Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!info-high-audio-request
From: chowkwan@aerospace.aero.org
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: Diminishing returns in the high end
Message-ID: <5681@uwm.edu>
Date: 10 Aug 90 18:11:57 GMT
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Lines: 39
Approved: tjk@csd4.csd.uwm.edu


Enough of reviews and reports.  Let's get an interesting
discussion going.  Please *post* your responses.

A belief that is current amongst audiophiles and economists
(that dismal art) is that there are diminishing returns as
more $$$ are expended.  With a nod to Ed Whittemore who
sparked this train of what can be loosely termed thought,
I think there is actually a series of plateaus.

As you go from $0 to $X the law of diminishing returns
does indeed set in.  But for myself, when the switch is
then made from transistors to tubes, a quantum leap
occurs and one then starts on a new curve of diminishing
returns.  In other words the law of diminishing returns
is local to certain classes of equipment.  To give another
specific example, I have heard reports that going from
a 300 watt VTl to a 500 watt VTL causes a religous
experience to occur.  i.e. there is not just a quantitative
increase in the number of watts but the system now
sounds "authoritative" (tm Harry Pearson).

Also, I am firmly of the cheap speaker, expensive electronics
school of thought.  This is one solution to the hoary old
question of the correct allocation of resources within a
given system.  Hooking up a VTL 90/90 to some 7 year old
speakers gave them a new lease on life and led me to lend
credence to this philosophy (first espoused by Larry
Archibald to give the opposing camp its say in this
post).

Also consider that the electronics have
to take a signal and amplify it 1000 fold in the case
of a pre-amp and probably a hundredfold in the case of
the amp.  It should not be surprising that a component
that has to perform a 100,000 times amplification would
have a profound effect on the sound.

-- ray