"Diminishing Returns starts kicking in very very quickly in this hobby" but Audiophiles think they don't kick in until $50,000 and SOME Audiophiles think it's much much higher than that!
BUT "Music Lovers" think it's much much MUCH lower than that!
What do you all think?... ...
The answer is the length of a piece of string, give or take 10% multiplied by the cubic volume of the listening room.
But yes, as a music lover all I need is a $200 bedside CD / radio. To which I am very happily listening to right now as I type. But as an audiophile where I want to immerse myself in the emotional listening experience, things that I once might have deemed as "diminishing returns" suddenly become highly significant. And you can even get to such a critical stage of tuning that changing a $2,000 power cord for a $2,200 power cord of a different brand can be perceived as a make of break sonic decision.
The only rule that I believe hold true as regards price range is that less expensive gear should represent a sonic sin of omission in comparison to more expensive gear and that any system - in any price range - that has
any offensive qualities when tested with a wide range of source material should be considered to be a failure.
As for what I know would make me genuinely happy as of today, well there wouldn't really be any change at all from $100K and even then I'd be compromising as compared to what I know is possible. I can achieve a completely inoffensive sound for $20K and an inoffensive headphone based system for only $5K. But those systems are simply incapable of delivering the full experience that I know to be my personal "benchmark" (which btw is still some way below what I might hear in the concert hall).
