CDC
In my view, people who can't cook but still spend $50,000 on a kitchen, or people who can't drive but still order Porsches with "Tiptronic" transmissions -- they are no more and no less sane than audiophiles who spend thousands speaker cables.
(If anything, I might argue that they are LESS sane, because in my thesis that only audiophiles care about audio, we assume that the audiophile, at least to some degree, USES the equipment.)
In the end, whether or not Mr and Mrs Super Rich Famous and Glamorous care about high end, I will still obsess over it, contribute to this forum and tweak the placement of my speakers into perfect equilateral triangles until I am dead and buried.
However, I maintain my position that audiophiles are "perceived as being wackos" (remember why we started this thread?) for no other reason other than wackos are the marketing face of the industry and have failed to create or associate any luxury goods cachet with their products.
I think this is unfortunate because it keeps the market small and contributes to the prejudices that started this thread.
Your comment about Marantz and Sony is a popular argument but here, too, I respectfully disagree.
GM may focus on minivans to the exclusion of 400 horsepower sports cars, but that doesn't negate Porsche's or Ferrari's ability to capture the imagination of the public, build genuine, successful businesses and/or become status symbols to aspirational, mass affluent consumers.
Like your $279.00 tuner, there are inexpensive Japanese cars that can be tweaked out to outperform a 911, but that fact isn't going to put Porsche out of business any time soon.
Oh...and one other thing: I was in SONY Style the other day on Madison Avenue and it seems that they, in fact, are catching on to this idea.
In the back of their showroom, in boutiquey little rooms, they now have insanely expensive, limited production headphones, digital cameras and other quirky overpriced and completely unnecessary products, far beyond the reach of our grubby wacko hands, displayed in huge vault like glass cases and marketing as their luxury sub brand: Sony Qualia.
Again, only the wackos have made this wacko.
Because actually, it is a joy, a luxury, and something that no one who can afford it should be without.