It's diminishing returns, like anything else. Whilst a £40 pair of binoculars may be twice as good as a £20 pair, A £200 pair of binoculars are not twice as good as a £100 pair. A £13.99 wristwatch will keep better time and will be more robust than a £1.99 one off a market stall but a £400 wristwatch (cost of parts approximately £50) does not tell the time ten times better or more accurately than a £40 one (cost of parts perhaps £8), nor is the case ten times 'better'. Perhaps the name on the dial attracts ten times more adulation from some people?
And so it is with audio. The issue here is all in the mind. Whilst the desire to acquire the best thing one can have may have a kernel of atavistic truth, there comes a point where spending inordinate amounts of money on something which may or may not be a proven advancement scientifically and academically 'just because one can' goes far beyond rational understanding - to me, anyway.
Those people who enjoy more lavish lifestyles and who appear to exist on a different stratum to me may disagree, but for now, I just don't get it. It would be wrong here to open the can of worms containing the power of advertising, the inequity of education, the evolution of capitalism, the exploitation of the weak through fear and subjugation and the politics encompassing it all, but that is where the answer lies.
If life came to a choice between the freedom to indulge in audiophoolery as one wished, for whatever reason, or to live where no freedom whatsoever was granted to indulge in anything, I know which one I would choose.
Live and let live.
