The Point of Diminishing Returns

[YoungClayB]

I think everyone (well maybe not everyone) here agrees that at some point the price you pay for a marginal increase in sound quality becomes too much. I got to thinking about my overall enjoyment of this hobby (and the music itself) as I've gone through the upgrade process on my portable rig and this is what I came up with.



As you can see, there is a pretty dramatic improvement in sound quality each time I upgraded IEMs, but the improvements really started dropping off once I got into cables, amps, etc. Notice that the lines actualy cross once I upgraded to the iMod; don't get me wrong, the iMod sounds great - just not THAT much better than a normal lineout. I am sure that your opinions will vary, but this is what I hear with my ears.

[fordgtlover]

It would be great if there was some way of objectively assessing the marginal benefit of an upgrade. But, given that people can't even agree whether high priced even make a difference - fat chance.

Interesting graph from your experience.

[F107plus5]

I kinda like my favorite Alessandro Price/Performance relationship.

It may not be entirely true, but it's fun!

Price:

MS-1=X

MS-1=X
MS2i=X+2X
MS-Pro=X+2X+4X

Performance:

MS-1=Qs

MS-1=Qs
MS2i=Qs+Qs/2
MS-Pro=Qs+Qs/2+Qs/4

Price is pretty well dead on! And as I understand from reading all the posts and threads I could find in search mode, the performance relationship seems to be pretty darned close too!

[spinali]

This is, as you noted, a graph for IEMs. I wonder what the graph would look like for traditional headphones? At what point does the SQ reach a relatively flat slope?

[aCommunistSpy]

As for the Alessandro price differences, i really hope i won't be tempted to be upgrade from the MS-1. I hear that the MS-2's are only like 30% better than the MS-1s for being 3 times the price...

[d-cee]

hehe, i like the idea of plotting it on a graph

imho i think as time goes by, your appreciation of small improvements actually increases

eg. at the beginning of the hobby if i were to spend double the money i would expect at least double the improvement/features/functions

but now i wouldn't expect such an increase for the money. i think that's why starting at the bottom and going through the whole process of buying and moving up is so enjoyable.

[ClieOS]

This seems to confirm what I always believe in - My upgrade theory is always: Headphone > amp > sources.

Great job on the graph

[F107plus5]

Originally Posted by aCommunistSpy

As for the Alessandro price differences, i really hope i won't be tempted to be upgrade from the MS-1. I hear that the MS-2's are only like 30% better than the MS-1s for being 3 times the price...

Yeah; something like that! Maybe a bit better than that. Individual ears are the best judge.

Where a big difference comes in is with materials and workmanship. The price is a lot higher for sure, but the phones make up for it a lot just for the fun of simply looking at them! And now that they ship with the same padded headband as the top-o-the-line Grados...well....!

I truly love my MS-1, but the MS2i are in a whole 'nother world!

I figure that the materials are worth a good half of the cost difference, and only another 100 bucks for the actual increase in SQ is really a bargain in the audio world!

[Hi-Finthen]

^ All good and true to an extent. But then what are these sonidc differences after a moderate level of investment. They are with better tone and timbre of the instruments(if it is a part of the genere choosen and orignially properly mixed and mastered), better instrument seperation and staging, and proper weight and balance of the instruments portrayed adding to the realisim factor. All of this does presuppose it is important to the genere and our own relative sense as to what we are comparing it to. For instance, although these may well all be slight differences, just try to move from a slightly better sounding system to a lesser one and the difference become astoundingly clearer than moving up the chain with the fresh significance of how much was just spent in mind. Then we get into personal values of what matters in the larger scheme of overall life expences and what priorities are which are a personal decision which to some it is a good choice and at the other end of the spectrum it is just as valaid that it is not.

I like reading exactly about these values as its all needed to target what is our own "sweet spot" as to return on a cost/benefit scale, and is therefore useful as a reminder to us all.

But, keep in mind a 15% return on increased audiophile qualitys is money well spent for a great many in the world of higher end audio reproduction gears. And transposes well towards the auto/motorcycle tune up gear etc!

