10-15k (mostly in speakers) is around when you start experiencing strongly diminishing returns.

Some really nice floorstanding speakers though offer a jaw dropping improvement that’s measurable.

I think the key to it is using the listening rooms that hi fi shops often offer, and being honest with oneself about whether the impact is really tangible or not.

Be a while before I can justify even contemplating that sort of hifi spend anyway so I shall proceed in blissful ignorance for now :-)

> 10-15k

Is that in USD?

whether that is any major western currency such as USD, EUR, CAD, CHF, GBP or AUD, it doesn't really matter when the error bar is that big

It could be JPY ;)

That's what I was wondering, as that amount in USD (or EUR/GBP etc) seems like a ridiculous amount of money to spend on speakers, even to me, a well off US-ian.

Uh.. while my comment was firmly tongue in cheek I don’t think you realise how ridiculous these things can get.

https://shop.martinshifi.co.uk/products/b-w-nautilus?variant...

Can be yours for the bargain price of GBP 57,750

Oh, a budget pair of speakers.

I think the gentleman is looking for something a bit more high class sir.

https://hifi-products.com/Transmission-Audio-Transmission-Au...

Thank you. Speakers that weigh more than a few cars and cost more than a nice condo in a major city are exactly what I was looking for.

Oh boy, you're in for a surprise, specially if you already know that there are people that buy golden toilets.

we are on an english speaking, western centric platform. what are the chances a non denominated amount to actually be in JPY ?

In the real world it is 15k yen.

That's the price of a Yamaha HS5 and some other speakers in that range.

And yep after that you definitely start getting diminishing returns.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Yamaha-HS5-Active-Monitor-Spea...

Yes, USD.

Lower that by an order of magnitude. Genelecs are some of the most common studio monitors and they are way less than that. A pair of JBL 308ps for $700 is the point of diminishing returns for accurate reproduction.

Only reason to spend more is aesthetics, features, and SPL (fair enough).

Most of the budget in high end production facilities goes into room design and acoustics.

So, two things:

1. Studio monitors are chosen for their flat response curve over a given range not because they: a) accurately cover a large frequency range including bass, b) have exceptional clarity and ultra low distortion. 2. Bookshelf speakers can get really good but they ultimately require subwoofers to cover lower frequencies and that requires not only a good subwoofer with excellent clarity. 3. The vast, vast majority of studios master audio to sound good on a wide range of devices ranging from smartphone speakers to earbuds to $50 soundbars. And ultimately with the "loudness wars" still in full swing, dynamic range compression is widely used.

I don't disagree with you that room treatment is of paramount importance. But there is a very, very noticeable difference hearing a good recording over a pair of floorstanding full range speakers with excellent tweeters+woofers and a decent amp. My point a good setup including subwoofer+crossovers+bookshelf speakers that hits the point of diminishing returns tends to approach the $10-15k mark including amp.

Some things are a total waste of money. Fancy power cables, super-expensive amps with zero measurements to justify the cost. Snake oil stuff like special ethernet cables, etc.

But speakers, as the highest distortion element of the audio chain, absolutely improve noticeably even up to $10-15k or so. I purchased some GoldenEar Triton One.R speakers a few years ago and they still blow people's minds when they listen to them. Everything from the bass to the treble are crystal clear yet not fatiguing.

> absolutely improve noticeably even up to $10-15k

Except, they don't. The only reason to buy a 15k speaker is to gain a higher SPL before distortion kicks in, or you want some cool feature or aesthetics.

For a home user just seeking good (accurate) music reproduction, there is not much point to spending more than a couple grand on a 2.1 system.

Beyond that, you are best to spend money on EQ, then room treatments and extra subs to try and sort out the low end (the most challenging aspect of music reproduction).

> there is not much point to spending more than a couple grand on a 2.1 system. Well, that's a personal choice right? Improvements are noticeable up to the point I mentioned. But is it worth it? Nobody can possibly answer that for you.

There are actually some streaming services offering atmos and high-res audio, so the market is actually quite interesting right now if you have the budget for the equipment. A top of the line experience will cost you a bit north of $1000 per channel assuming you dont get too picky with the speakers, do would be 7+2 -> 9K for a full blown domestic system. The audiophile crowd is buying 2 channel dac systems at a third of that value, just because.

> . 3. The vast, vast majority of studios master audio to sound good on a wide range of devices ranging from smartphone speakers to earbuds to $50 soundbars.

Great. So I really don't need the expensive stuff then. It will actually be a distortion of what the engineer intended

You don't need the super-expensive stuff anyways. But you're obviously not going to get full frequency range (especially bass) on smartphone speakers.

Additionally, a few genres (notably some jazz and Western classical) as well as select recordings here and there actually do not have "loudness war" issues and might actually have good dynamics. For these, it's nice to have a system that can handle, say, the full blown volume swings of a Romantic-era symphony.

You can probably fulfill these requirements with a system far under $15K. :)

I actually was under the impression that the audiophile market (at least the stereotypical) was fairly "dead"; it was more of a thing in, say, the 1970s-1980s phenomenon (with a follow-up in the late 1990s with the home theater boom) when the gap between consumer electronics and hi-end electronics was a lot bigger, and there was a lot less technical information out there (so mythology over things like cables and flowery descriptions of sound were more rampant).

A pair of Genelec 8351 is around 7000 USD. Add a subwoofer and you’re not too far from 10k.

