hi End

Go with the SALK Song3 Encores or his bookshelves.  He sells direct so he can put in the best drivers.  You will be blown away.  I ended up with a pair of Paradigm Prestige 85F towers and after I got them home a friend of mine sent me an article about how better a 3 way speaker design is than a 2 1/2 way.  We are no longer friends.  He purchased a pair of SALK Song3 Encores at RMAF last October so he could rub my nose in them.  No longer a friend.

I still think my speakers sound better than the Monitor Audio Silver 8 and 10's, Martin Logan Motion 60's, Golden Ear, Focal Aria line, Bowers & Wilkins (even their 804's were week in the bass extension), Golden Ear, Definitive Technology and Kef.  When I listened to the Bowers & Wilkins diamond series selling for $17,000 to $30,000 per pair, I didn't think they sounded like the price tag.

Ascend makes really good speakers and they are very affordable.  They too use high quality drivers to include really nice ribbon tweeters.  They also have a 30 day trial period.  They have a nice flat response.  The owner of Rythmik owns a pair of their towers.

Almost no one here has a real high end system.

douglas_schroeder

What do you consider hi-end?  I have a very moderately priced system (Rega Planar 6, Innuos ZenMini, Chord Qutest DAC, Audio Hungary APR203 preamp, First Watt F7 and Rethm Saadhana) that sounds as good (to me) as much higher priced systems.  I would have to spend 10x my current investment to achieve significant increase in SQ.  I think its SQ that makes a system HiFi.

What he said hind end!

Here ya go!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-end_audio

Psyops
All the older gear from McIntosh, SAE, Bose, AR, Yamaha, Marantz, JBL, Garrard, Sansui, and many other brands were considered hi-end at the time, many still are today. 

>>>>>That’s a pretty mixed bag of stuff. I would tend to disagree they were ever high end, especially not today.

The Monitor series is upper MidFi to perhaps - perhaps - lower end HiFi. But, imo, that is stretching it. Not remotely close to the high end. 

2psyop writes:

Whenever one hears music on a system that begins to allow them to hear music in a way that moves them, impress them or allows them to hear things they had not before.... it is hi-end. Of course people own Gear for all kinds of reasons, prestige, hobby...

The question I asked has been answered. Could hardly agree more.

Hi-end audio is in one’s own mind. Whenever one hears music on a system that begins to allow them to hear music in a way that moves them, impress them or allows them to hear things they had not before.... it is hi-end. Of course people own Gear for all kinds of reasons, prestige, hobby, musicians, music enjoyment but in the end they are just boxes of somewhat expensive wires and electronics. All the older gear from McIntosh, SAE, Bose, AR, Yamaha, Marantz, JBL, Garrard, Sansui, and many other brands were considered hi-end at the time, many still are today. Don’t let anyway influence YOU as to what THEY think hi-end is. Just enjoy the music. BTW I had Paradigm Series 9 monitors for years and enjoyed many hours of music with them. IMHO.

Hi yourself

Sure. Why not?
Btw, What is high end?