THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS
The law of diminishing return dictates that while the more money you pour into your equipment the better your sound quality, your gains also become smaller and smaller, often only noticeable through ears that’ve spent years listening to quality equipment.
A PHARAOH'S JOURNEY
The law of diminishing returns is best explained by the shape of a pyramid.
At the base of the pyramid (entry level), improvements in sound quality through better equipment are wider or more noticeable. The difference between $100 and $1000 dollars is night and day, so too $500 and $5000.
But! as you rise in quality and in price the improvements become narrower and less noticeable to new ears.
Climbing to the tip of the pyramid – aka Audio Nirvana – the differences are even finer, and it’s often only those who’ve spent a lifetime building Audio Nirvana that are going to notice the difference between $10,0000 and $100,000.
DON’T HOTROD A BERINA
Playing records is a game of whispers: your turntable talks to the phono preamplifier that talks to the amplifier that talks to the speakers. You don’t want to overcompensate in one area of this chain to little effect. Even the most expensive turntable will sound average out of budget amps and speakers.
The Wrong Approach
Total RRP $2797
The Right Approach
In this case, we had movement in the same budget as the example above to include a higher quality cartridge. This will give you more detail than stock cartridges that are included these turntables.
Total RRP $2688
The Supercharged Berina analogy works best:
The humble Holden Berina isn’t a high performance vehicle. So fitting it with a supercharger isn’t the smartest decision. Sure, you’ll have the fastest Berina on the block but it’s a waste of a perfectly good supercharger. Place the exact same supercharger in a high performance vehicle, say a Nissan Skyline, and you’ve got complimentary equipment that’ll smoke the Berina.
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