Just a simple question, would like to see what you guys think.
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I can think of very few, if any products that don’t hit a law of diminishing returns. I mean, are the Empyrens 150x better than the Koss kp30i? Can a Ferrari go 10x faster than a Toyota, or brake in 1/10th of the distance? The real question is where it starts to drop off the most? A lot of people say the LCD-X is better than the LCD-2C, but is it 50% better? Cause as good and then half again would be a dramatic improvement. Some people might argue it’s 50% easily no contest. I think once you get north of $1000 in any category, it happens pretty quickly
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Um yes? I’m pretty sure most products in life have diminishing returns.
YES!!! 
Yup. It’s the case in every industry.
IMO mid fi is the sweet spot… There are diminishing marginal returns but there is a point where the curve goes from linear to logarithmic. There are parts where you have to spend 10X to get a 20% improvement in performance.
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Absolutely. It’s also not linear.
The car analogy works well.
Audio gear is a little special, however, because everyone’s hearing is different.
You can measure “value for money” when buying a CPU, but you can’t really measure audio likeness**, which makes this industry a little harder to navigate.
** Well, you can measure something, but people might not agree with you 
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Anything that comes after the THX 789 / Geshelli Archel2 or ERISH / A90 in my books is not worth it, unless you are looking for a specific sort of sound experience that you just “like”
Those three amps really have changed the game in terms of sound reproduction, Where I feel that really expensive gear (~$1000+) is basically just a lot of companies selling you hardware based on buzzwords that can relate to snake oil.
Is it okay for companies to do that? Yes, as long as they dont lie about it 
In the audio world you only should care about what YOU want. The sound you want or options for the sound you want is your choice. Is my $6k setup good? Yes. Does it make me happy? Yes. Do I need a different DAC to make it exactly how I want it? YES!
But as I stated on the HP-3 thread, some people’s end game or what they are searching for can be REAL cheap. I will be perfectly honest and say the HP-3 + DragonFly Cobalt makes looking for a tube amp less than appealing because what I want for a sound signature works great for me.
I know someone that I got them a Schiit Fulla 3 and a pc37x. They now own a turn table and use the fulla 3 as an amp to listen to vinyl. Just know that if you find gear that makes you happy, stop buying more stuff. Like for me with IEMs, btr5 + kz zs10pro just is a wonderful combo that I don’t feel like searching for alternatives.