Law of Diminishing Returns Applied to Audio Equipment
- Thread starter HamDog
- Start date
philipreji
New Member
From my DIY experience (which sadly dosen't include turntables and tube preamps/amps) maximum improvement happened by changes in the preamplification stage. This was very obvious in the days of the cassette tape. It was possible to choose a good tape head and head preamplifier, so that the signal was completely in the control of the DIY-er from the tape level (millivolts) onwards. In the "universal preamp" circuit by Philips which I had assembled 15 years back, the tape head input was amplified by 1.3 dB. (the preamp had a magnetic pick-up input also, which was amplified by 38.84 dB). At the preamp stage noise pickup should be an absolute minimum, and high fidelity should be ensured. Nowadays CD players have built-in preamplifiers, and their outputs can be directly connected to a power amplifier. If I were to upgrade my audio system now, my first step would be to find the best sounding CD player. Technically, a high quality DAC, class A amplification, shielded cables and good power supply should do the job.
Next, power amp. Right now I am using a single-ended input, current feedback topology, that gives high slew rates (good transient response). It is of near-monoblock construction (power transformer is shared by both channels, but the bridge rectifiers and filter capacitors are separate). I have noticed that filter capacitor brands are crucial: bad capacitors can make the final sound very dull.
Now the speakers. I prefer two-way speakers (simple 8" woofer and dome tweeter). The crossover topology is important. For me it is first order; it has the best transient response, and is most musical. Once I used a 4th order crossover and the sound was very clinical (some people may like it though). The speaker boxes are heavy and sturdy, they don't vibrate while singing.
This system of mine cost about Rs. 10,000 (USD 200) in India after assembly, of which about USD 100 went just for the CD player. I am happy with the sound when played at reasonable volume levels.
To put things in perspective: during thanksgiving weekend myself and brother-in-law were shopping around in Seattle for a music system for him. We visited many shops, and happened to hear fairly expensive speakers (10 K to 15 K range) in the audio store "Magnolia". An elderly gentleman there, who was knowledgeable in music as well as electronics, was kind enough to play B&W, Sonus Faber and Vienna Acoustics speakers for us. We liked the Sonus Faber best due to its musicality and soundstage. It was played through a McIntosh amp (around 5 K). The unbelievable fact is, my own 0.2 K system sounds about 75% as good as the Sonus Faber + McIntosh combination! The major difference was in the soundstage: the sonus faber+McIntosh sort of "disappeared" while music filled the room, but my own system is not so inconspicuous.
My two cents.
Reji
Next, power amp. Right now I am using a single-ended input, current feedback topology, that gives high slew rates (good transient response). It is of near-monoblock construction (power transformer is shared by both channels, but the bridge rectifiers and filter capacitors are separate). I have noticed that filter capacitor brands are crucial: bad capacitors can make the final sound very dull.
Now the speakers. I prefer two-way speakers (simple 8" woofer and dome tweeter). The crossover topology is important. For me it is first order; it has the best transient response, and is most musical. Once I used a 4th order crossover and the sound was very clinical (some people may like it though). The speaker boxes are heavy and sturdy, they don't vibrate while singing.
This system of mine cost about Rs. 10,000 (USD 200) in India after assembly, of which about USD 100 went just for the CD player. I am happy with the sound when played at reasonable volume levels.
To put things in perspective: during thanksgiving weekend myself and brother-in-law were shopping around in Seattle for a music system for him. We visited many shops, and happened to hear fairly expensive speakers (10 K to 15 K range) in the audio store "Magnolia". An elderly gentleman there, who was knowledgeable in music as well as electronics, was kind enough to play B&W, Sonus Faber and Vienna Acoustics speakers for us. We liked the Sonus Faber best due to its musicality and soundstage. It was played through a McIntosh amp (around 5 K). The unbelievable fact is, my own 0.2 K system sounds about 75% as good as the Sonus Faber + McIntosh combination! The major difference was in the soundstage: the sonus faber+McIntosh sort of "disappeared" while music filled the room, but my own system is not so inconspicuous.
My two cents.
Reji
gearhound
Lunatic Member
I guess this is a subject that varies from person-to-person?
TO ME.....it kinda looks like a Bell Curve.
