It's a funny thing. We all want the best but, to reach that pinnacle, you need to push every envelope to its limit to even come within spitting distance of that unreachable goal. Case in point: the present top-of-the-line graphics card from Nvidia, the 4090, costs a baseline retail price of USD 1600, with the next in line being a paltry USD 1200. I built my whole computer for less than the price of one of those graphics cards. Alongside this, the 4090 ends up drawing over 400W and taking three slots on your computer. That's also about the power draw of my whole system. That is truly insane - but apparently people are still willing to buy it. But I will never be one of those people - let me explain.
My general rule is that if the next tier of 'thing' is 20% better but 50% more expensive, I'll generally pass on taking up that offer. This holds true for everything I've bought in my life. I purchased a very good 55" HDR Variable-refresh rate 4K LCD for $600. I could buy an OLED or Quantum dot TV - but that would be over 70% more expensive while being only subjectively better (or perhaps objectively better, with OLED black levels). This is the same thing for the set of headphones I purchased. They're wired and bluetooth enabled and only cost $35. They're sealed cans, look pretty spiffy, have excellent staging and clarity and, I would argue, that between this and 'studio' headphones, the difference is perhaps no more than 20% while being a small fraction of the cost of one of them (they're generally well over $500).
If you follow that one simple rule of diminishing returns, you can save yourself a lot of money and be content in experiencing 80% of the best while only spending 20% of the fare. Every generation of technology is pushing the needle higher so why not benefit? I used to drive a Fiat Abarth which I bought for $8K - a conservatively fast car by today's standards. Now, those same performance numbers if you pushed back to the 1980's results in you driving the equivalent of Magnum PI's Ferrari. Now, that is progress I can get behind, my friends.
