What makes up an

One of the very best ways to achieve a hi end sound is to place your system in a smaller room. Avoid the need for a PA system. Seriously....
I think that in less expensive gear that tubes can create magic that solid state often misses. Now with a tube integrated amp and a used pair of -------you fill in the blank but I would go for monitor speakers here. Better bang for the buck. Even if you get floor stander that promise deeper bass you will probably not like that sound, often muddy, and slow, etc...

if the stereo system as a whole is to be assessed as to its merits, assuming that each component satisfies some standards of construction, some objective criteria for performance is necessary.

again, it is easier to specify standards than to specify implementation. it would be wonderful if errors in perception could be eliminated by designing some method which takes the listener out of the equation.

This has been done, as you suggest Mr. Tennis. As I mentioned in another thread, there is at least one high end manufacturer who actually prides himself that his designs are purely based on measurements. His gear is so "revealing", that it sounds most terribly wrong, sterile and cold. If you do not have a valid basal conception on human hearing and its reaction to music, all your best measurement will lead you astray. Especially the interface between the physiology of our aural makeup and our emotional responses to music is still a complete blanc on the map as far as I know.

Detlof, I don't take the Stereophile list seriously:) You know how many dealers can tell you stories about customers walking in with that as a grocery shopping list and stubbornly refusing to consider advice about alternatives or incompatibilites? You could, with ease, put together an atrocious system with just those Class A components. As I'm sure many have done.

Mrtennis: I think that the listener can never be taken out of the equation and acheiving the objective standard of a hierarchy is futile. Different people experience the same event with a different perspective. There are physiological differences, tastes, perceptions, prejudices and different levels of satisfaction entailed in all that. You would have to have a perfect human being as a point of reference to build the scale. What sounds great to a speaker designer voicing his product may sound like fingernails on the blackboard to some regardless of the specs as Detlof states above. I personally have never been partial to Krell products. Great stuff and nothing against them, but just not to my liking. And they out-spec my teeny 2A3 amp in every way. But I'll never part with that because it gets me to where I want to be. That, to me, is how I would define 'high-end' to begin with.

RESOLUTION, THREE DIMENSIONALITY, AND SUBTLE NUANCE regardless of cost. Many expensive systems can't and some modest systems will!