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DS-21 wrote:
I think that's as good a summation of the current state of audio electronics as any, so long as certain assumptions aren't broken. For amps, that they can safely drive the load one's speakers present and have sufficient power to reach the desired listening room SPL, for instance.
Obviously, those statements do not apply to speakers, turntable cartridges, etc. In those fields, it does take a considerable sum of money to get really great sound.
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Well I'm not sure where to start with this. I guess I'll start with my experience first.
I'm an audio engineer by trade. Audio engineer's come a little from the other side of the fence of most home theatre buffs. Our gear buying isn't a hobby, it's a business. We can't buy a piece of gear just because it matches our decor, or because the company has a good service reputation. The only reason we buy gear is to make money from it. If buying a new piece of gear won't make us money, generally we don't buy it.(Although we can still be subject to the ubiquitous GAS, or Gear Acquisition Syndrome.) As such we won't buy a piece of gear that is more expensive than another piece of gear, unless it is going to make us comparably more money to justify the price difference. Now sometimes there is the bling factor, where buying a certain brand, or a nice looking piece of kit will attract more customers, but most of the time that's not an issue.
Specifically looking at two pieces of gear, pre-amps and power amps, the only real buying influence is performance. Not colour, or aesthetics, or even usually features, as features on these units are typically all the same: they make signal louder. So why do we spend x thousands of dollars more for primo equipment, when we could spend a few cents on the dollar and get the behringer, or realistic, or X budget brand unit? Because it sounds better. Even with the same amp types, power ratings etc. If you could get accurate specs out of the budget piece, you can see it on paper, but you don't even have to, it's easy to hear. Now I'm not saying it's the type of difference like going from iPod earbuds to Grado headphones, but it's not some little unquantifiable audiophile difference like "danceable" cables. In other words my wife can hear it.(just for clarity, she is almost tone deaf and doesn't care at all about audio)
These difference have been proven time and again by well calibrated double blind ABX tests, where the better quality gear stands head and shoulders above lesser quality gear. Notice I didn't say the more expensive gear, because it's certainly not always about price, it's about quality. And always, even if there's not a clear "better and worse" there is almost always a difference. Two pieces of gear doing the same job, in the same class with the same power, almost never sound the same, to the discerning ear.
So that is my definitive experience. Different pieces of gear, of similar build parts, power, capabilities, and function sound radically different. Whether it is better or worse is based on your own personal aesthetic. Now some might argue, that this is in a recording studio, it doesn't affect home theatre. But these are the same pieces of gear, doing the same jobs, just at the other end of the signal chain.