A LOT of improvement early on, then sorta levels off, then marginal improvements by increment as you toss more and more $$$$ into the pot.
IF.....you have the talent and desire.....DIY can greatly improve your bang-for-the-buck!!!
Steve
TO ME.....it kinda looks like a Bell Curve.
A LOT of improvement early on, then sorta levels off, then marginal improvements by increment as you toss more and more $$$$ into the pot.
IF.....you have the talent and desire.....DIY can greatly improve your bang-for-the-buck!!!
Steve
I pretty much agree, except that I have started to see it as, roughly, TWO bell curves. There's the overall bell curve of diminishing returns. And then, once you get to a certain level of performance, there's a bell curve to the last 5-10%. Why is this? Well, to me its because things that didn't matter as much before, suddenly become really important. So where before, when I wasn't much concerned about the transparency of a system, suddenly, when everything else is dialed it, it became very important. This changing opinion of what is important, changed the game (and cost/time/DIY of entry). So maybe the overall sound improvement from what I originally had isn't 100% better or different, the improvement in the areas that have become very important, was.
I'm not sure this made any sense. Need coffee.
I'm trying to convince myself that I've reached that point...because I really don't want to spend more money on equipment. I feel that my system has an equal across the board feel to it, and it's about as separate as it can get. (OK, I suppose I could go monoblocs instead of a 2 channel power amp) If I move any one piece signifigantly up the chain then I may start yet another full upgrade path. Now it's time to just relax and enjoy the music.
Just don't listen to anything else. Avoid it at all cost. You're happy...keep it that way!
On another...the law of diminishing returns seems to imply cost. I think most of us have at times replaced costlier items with something cheaper, and noticed an improvement. I recently did that with a preamp that cost used about 1/7th of what my previous preamp sells for. But it was a noticeable improvement. Some would say a 1% improvement, as both are good preamps, but I would say about 25% because I was after something very specific.
Scuzzer
Fixed Bias
I don't see any bell curves. I've always assumed it was a plot of perceived audio quality vs dollars required and the problem with that is our perceptions of quality change over time so we're chasing that good enough level continuously.
I don't see any bell curves. I've always assumed it was a plot of perceived audio quality vs dollars required and the problem with that is our perceptions of quality change over time so we're chasing that good enough level continuously.
I guess so. But I disagree that $$ is tied to 'better', though. There is certainly a correlation in that certain examples of truly excellent gear have never been cheap, but there are so many variables with used gear, luck, DIY, and even who you know, that can throw off that curve.
Scuzzer
Fixed Bias
Is this the same guy with the Leben thread? :scratch2: That would explain why you see bell curves though.
That's why there aren't absolute dollar values on the X axis. I DIY most of my stuff and the law of diminishing returns applies there as well. Used gear generally works the same way unless you run into someone who doesn't understand the value of the piece they're selling, which of course leads to the inevitable score threads. One other thing, the LODR doesn't require you to spend more money to get better quality, it just states that at some point spending more money will result in diminishing benefits.
Last edited:
Completely logical...and a real voice of reason. Of course those are words from a man who has publically agonized over a Leben purchase despite having a very impressive stash of top quality equipment.
Completely logical...and a real voice of reason. Of course those are words from a man who has publically agonized over a Leben purchase despite having a very impressive stash of top quality equipment.
But the Leben purchase isn't about the last 10% of audio quality. It's about having a simple solution for when I don't want to even have to think about the last 10%.
The Leben CS-300x is apparently in the mailroom of my apartment building in Chicago. But I'm in Los Angeles
The Leben CS-300x is apparently in the mailroom of my apartment building in Chicago. But I'm in Los Angeles
What was that address again?
But the Leben purchase isn't about the last 10% of audio quality. It's about having a simple solution for when I don't want to even have to think about the last 10%.
The Leben CS-300x is apparently in the mailroom of my apartment building in Chicago. But I'm in Los Angeles
...it WAS in the mailroom...Enjoy it when you get back.
Brett a
~◦●○o0o○●◦~
It's really hard to DIY a phono cartridge.
I've found that money is tied to performance 95% of the time. Even when you're DIY-ing, you're relying on the quality of components you're building with. That is, unless of course, you're making your own speaker cones from pulp and winding your own voice coils from wire you've extruded from the ore you mined. Also, it's hard to keep the oil in a DIY capacitor when you're trying to wind foil really tight.
