Archguy
Official Roiurama Factory Rep
Where is your 'Point of Diminishing Returns' ?? The point at which an additional dollar spent no longer returns an additional dollar's worth of improvement?
For loudspeakers, for me anyway, astonishingly low. For me, about the price of a good set of bookshelf speakers, maybe 249 or 299. Obviously more if you need ground-shaking bass (I don't) and full disclosure requires me to admit that I now have five pairs of floor-standers all of which cost more than that--some much more.
Amplification--again, I'm a hypocrite. I have a couple of stupid expensive amps and several cheap ones. They all sound different! But no way are the expensive ones worth 20x what the cheap ones cost. Good God, I just did the math and in my house the actual multiple is over 125x. (Simply buying an even cheaper Chinese amp can readily double it to 250x!) Sorry, I say to myself, but there's something ridiculous about that. The sound out of the most expensive one isn't even twice as good as the cheapest. Sigh. Of course 1) sound is hard to quantify and 2) there are other virtues aside from sound quality--capability of driving big speakers, ruggedness, visual appeal, snob factor
CD Players? No idea, but I can say that my Yamaha CD-S700 is no way and no how twice or three times the device a $149 player is. Fortunately I bought it used.
Where do you draw the line, anyway?
For loudspeakers, for me anyway, astonishingly low. For me, about the price of a good set of bookshelf speakers, maybe 249 or 299. Obviously more if you need ground-shaking bass (I don't) and full disclosure requires me to admit that I now have five pairs of floor-standers all of which cost more than that--some much more.
Amplification--again, I'm a hypocrite. I have a couple of stupid expensive amps and several cheap ones. They all sound different! But no way are the expensive ones worth 20x what the cheap ones cost. Good God, I just did the math and in my house the actual multiple is over 125x. (Simply buying an even cheaper Chinese amp can readily double it to 250x!) Sorry, I say to myself, but there's something ridiculous about that. The sound out of the most expensive one isn't even twice as good as the cheapest. Sigh. Of course 1) sound is hard to quantify and 2) there are other virtues aside from sound quality--capability of driving big speakers, ruggedness, visual appeal, snob factor
CD Players? No idea, but I can say that my Yamaha CD-S700 is no way and no how twice or three times the device a $149 player is. Fortunately I bought it used.
Where do you draw the line, anyway?