AUDIO PRICE INSANITY PRICE VS. PERFORMANCE WORTH IT?

I Believe it depends on your Ears,your knowledge and your Personal Taste.
Speakers for example are a very personal choice.
What sounds great to you may sound like crap to me.

I do believe you can get more quality sound for less by addressing the power, room, and speakers.

From there, add in the amps, sources and tweaks.

All this can be picked up here on Audiogon and some reading to understand decent pairings for a great system.

In many cases, you do get what you pay for despite only incremental gains - budget thoroughly, spend wisely!

We have to remember that many music lovers have their sound systems in living rooms enjoyed by entire families and a spouse with no chance of any of those room treatments ever going up.  With this fact in mind one does have to pick gear that fits the space in every way. Digital room correction is a must and some like Lyngforf do it so well one does not have to be overly corcerned with all manner of room tweaks that would not be allowed in or on the room.  

Much to be said for this post I think....  " Myself, I collect and use the best vintage gear from the Golden Age of High End - 1965 - 85! That was when the most innovative (and affordable!) stuff was made! Since then prices have only risen for NO real advances in sound quality! "

Recently auditioned a $5K and $7500 preamps by Audio Research to possibly replace my 25 year old AR LS2B MKII R.  the store was using a $100K + 4 box CD player and probably $40K in cables, very expensive amps and speakers and full room treatments, playing CD's I brought and am familiar with.  My first comment was what happened to the sound stage, it's all constricted size wise and well off in the distance.  Then they changed the speakers to a $35K set on stands. ..  which were not the equal of my 25 year old acoustats.  All my gear is 25+ years old and stands up superiorly to direct comparison.

Even with expensive gear. If it isn’t matched right it can suck. The crash course I went on taught me matching.  I got my main components and used my cables to tweak a little. Knowing the characteristics of all of your gear is important.