Quality costs money. Whether it's worth it or not is an individual's choice.
Come over some time and listen to my Dual 1215s, with Shure M91ED (new Ed Saunders stylus) running through an ART Dj phono pre and then compare it to the Well Tempered with OC9MLII running through a Jolida JD9 and see how little $1590 actual dollars bought me in the form of the WT set up over the Dual set up.
It was an expensive hair to split. But was it worth it? Of course.
My comments weren't that something cheap beat something well made. It was that used prices and DIY offset the direct correlation. Pretty much everything that I have that sounds great, was at one time, costly in one way or another. Even my Stereo 70 is costly in the fact that my friend who rebuilt it as his personal amp, spent hours upon hours of his time listening to different components in it to decide which he liked best, matching capacitors, etc and picking what he thought were the best NOS tubes for it. The result sounds better than a quick rebuild. Time equals money.
I've heard some distinct aberrations though, among that costly gear. My McCormack TLC-1 deluxe preamp was maybe $1500 new? I'm not sure. It's from the '90s. And the Marantz it replaced was around $3000 new, and is current. To my ears, the McCormack is the better sounding unit. But the Marantz has a nice phono stage, and more features...different priorities, different prices. A Klyne will be here Sunday to compare, and I'm hoping it will sound like the McCormack, or better, and have a phono stage better than the Marantz. And it will still be cheaper than the Marantz is new, by at least 50%.
As for phono cartridges....in general I'd rather listen to my Shure V-15vmr than my Benz Glider HOMC. The Shure cost me less than $200 with two NOS styluses. The Glider was around $600, about 1/2 price as a demo with maybe 40 hours on it. Both are excellent cartridges but I prefer the presentation of the Shure, so it would be at or around the same percentage of sound quality. Niether are cheap cartridges but at some point, personal preference is the deciding factor.
But back to preamps...some people prefer a simple passive over any active preamp. While good passives aren't cheap, they don't go into the stratosphere that some active preamps get into. So for them even a costly $1000 passive might be better than a $25,000 active preamp. Both are quality units but it simply doesn't take as much money to make the passive.
At least to my ears, stuff like DACs, speaker cables, interconnects have vanishingly low returns on investment once you're past a certain quite inexpensive point.
Best return on investment is seeking out good sounding recordings. It makes a big difference even on mediocre equipment. Conversely mediocre or bad recordings sound horrible on anything. Second best return is speakers, although as pointed out cost isn't a guarantee. Good quality amplifiers are available at reasonable prices, including vintage stuff. Probably room treatment is under rated by many and a good sounding room can be a substantial return on investment if possible to achieve.
Best return on investment is seeking out good sounding recordings. It makes a big difference even on mediocre equipment. Conversely mediocre or bad recordings sound horrible on anything. Second best return is speakers, although as pointed out cost isn't a guarantee. Good quality amplifiers are available at reasonable prices, including vintage stuff. Probably room treatment is under rated by many and a good sounding room can be a substantial return on investment if possible to achieve.
Brett a
~◦●○o0o○●◦~
Ok. I didn't understand that's what you were saying (obviously).
The Leben CS-300x is apparently in the mailroom of my apartment building in Chicago. But I'm in Los Angeles [/QUOTE]
damn this thing is nice thanks john
[/QUOTE]damn this thing is nice thanks john
I'm inclined to agree about pre-amps. In my experience the sweet spot is in the $3k range, plus or minus a small amount. I've listened to plenty below that..some nice, most decent. I've also had a few that were a good chunk of coin more than that in my house for awhile and they were all very impressive. What I heard at the $3,000 level (Cary, Rogue, CJ) were very, very good and didn't make me think spending a good bit more was a big step up.
Of course it's all relative, and many here have the means to spend a lot more. I never auditioned the really big ticket items because purchasing them was never an option: why test drive the 911 Turbo if your budget will only allow the Cayman?
Of course it's all relative, and many here have the means to spend a lot more. I never auditioned the really big ticket items because purchasing them was never an option: why test drive the 911 Turbo if your budget will only allow the Cayman?