What is a high end stereo SUPPOSED to sound like?

For me, a high end stereo is supposed to sound like music is being played in the room by real musicians, not by a stereo.

I'll buy Foster's answer.

Three with Foster, only it should sound like it's being played in the original venue(ideally, if the microphone technique captured the room acoustic). But then- who am I to say what your system should sound like to YOU?

07-05-12: Mapman
"Nothing" would infer no effects from room acoustics. Is that what a high end stereo system is supposed to sound like? I am not sure about that. How would spatial queues captured in the recording be delivered to the ears accurately? Can a sound even be truly "high end" without delivering these accurately to some extent?

Hi Mapman - When I said that the room should sound like "nothing," I didn't mean it literally, just as Cdc didn't mean it literally when he said he thought a high end system should sound like "nothing." The closest thing to a room that sounds like nothing is an anechoic chamber, and it goes without saying that no one would want to listen in a room like that.

What I was trying to suggest by saying the room should sound like nothing is essentially the same thing I meant when I said that the equipment should sound like nothing, i.e. that it should be neutral. I know that's a controversial word in these parts, but that's more or less what I believe, with some qualifications.

To head off another potential misunderstanding, a neutral playback room, IMO, most certainly has ambient cues of its own. The listening room's ambient cues hopefully provide simulacra of the ambient cues of the recording space, though that is often difficult to achieve. But the general point you make about the importance of "spatial cues" is something I am in complete agreement with, as I argued at great length in another thread, where I said...

THE IMPORTANCE OF AMBIENT CUES IN THE LISTENING ROOM:

Every listening room contains an abundance of ambient cues. The specific characteristics of those ambient cues are relevant to the audiophile, for the following reason:

During playback, the ambient cues of the recording space are COMBINED with the ambient cues of the listening space.

The combination of the ambient cues of the recording space with the ambient cues of the listening space creates, in effect, a NEW SET OF AMBIENT CUES. I will call this new set of ambient cues the “playback space.” In other words:

Recording space + Listening space = Playback space

The playback space is what the audiophile actually hears at the listening position. It is the combination of the ambient cues of the recording space and the ambient cues of the listening space.

So I think we are in agreement.

Bryon

What is poetry? The most effective definition I've ever heard is that poetry is whatever people who are knowledgeable about poetry say it is. In effect it's a various of P. Stewart's definition of hard core porn. High end sound is whatever people who know about high end sound says it is.

An example: a Rega turntable w/ cartridge, NAD 20w integrated and Snell K speakers would be recognized as a high end system. A full out MBL system is also recognized as a high end system. The systems don't sound alike.

From the above I conclude that high end audio doesn't have a sound. Instead it's an approach to music reproduction that has very diverse sound characteristics.