Luxury is by definition something that brings pleasure, but is not necessary. For most consumer items, be they cars, watches, audio equipment, or whatever, the law of diminishing return kicks in at some price level, so that beyond that You are basically paying for the pleasure of owning a luxury item, as the increase in actual practical value gets smaller and smaller.
Most owners of exotic and super-expensive Italian sports cars will never exploit the full performance of their purchase (which is a good thing, as it would be dangerous on public roads), but they still put a high value on specifications like top speed and the 0-60mph acceleration time.
Most owners of Benchmark AHB2 will never notice a difference in sound quality between their audio systems and a system that has 10dB worse SINAD, but still, if they are "objectivists", they put a high value on specifications like 112 dB SINAD.
Please note that I never said there was anything wrong with that - quite the reverse, I explicitly said in my original post that if someone makes a purchase based on SINAD numbers, even if he does not hear the difference in sound quality, that's perfectly fine by me. Somehow, some people still felt offended...
That's fine, but I don't get the comparison to audio gear.
The whole point is that (some) expensive audio gear is a scam because - while it looks pretty - it
actually underperforms. Or at best it doesn't outperform something way cheaper. Or in some cases (cables or audiophile routers - it amuses me to even write this) it does nothing.
Therefore if, for example, you were to buy a Porsche Carrera 4S and discover that a Golf GTI is faster, handles better and has better brakes, it would be a valid comparison. Or worse, imagine it's a Toyota Yaris. That would be an scam. However, it's not the case. By far.
Or if you were to buy an IWC watch and discover it's actually flimsy, scratches easily, has something loose inside etc., it would be the same. But these things don't do that, they're really well made, with quality materials, and (subjectively) beautiful. No scam.
I'm not going to comment on whether it's worth paying for luxury on an essentially exponential price curve - this is up to the individual, his or her preference, priorities and buying power.
But the audio gear comparison just doesn't hold.
Otherwise I agree with you, clearly SINAD has diminishing returns and I don't think anyone says otherwise. There's some bickering around the point at which it doesn't matter anymore.
Now this Hegel amp I think is rather poor as measured. I would stay away from it.
And I wish that
@amirm would test some Primare stuff.