I have to disagree in part because really good electronics are still expensive. Law of diminishing returns aside, well built chassis and quality analog stages/power supplies are still expensive. DAC chips may have gotten more advanced and cheaper, but if the rest is trash it's still trash.
On the flip side I do agree and think you can get to a point rather quickly where extra money spent at times is just not worth it, and the used market is extremely desirable because you can stretch that dollar and get something special for less.
I think you really have to have a system that resolves differences in a meaningful way. Honestly I'd love to be able to drop big dollars on a CDP/Transport/DAC and be completely thrilled that I did. But that's not going to happen.
That's not to say that I can't appreciate finer audio. Last year I got to listen to an JMLabs/Esoteric system at Spearit Sound in Mass, which was likely in the $100k range, and I can tell you that listening to a system like that is like living a life half-blind and realizing that there is an invention like glasses. So when you put them on it's like - wow, I can see!
But most of us don't live in a world where we can have systems with absolute resolution without any noticeable tonal coloration at all. Or have that kind of money to spend.
So we make compromises. On a limited budget, I needed to have something to listen to that was fatigue free at the expense of resolution. $349 for a Marantz CD player fit that bill. It was the only thing near the price, new, that also didn't have a transport that I could hear across my small soundroom. I've flipped at least 3 dac's on it and got no real appreciable differences in my modest system.
On the flip side I do agree and think you can get to a point rather quickly where extra money spent at times is just not worth it, and the used market is extremely desirable because you can stretch that dollar and get something special for less.
I think you really have to have a system that resolves differences in a meaningful way. Honestly I'd love to be able to drop big dollars on a CDP/Transport/DAC and be completely thrilled that I did. But that's not going to happen.
That's not to say that I can't appreciate finer audio. Last year I got to listen to an JMLabs/Esoteric system at Spearit Sound in Mass, which was likely in the $100k range, and I can tell you that listening to a system like that is like living a life half-blind and realizing that there is an invention like glasses. So when you put them on it's like - wow, I can see!
But most of us don't live in a world where we can have systems with absolute resolution without any noticeable tonal coloration at all. Or have that kind of money to spend.
So we make compromises. On a limited budget, I needed to have something to listen to that was fatigue free at the expense of resolution. $349 for a Marantz CD player fit that bill. It was the only thing near the price, new, that also didn't have a transport that I could hear across my small soundroom. I've flipped at least 3 dac's on it and got no real appreciable differences in my modest system.
