2018 exactly what is ‘High End’ audio?

@syntax > We listen first with our eyes, then with our wallets. After taking both factors into consideration, it is then that we use our ears just to "verify" what our eyes and wallets have told us about a product.

Blindjim > how true. That do seem to be the process. Thanks.
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@Elizabeth > To invest so totally in the stereo.
As much as your car? twice you new car? As much as your HOUSE
Blindjim > I had a nice BMW 500 series in my living room at one time. A 90s version of the 500 series. the property was worth well, uh, more.

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@Mapman > High end means more expensive and exclusive compared to the rest, plain and simple.

Blindjim > sure seems quite relative and not indicative. A new preamp or DAC can run $1K to $60K or more. A PeachTree 300 runs $2K. an HT receiver costs as little as $400. Integrated amps range wildly from below a grand to near $30K in some cases.

Where then, is the bar separating High from Low?

If the answer is always to be a subjective appraisal based on first hand experiences of the goods themselves, the outcomes will be too vague for any particular distinction which would then firmly separate one from the other.
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@Willemj > what you can reproduce at home is only a postage stamp size version of it

Blindjim > stamp sized? Either take off the headphones, or move your speakers farther apart. Lol

I’ll say the recreated sound scape won’t be exact, but it can come quite close depending on the listening room dims and what was captured during the show.


@Willemj > You also realize that 'sound stage', 'spatial detail', 'warmth' or 'air' are not necessarily there in live concerts in the best acoustics.

Blindjim > not sure at all of what you’re thinking posting that last bit.

At a live event the sound stage, tenor, and dimension are in fact present. You only have to look. The players are where they are in relationship to the confines of the venue. They ain’t all standing behind each other or shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the stage. Each player and instrument occupy its own spot. If it is indeed an acoustic recital, separation gets very well defined. If everyone is in tune its usually an engaging outing.

How it is being recorded or how well, will then represent the artificial presentation your system will deliver.

The truth of the performance lives only at the performance. The recording offers merely a particular rendition or capture of it. What a home audio system does with that info thereafter should determine how proficient the home system is with being honest to the recording…. Not necessairily the actual venue’s performance.

If however the concert is all amplified its gonna gbe up to the mixing engineer and or producer to decide which product suits the recording best.

If it ain’t in the recording it sure ain’t gonna gbe in your systems ability to add something in or simply provide for it later.

This is why I’m so skeptical when reading articles on gear which relate not just the tonal attributes of a show or redcital, but where the walls are as well. Really. Were the walls stone, brick, or drywall? Better yet, was everyone wearing socks, or not? Were the chairs metal or wood? Cushioned?


Memories are not the exact pictorial evidence one should rely upon when recounting what is being displayed audibly. A mind can tent to bend or add vague artifacts into the writers memory and consequent testimony.
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I sure didn’t realize how difficult a question this was before now.

Applying a price range likely won’t simplify matters. Albeit as price increases the opportunity to experience the magic that exceptional audio’   electronics deliver becomes more commonplace even though the pieces responsible for recreating an engaging presentation often, are not at all common.

Maybe defining High end audio is best done from the top down than aiming directly at every piece of electronics hitting today’s market.

‘Cost No Object’, there should be little or no space for debate here on the it is or it is not.

C.N.O. items are easy to spot. They always have a comma in their prices and usually 2 or 3 digits forward of it.

Likewise, ‘Statement’ and ‘Signature’ lines of equipment should fit into the ‘high end’ enclave with few, if any, detractors. Once more these are readily observed as the tax per device regularly has five digits and the first number is a 3, 4, or higher.

Speakers are the most mystifying IMHO. Checking each models MSRP does very little to separate great performers from incredibgle reproducers. The moving tartget of speaker performance rests on more than the speaker system du jour. What is pushing them, and their resident prison. I’ll cast a vote for any pair exceeding the $9K plateau.

Regarding wires and accessories? Hoo boy! Here’s possibly the biggest bag of worms and most heated, controversial topic in audio. I’m not entering any vote there.

