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Law of Accelerated Returns

I think back over the many decades of pursuing high end audio and I realize some of the most inspirational were listening to state of the art systems. Systems I could never dream of affording. I occasionally would get up early and drive the two hours to Phoenix in hopes of finding no one listening to the state of the art system in “the big room” at one of the four or five high end audio stores there in the early ‘90’s.

One such time I was able to spend over an hour with the most amazing system I have ever heard: Wilson WAAM BAMM (or something like that… all Rowland electronics, Transparent interconnects). The system cost about over $.5 million… now, over a million… although I am sure it is even better (I can’t imagine how)..

 

But listening to that system was so mind blowing… so much better than anything I could conceive of, it just completely changed my expectation of what a system could be. It was orders of magnitude better than anything I had heard.

 

Interestingly, as impressed as I was… I did not want “that” sound, as much as I appreciated it. It still expanded my horizon as to what is possible. That is really important, as it is really easy to make judgments on what you have heard and not realize the possibilities… like never having left the small town in Kansas (no offense).

I keep reading these posts about diminishing returns. That isn’t the way it works. I recently read an article by Robert Harley in The Absolute Sound called the Law of Accelerated Returns that captures the concept perfectly. March 2022 issue. The possibilities in high end audio is incredible. Everyone interested in it in any way deserves to hear what is possible. It is mind expanding. 

 

 

ghdprentice
ghdprentice OP
6,335 posts
 

@stuartk 

 

+1

emailists
921 posts
 

My system’s gear has been stable over many years.

I always thought my system just wasn’t capable of portraying large scale orchestras. Maybe the stand mount speaker with an 8” woofer and subs with 10” woofer was too small, or the room too large. (28x30x about 14’ high)
Maybe the cones were reaching break up, or the amp wasn’t powerful enough.

But over the last year I’ve done some minor upgrades. One being some inexpensive speaker cables from Underwood Hifi, (the diamond and gold, in Biwire application). I also cleaned the tube pins and sockets in my preamp which hasn’t been done in some time. The most recent addition was the $95 (for two) cat8 Ethernet cables I previously posted about.

Listening to the Rachmaninov symphonic dances on Athena Records 24/96 aif files tonight, I realized the system can now indeed do large scale symphonies. Sure maybe not as well as one of the large Wilson’s, Magico, YG, etc, but certainly the system is now in a new class.

Total cost of upgrades were about $750. I’d call that an accelerating return, or at least not a diminishing one.   I could also throw the $650 EtherRegen added a couple of years ago in there as one of the upgrades, but still total, a very small percentage of the system cost that made a vastly better system. 

 

 

 

 

 

musicaddict
370 posts
 

@stuartk 

+2

Those are pretty much my thoughts and experience as well, in fact I cannot think of a single sentence you wrote that I disagree with.

I have traded off a music man-cave with ugly but spectacular sound in favor of a stunning mountain view in a living room with more glass than advisable. I have worked to set the Raidho D2s as best as possible and do use some minor DSP room correction for the bass (as well as a bit to tame some room brightness).

The sound is beautiful to me but I know more could be done to enhance it. It's tougher now to spend on much higher electronics purchases to move the system forward in a justifiably noticeable way.   Fortunately I never thought I'd get where I am; I'm happy.

stuartk
2,324 posts
 

@musicaddict:

"Those are pretty much my thoughts and experience as well, in fact I cannot think of a single sentence you wrote that I disagree with"

Well, thanks. Seems to me what I wrote is pretty much just common sense for those of us who have limited capacity to treat our rooms. BTW-- I live in a forest and no doubt have too much glass, as well!  

johnk's avatar
johnk
1,973 posts
 

There's is the better performing and there is the most costly in my findings much of high end is just adding zeros to prices to attract the wealthy into considering them worthy. YMMV

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