There’s also many other brands in high end production facilities like for example ATC which easily exceed 10-15k a pair.

But consider also the (IMO irrational) devaluing of 'used' items in the USA. I have a great sounding set of older high end floor speakers I pulled for free from a dumpster... one subwoofer had a small tear in it, and I was able to glue that up with no apparent sound quality degradation, and then later replace the entire sub when one came up cheap on eBay.

I often see fairly high quality floor speakers for near free at thrift stores, etc.

To be fair, I am talking about things that were probably $1-2k new, and I don't feel that I could personally tell the difference from that and something $10k new. Especially with the real world high noise floor- vehicles outside, pets, kids, etc.

There used to be an ABX plugin for Foobar, where you could test yourself if you could make out the difference between an MP3 of your choice and a lossless one.

I think I scored worse than a coin flip when it came to 320 files

If you scored worse than a coin flip, then you are successfully able to distinguish 320kbps from lossless, which is a rare feat in human beings! (Just invert your answer for the correct one.)

If you cannot distinguish, you will be the same as a coin flip; i.e. random.

Hah! Never thought of that. Nice one

Studies have shown that people that grew up listening to compressed audio tend to rate it as 'better' than lossless, which is kind of sad/amazing.

Anyway, not to take this sub-thread too seriously, but obviously it depends how reproducible your deviation from 50-50 is :-)

Buddy of mine has a $20k pair of monitors in a soundproofed room, and I was able to A/B 320 vs lossless on that system only, and only on certain types of material. The difference was only evident in the very high frequencies, and I really had to focus to tell.

>The difference was only evident in the very high frequencies, and I really had to focus to tell.

This becomes a curse if you practice it too often. Yes, if you strain your ears during cymbal crashes, you'll hear warbly bits in compressed audio, especially if that's all you're looking for. And then you'll start hearing it everywhere. In terms of casual playback, it's not terribly important, and if you don't tune your ears, it won't matter. (Lossless is important for archival copies though, IMO)

My favorite/worst example of falling into this trap occurred for me when I was mixing an EP by my band. We had terrible recording equipment, so I was trying my 22-year-old best to carve something workable out with EQ and panning and whatnot. On the kick drum, I wanted the 'click' of the beater hitting the head, but it accentuated this squeak that my pedal made every time I hit it. I spent a little too long trying to cut this squeak out, to little avail. It was like an icepick in my ears, but no one else in the band could hear it.

Later that day, I got in the car and put in a CD by the band Cake (this being the early 2000s) - one that I'd heard countless times. On this playthrough though, clear as day, I heard the squeak of the drummer's kick pedal.

I switched to pure electronic music for weeks just to cleanse my palette.

Hah! Been there, except for me it was with pure electronic music. Too much tweaking and then you come back later and go "WTF was I thinking!"

I love the squeaky bass drum in some Led Zeppelin records. Adds to the charm.

I worked on a big studio in the late 90s/early 2000s, and it was kinda funny how professionals have (or at least had) an attitude of just not caring about those things. Try to fix with a gate in about 10 seconds, if it doesn't work just turn it down a bit. Or not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think you're describing the audio engineer and producer equivalent of "perfect is the enemy of good". Creating an overall sound which is appealing, expressive and characterful is much more important than nailing down every detail.

Yep, that's exactly it. Audio engineering is heavily affected by diminishing returns, since spending hours mixing a song is a sure-shot way of ensuring your ears will be fatigued at the end and the result will be sub-par.

    That said I've never had the pleasure of listening 
    to anything north of around the £10k mark

I've listened to gear well north of that and I certainly don't have "golden ears" (I don't think many do) but the TL;DR is that you hit diminishing returns way before £10k.

Ultimately, we're talking about signal reproduction here, and inexpensive gear can put out some seriously accurate sound thanks to onboard DSP processing that uses software to compensate for less than amazing hardware. As long as the sound reaching your ears is correct, doesn't matter how it was achieved.

The one thing you can potentially gain once you get in to the realm of paying thousands of dollars is oodles of power from the amplifier and oodles of power handling from the speakers, which may or may not let you begin to approximate the sound of live music.

If you have ever had the pleasure of hearing an orchestra perform live, the average SPL (sound pressure level) may not be that high, but the fleeting momentary peaks from something like a timpani might be north of 100dB. That's a bit of a feat for your stereo system to pull off and there's no substitute for horsepower there.

But even then, this doesn't necessarily cost megabucks.

Good point. If you are entertaining a large party, you can expect to pay a lot more for quality too, for similar reasons.

Yes. And for large rooms, IME dealing with the room itself quickly becomes the challenge.

I heard this system in person at this event. A million dollars of objectively great gear, and the end result was it sounded like the PA system at a high school football game.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/vac-statement-452iq-powe...

The reflections in that room were a nightmare. Look at the giant glass wall behind the seating area, perpendicular to the speakers. Holy jesus. So you have the speakers putting out some massive waves, and then you have waves reflecting off of the glass wall with nearly equal energy, and then you have everything coming together and canceling out and/or creating resonances... right at the seating area. Absolutely insane, absolutely pathological.

I think the main sell of hidef audio isn't so much the 'extra bits' but usually they're different masters, and not compressed for CD. A lot of it is in the mind though for sure. Almost anything sounds pretty good on good (>500 euro) headphones. :}