Across these considered areas, everything is open to deliberation. Add in the resplendent factor of complete synergy in arranging separates en masse, which can be much like hearding cats now and then, and the quandary of where does “high end audio’ begin or stop garners still greater mystery.

It depends on who you're asking. 

For me, it's arriving where I have just an hour ago, with a time proven, class A/B integrated and a SACD player tweaked with some fuses, a new pair of speakers based on a decades old design, and after playing around with cables, settling on a simple, 16ga solid core, soft annealed silver wire with a 9 gauge jacket for my speaker cables. 

It's the best sound I've ever heard in my room. Scary good in fact.
Considering that it's stone age gear with high end sound, does it count?

All the best,
Nonoise

I like a lot of what @jmcgrogan2  and @elizabeth put forth.

@geoffkait hits the nail right on the head, "high end sound is all about sound, not anything else. Not “solid engineering.” Not blind tests. Not “scientifically valid arguments.” Not cost. It’s about sound."

If you ask 100 people that same question, probably 90 or more of them will say "Bose".

If a you own a system that provides you with a lot of enjoyment, to me, that's worth a lot more than someone else's judgement on the components.

@nonoise
it's stone age gear with high end sound, does it count?

Blindjim > > Thanks.
synergy always matters. Tweaking a rig is a part of system arranging that aids performance. What, where, which, aren’t as important. Its results which are the gains being sought.
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@trelja
geoffkait hits the nail right on the head, "high end sound is all about sound, not anything else. Not “solid engineering.” Not blind tests. Not “scientifically valid arguments.” Not cost. It’s about sound."

Blindjim > uh. Well, if you say so.
Although, don’t you think that statement is simply restating the ideal and not the solution?

Certainly it is about sound. That is how one will subjectively separate High End from Also Rans and less competent fare.

Albeit, I’m absolutely sure those items with better builds and part compliments. Better designs, greater quality assurance control, and so forth will be those who reside in the High End, and not in the lesser groups.

Saying it is all about sound is redundantly distracting. It defines nothing. Settles not one item.

Its like saying you’ll need a measuring cup for what ever recipe, even though the recipe demands you use a quarter cup of this, a half cup of that, and a third cup of something else. .

The question here is hwere physically or most often physically, is the line separating the best in production from the rest of the gear in production.

The quandary is Not concerned with ‘how’, will we figure it out.

A VTL entry level preamp costs around $2.5K or so. the Cheapest Ypsilon preamp made costs $37K.

I’ve not heard either one but I strongly suspect there is a significant disparity in performance between these preamps, but they are both subjectively termed ‘entry level preamps. As such, we can’t even use the term ‘entry level’ as a disqualifier.
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@ejr1953
If you ask 100 people that same question, probably 90 or more of them will say "Bose".

Blindjim > LOL. Agreed.
However, it seems the other 90% aren’t real sure, or perhaps even capable of determining where satisfactory stops, and outstanding begins.

@ejr1953
If a you own a system that provides you with a lot of enjoyment, to me, that's worth a lot more than someone else's judgement on the components.


Blindjimn > once more you’ll get no argument from me on such notions whatsoever.

I’m gonna state HIGH END begins in general, at or above the mid range of the vast majority of electronics makers production lines. If a maker has several lines of goods, which escalate performance then I’d point to their upper tier line of goods as TRUE High End items. Often, I’d suspect in these cases, the range of products immediately preceeding the top tier array are likely to be added into the conversation commensurately.

Absolutely there are tons of Also Rans out there which if one never enters the big room at the local audio dealership, will survive and thrive in blissful ignorance, as these items and a lack of experience enables sufficient degree of satisfaction.

For me it was or is, like jumping on a 500cc scooter and grabbing a fistful of throttle rapidly. Then lifting a leg onto a 1500cc fire breathing pocket rocket and once again, suddenly molesting the throttle with extreme prejudice.

These are two vastly different experiences. Although, until you’re sitting in the saddle of the second motorbike and yanking its fun handle vigorously ya will never know. You can and or will suspect its better, faster, scarier, but you won’t ever know until you give ‘er a go.

In that case the line HAS to be between the 500cc scooter and those above it possessing greater displacement, as the logical deduction from the very small sampling being utilized.