[aCommunistSpy]

Originally Posted by F107plus5

Yeah; something like that! Maybe a bit better than that. Individual ears are the best judge.

Where a big difference comes in is with materials and workmanship. The price is a lot higher for sure, but the phones make up for it a lot just for the fun of simply looking at them! And now that they ship with the same padded headband as the top-o-the-line Grados...well....!

I truly love my MS-1, but the MS2i are in a whole 'nother world!

I figure that the materials are worth a good half of the cost difference, and only another 100 bucks for the actual increase in SQ is really a bargain in the audio world!

Yes i agree that it is not such a bad deal but if it did cost that much to better its appearance from the MS-1 to MS-2, i would have preferred to pay less and only get the SQ upgrade. Surely you are not in this hobby for aesthetically pleasing headphones. However, there is still no difference because i still am tempted to buy the MS-2s!

[F107plus5]

Originally Posted by aCommunistSpy

Yes i agree that it is not such a bad deal but if it did cost that much to better its appearance from the MS-1 to MS-2, i would have preferred to pay less and only get the SQ upgrade. Surely you are not in this hobby for aesthetically pleasing headphones. However, there is still no difference because i still am tempted to buy the MS-2s!

Well; I do listen with my HD600 when I want the bigger classical stuff, and at that time I can clearly SEE the MS2i hanging right there in front of me adding lots of good stuff to the view!

...at other times I look at the HD600....thankfully; unlike others, I don't mind the fake marble finish!

Right now I'm not wearing either. My Wife is constantly asking me to look at stuff on one of those home improvement shows and I don't dare slip on some cans.

The view of the phones is nice though!

[adanac061]

Originally Posted by ClieOS

This seems to confirm what I always believe in - My upgrade theory is always: Headphone > amp > sources.

Great job on the graph

My upgrade theory is the otherway around, Source first> amp> headphones./

Buy the most expensive source you can afford . a $1000 dac should be sufficient.

Then buy a powerful well balanced amp that does the job it's supposed too. Then start looking for headphones, starting from the cheapest to uber expensive, till you find your sound.
You won't spend more money than you have to that way.

[mdarnton]

I did find that my recent amp upgrade did a whole lot more for my SR-80s, the sound of which I'd grown to dislike, than I would have expected. If I'd upgraded the amp first, I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to upgrade the phones. And looking at it the other way, the way I did do it, the Ed 9s were a huge upgrade over the Grados, with the amp I had at the time. So I'm reluctant to make any generalizations at all. I suspect it just depends on where the bottleneck is in the system at any given moment (my "cheap DVD player", most likely, today.)

[unclejr]

What are the units of the "sound quality?" As far as one can tell from this graph, your sound quality line is somehow related to the amount of money you paid, and even then it would be subject to suspicion.

It looks like the point is that you have a function that quickly rises to near its max value and then asymptotically pursues "the best sound quality," which is an often lamented qualitative description of the phenomenon. And the price, in turn, is somewhat exponentially rising. Ha ha.

Accumulated cost also means that you are factoring in the price of several sets of headphones together, which means that these lines probably do not, in fact, cross, since that kind of comparison loses its meaning quickly if you were to take it just a tiny step further and factor in the cost of your electricity during that entire time, shipping and handling costs, the time of lost productivity at work while making this graph (I'm guilty of it RIGHT now), etc. etc.

I too was trying to figure out what the lines crossing meant, but it's hard to model the sound quality as a function (independent or not) of the device and/or the price. And once again, the crossing might disappear if you weren't include multiple headphones in the accumulated cost, which don't factor into the sound quality collectively. Unless of course it was "normalized" to be "accumulated sound quality," meaning 50 "sound quality points" for the Sonys + 150 "sound quality points" for the next phones = 200 sqp on the total sq.

So, the zeros (crossings) of this system, what do you think they mean?

[grndslm]

Originally Posted by unclejr

What are the units of the "sound quality?"

SQ, must be capitalized or you don't get full credit!

Originally Posted by ClieOS

This seems to confirm what I always believe in - My upgrade theory is always: Headphone > amp > sources.

I TOTALLY agree with that!!