[busterarm]

That stuff is funny in a sad way but easy to ignore. I find it hardest to deal with the people who think that spending more money on something makes it better.

My little $100 tripath amp and the cheap but appropriate speakers that I picked for it absolutely smoke a lot of $3000 amps (and similarly expensive speakers) that I come across and people tend to not believe unless they're blindfolded (and still try to poo-poo it when they find out how little my setup cost).

Also it crushes my spirit when people have some $10k HiFi setup and the speaker placement/room accoustics aren't right at all.

[staccatomeasure]

I believe there's a good bit of psychological evidence that spending more money actually makes you perceive things as better.

[busterarm]

For sure, but that's a cognitive bias.

These people go out claiming these things as fact...and unfortunately there's an entire industry out there supporting and benefiting from their claims.

[staccatomeasure]

Right, saying something is better because it's quality - absent price - is better than something else's quality is different than saying something is just plain old better (which it might be just because it's more expensive).

Seems to me that there is something people want - a better audio experience. They may actually get that by paying more, but the preferable outcome would be to get better objective quality. In fact, I think it would be preferable to even pay more to get the better objective product and know you weren't duped. I think there is probably a market for consulting:

value1 = objective_value1 + value_of_knowing_you_werent_duped

value2 = objective_value2 + cognitive_bias_for_paying_more

If it's true that objective_value2 is actually << objective_value1, and cognitive_bias_for_paying_more is not too significant, value_of_knowing_you_werent_duped could be a lucrative business.