see diminishing returns, or: Healey & Ilbery (H&I), p.223 Goodall, p.128
True also for industries other than audio, this phrase refers to the observation that beyond a certain point of expenditure, increased financial outlay purchases smaller and smaller increments of additional performance. In audio, this point for loudspeakers and electronics is often considered to be around $2000 while 16bit/44kHz CD technology has matured such the $1000 mark may now be considered the dividing line.
the principle that suggests the gain from each additional unit of product, activity, or resource becomes smaller as more units are used; e.g., for the marketer, the benefit of each added dollar of advertising becomes smaller as more advertising is done. See marginal utility and law of diminishing marginal utility. Note: popular usage in marketing is for the law of diminishing returns and the law of diminishing marginal utility to be used interchangeably.
a decreasing amount of extra output is gained when extra units of a varying input are added to a fixed input.
The tendency for the rate of increase in output to decrease as more of one input is increased while holding other inputs constant.
a rule stating that as one factor of production is increased while others remain constant, the extra output generated by the additional input will eventually fall. The law of diminishing returns therefore means that extra workers, extra capital, extra machinery, or extra land may not necessarily raise output as much as expected.
The law of diminishing returns is a law stating that as a quantity of one input increases with the quantitites of all other inputs remaining the same, output increases but by ever smaller increments.