease, once you move away from an objective reality it becomes that, anything people want it to be worth ... Same with a painting which will be valued at $10,000,000 simply because someone is willing and able to pay that much for it. The difference to me is substantial however a turntable is a reproducer and shouldn't add anything to the reproduction it is not to produce music. If I were a TT , arm or carts manufacturer reading this debate I would salivate. When the market is filling the blanks like we are such market is ready to accept some judicious and timely price increase ...

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Frantz,

I think there are 2 main points in play. One is based on psychology and the other one is based on economics.

First, on the psychological front, we are dealing with subjective experiences. Because audio is partly subjective , there are as many audio brands as there are religions in the world. (And if you think it's all objective, what the heck are you doing spending precious hours of your life posting on this site?!?!!) No one - and I mean no one has been able to figure out what goes on inside someone else's head in the way they experience things. So the subjective stuff is not quantifiable. Just a fact of reality that we can't measure everything. As a result, it is impossible to compare 2 persons' levels of joy derived from listening to music on more and less expensive systems.

Now the economics: If you accept, that audio has a subjective element , and people perceive differences in their analog gear, such as more bass, more detail, quieter background, or more fireworks, many are willing to pay for that extra performance. For someone the quieter background is worth $2K, based on their personal situation. While for another individual with the financial means, the extra fireworks are worth $100K.