A while ago I was complaining about cliche equipment reviews. I noted that I often found reviewers write "these speakers out perform many speakers five times the price" but you'll never find a reviewer trash a piece because it doesn't stand up to much cheaper kit.
Aside from the obvious liability/sponsorship issues, I have at least one theory of where this comes from.
The higher you go up the quality/price ladder, the smaller the incremental improvements become. So a $1000 receiver will sound far, far better than a discount brand receiver from a big box store. But $2000 receiver will only sound marginally better, and only debatably so. Likewise, a decent set of entry level speakers can do most things reasonably well, and you need to leap far to clearly surpass them on all fronts.
I think that, often, reviewers are pretty serious audiophiles and would therefore have a very decent home set-up as a reference, and they know how much is invested in it. When they test out a less expensive piece, they are astonished because they've 'forgotten' how small the incremental improvement was for the money they spent.
So, if a guy owns $5000 speakers and tests out a pair of $1000 speakers, the cheaper ones sound pretty good, maybe 95% as good. So he makes the connection that "surely some of the competition for the $5000 speakers I own are only 95% as good as mine, so therefore these $1000 speakers equal or out-perform some speakers 5X their price..."
I don't think it's done conciously. No one would make this mistake knowingly. I just think that the brain, ear and wallet can play tricks on anyone.
You can quote me on that last one.
Thoughts? Or would you hate to admit that one can be fooled...
There is no "fooling" involved. You are correct that the laws of diminishing returns apply to audio just as they do most other products. Certainly with any product where a subjective opinion makes the buying decision those rules are somewhat immutable. However, you seem to have never heard the phrase. "You don't know what you have until it's gone". Once you have heard a "better" product, it becomes more obvious what is missing when it just can't be reproduced to your satisfaction by another product. Therefore someone familiar with a $50k system can more easily detect the faults of a $10k system. Assuming that is, they purchased the more expensive system based on what they heard and not on what they read or how it looks in the small vacation house in Aspen. This is no different than someone who drinks better wine or beer, someone who is fed well prepared food, drives a well designed performance car, etc.
Contrary to the typical concept of, "Oh, I couldn't hear the difference", it takes a very short time to become familiar with better design. Audio is particularly true to that axiom if the listener is familiar with live music. In most other things, there is no "real" reference and what you like is what you like. While each listener has their own peculiar tastes and what I like probably isn't what most others would choose, there is a reference to hold the reproduction to. That also makes the task of finding what is good about a budget line more easily accomplished. When you are able to quickly isolate the musical aspects of the system, you can say without impunity, "This system does this well while others I've heard at higher ranges miss the mark in that regard."
I would also have to disagree with your assumption that as price goes up, the "quality" levels out amongst the competition. We are finally past the point where items which appeared to come from someone's garage are held up as "high end". (I almost didn't write that statement as there are still more than enough "one off" companies which produce in very small numbers and ask very high prices for some very serious equipment. But, they are now more the exception than the rule and generally get very little press other than from a few on-line review magazines.) The mainstream high end products have all reached a level of fit and finish that more or less justifies their price. And, while that 3/4" thick faceplate adds nothing to the sound, it suggests a "high end" intent. My point, though, is that you will find just as much, if not more, variation in the "sound" of high end products than you will in budget lines. While I would generally agree that the sound of most good high end amplifiers should please most people, we get back to the ability to discern what differences there are with more ease when you are familiar with what "high end" sounds like and what the real thing sounds like. No matter what disputes I would have with Harry Pearson, he and Gordon Holt did the audiophile a tremendouns service when they insisted upon live music being the reference for all things which come after.
In the high end marketplace, each effort at a new product should reflect the individual designer's point of view and how they hear music. When budget limitations are minimized, the designer is by far more able to pick and choose the parts and pieces which bring the equipment in line with that vison of reality. This is an ability that escapes the budget line designer and most certainly those where a committee "designs" the product line up. If you have the opportunity to spend sometime around a very good system and can then manage listening to another good system, I think you'll find the differences amongst the high end products to be quite distinct and even more obvious than between Paradigm and Dynaudio. Budget designers, if they are good designers, know which buttons to push to sell a product and they can design to a sound that sells if not necessarily a sound that is ultimately true to the reality of real music.
As well, the 'flavor' of bargain and mid-level stuff has not changed dramatically as the ability increases. A Rotel receiver will deliver in the same linear manner that it has previously, however with higher power levels and better clarity. Newer Nad units will deliver the smooth happy sound that they are renowned for, agaqin with smooth power and greater definition than ever before. However, the 'mass market' brands still hold onto their individual mantra's and can produce fine products without loosing the trade-up fan base which they have sought for so long. When I see a brand making a large change in profile, appearance or claims 'let alone sound quality or presentation' it indicates one of several reasons. 1. It ain't working, we are losing repeat customers. 2. The other guy's stuff is way better. 3. The shareholders are pissedoff. 3a. New guy in charge. 4. A desire to move upscale.
Onkyo Integra is an example of 2&4.
High end stuff is more than market driven. Small or 'niche' makers are free to produce whatever they want(sometimes in skunkworks,a nod to Jan's auto implication), but limited to hundreds, sometimes dozens of pieces per year. Other 'high end' makers must diffuse the product with a feature or two to penetrate further into the market and justify cost/reward, quite often without the shareholder factor to worry about.
However, in the modern business academy, the inevitable buyout rears it's head. My example will be Classe, bought out (or into) by B&W in 2001.The brand has been able to use the infusion of cash and knowledge to great extent, without compromising much in quality, however tailored a bit towards the speaker line .
Reviewers, excepting the most noted as authors as well, do not often run mega dollar systems themselves, so I have read. More likely, these folks have hand chosen their layouts with years of knowlege, experience and exposure to high$ stuff ans surprisingly good more pedestrian componants, and have molded them into terrific systems from that knowledge. In a lot of cases, this would qualify as a system blowing away a system costing much much more. These reviewers often have only weeks to live with, run-in and assess a componant before finally writing a review. Very difficult. However, past experiences with similar models from the same maker may influnce final marks.
"Or would you hate to admit that one can be fooled..."
Sound reproduction is an illusion. We are all fooled by it. The question is how closely the illusory experience resembles the real experience.
A better the system, the less obvious it becomes that the experience is an illusion, just from the sound itself.
That is where I am steadfastly with Jan concerning the final reference, which is the real thing.
Budget designers can be aiming for a convincing illusion, and may do a good job. Money-no-object designers can be aiming to show how different their system sounds from all others - and that may make it sound less, not more, like the real thing.
Budget designers can be aiming for a convincing illusion, and may do a good job. Money-no-object designers can be aiming to show how different their system sounds from all others - and that may make it sound less, not more, like the real thing.
Whom is more correct? The Who is soooo fine via a studio monitor setup, and that is as live as it gets. LSO less so, no matter what, the magic is elusive to recreate. Which big $ is correct? Much like the ? of the # of licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop, the world may never know.