High End Audio-Gaining Higher Ground?

I have to ask - when you guys talk about "high end", what exactly does that mean? I'm not asking to be argumentative, I'm asking genuinely, as I've seen these types of discussions but I don't know how to put them into perspective. Does "high-end" mean $10,000 systems? $50,000? $100,000? I completely appreciate that the answer is going to be nebulous, and may mean different things to different people, but there has to be some kind of baseline...where, once you spend $xxxx, you are officially "high end". I'd like to contribute to the thread, but need to understand the lay of the land first, so to speak.

I don't usually agree with Elizabeth but this time she is right on the money!

Very good indepth answers above, too bad you guys weren't
present at this particular meeting with the so called
reknowned audio engineers, it would of made for a much more
interesting session.

Bcgator, that is a very good question, I'm not sure what
constitutes a high end system, that would be an excellent
thread to initiate on it's own. Ask a question here on
audiogon what is the best preamp, amp, and speaker
combinition you will get a hundred different answers. I
suppose if you have been listening to a table-top radio for
the past few years anything above that could be considered
higher end. Lets go with that analogy.

I've worked for fifteen years in a college arts program with bright young people whose lives are devoted to the arts of all kinds and I've met very few who had interest in our audio passion. Jmcgrogan2's response is pretty much spot on in my opinion. Young people's lives are an exercise in constant multi-tasking and the concept of sitting in one spot doing one thing - listening to music - strikes them as very odd. I work at a state university, not an ivy league school. The majority of our arts program students are so swamped in accumulating student debt they can't conceive of the time they'll be able to buy their own home much less afford a good audio system to put in it! I seriously think the rapidly escalating cost of college is going to negatively affect many aspects of our economy as discretionary income shrinks because of ballooning student loan payments. I know far too many people in their thirties with advanced degrees and six figures of student loan debt.

Agree with jmcgrogan. The 1% conspiracy to extract as much profit from every body while dumbing them down with endless tasks, taxes and rules has succeeded.