Are audiophiles still out of their minds?

Drac,

You remind me of the guidance I received from a mentor as a young man. He always counseled his colleagues to treat those lacking knowledge with respect as most are good people doing the best they can in life, but always be mindful of people lacking knowledge to such an extreme degree that they do not recognize they lack knowledge. They are the dangerous ones.

Through that deficiency into the mix with the pathology of a child that was incessantly beat-up on the playground as a grade-schooler and threads like this get started. 

Watts, we don’t need to hear about your life story here. What’s with you and the psychoanalysis? You’re an engineer by your own admission. So you failed as a psychotherapist in your past life, and I'm sorry for your past failings. But this is not the forum to solve your personal problems.

Joecasey it's pretty simple really.   It's called having a rational discussion.   Personal attacks are the thing not called for. 

dracule 1, OK, I'll try to be reasonable but hard to do so when your response to my polite posting is to immediately lambast my choice of digital equipment. Perhaps you've never heard DCS gear with the best cabling 😏

And yes I have evolved in the current system. Some examples

Digital: Veloce Black Cat -> Nordost Valhalla -> Audioquest Eagle Eye -> AudioQuest Wild -> Transparent Reference XL (note that these are not all increases in price, it went up and down)

Analog Interconnect: Nordost Tyr -> Nordost Valhalla -> WEL Signature (big jump at the end I know but I got a great deal on a 10M length of the latter which I needed and the impact was amazing)

Speaker: Nordost SPM (yes I've been around this game for a while!) -> Nordost Valhalla -> Synergistic Galileo LE (as you can see I can keep cables for 10-20 years)

Power: Nordost Brahma -> Valhalla -> AQ WEL Signature -> Synergistic Galileo LE

jafant -- re auditioning and your point dracule about most $$ is not best, most recent big change was speaker cable. Three local dealers allowed me home demo on Nordost Odin V1 ($35K), AQ WEL Signature (a bi-wire pair no less at $75K!) and SR Galileo LE at $15K. WEL was flat and boring, Odin was very clean but slightly lean and Galileo was just right. Subsequently I've improved the performance of the Galileo by adding a SR Transporter, nice that you can make a cable sound even better

So dracule we folks with money are not stupid as you constantly imply, we care about sound and want value for money but unlike some commenters on this thread we are open minded and happy for all the help the helpful people on these boards and the dealers we work with give us. Side note the dealer who loaned me the Odin actually lost $900 out of pocket as he accidentally put through my AmEx charge and then had to reverse it, for those who think dealers don't have to work for their money it's a salutary tale

dracule1 - too each his own, you spend your money on what you find works for you and let others spend theirs as suits their needs. 

folkfreak - really nice system!