Why pay so much for super high end?

plenty of DIY people can make anything audio and make something very special  making them for commercial sale is entirely difficult.  I know, my friends all ask me to make them audio gear.  Building something takes time and trial and error research.

You also have to have the gear (source, preamp and amp) to hear and appreciate the differences in designs.  To my ears, most of the manufactured stuff most people have listened to is nothing special.  You get different flavors from your components but not much in sound improvement (generally speaking), such as resolution, dynamics, sound stage, tone, etc.  Most people have never heard that from their system so they buy and sell components, cables, etc. to find what they think they are looking for.  For example I build a preamp with no caps in the signal path.  Every cap has a sound so what works in your system may not please someone in their system.  I don't use caps in the signal path so that is one area that most people have never experienced to explain my point. So until you have the gear where you can really hear the differences, your comparisons of higher priced gear to what you have heard or how the higher priced gear sounds can be misleading.  Happy Listening.       

Seriously Doug Schroeder, this is where you want to start an anti-Darwinism discussion? You really want to hitch your wagon to this thread, and this particular individual’s post, for that purpose? I’ve talked to you before - I strongly suspect that you're better than that.

Skilled engineers with a penchant for audio spend lots of time and money doing research and development to deliver a product that few among us can approach with a DIY method.  Of the available gear we choose the ones which work for our ears and our budget.  We pay more this way (whether mid or hifi) but we get more as well.

What I don't understand is why people like the OP don't start a speaker company and make a fortune putting all the frauds out of business.

bcgator, thanks for bringing up the topic. I appreciate your thoughts. You are correct; I normally would not respond to such a thread. I have found that it is often a waste of time to challenge someone who is so delcarative. My rude post was due to a different motivation, and I anticipated a response which would allow me to state why I made such a flatly derisive comment. So, thank you for challenging me and giving me the opportunity to explain...

You're right, normally I would not bother to join in a thread like this. I also normally would attempt not to make such a dismissive, offensive remark. I prefer to discuss and enjoin in friendly debates rather than belittle. I'm glad that you felt it was out of character for me, because it WAS out of character, intentionally so. I thought it a good opportunity to demonstrate how rude it is to without justification condemn someone else's worldview while engaged in a discussion of audio. We have a regular occurrence here where individuals feel they need to slam religion and faith when discussing audio. Some regularly offend and marginalize people of faith. It often takes the form of using a thread on the topic of skepticism of an audio product and turning it toward skepticism and dismissal of faith/religion. 

After decades of study on the topic I have concluded that Darwinism is poor science, but I am well aware of the fact that my post had no pertinence to the discussion and that it was likely offensive to many. In the same way inflammatory comments deriding religion/faith in other threads usually have no pertinence to audio, and offends many. I believe it is brought into the discussion for purposes of marginalizing others and belittling their worldview. 

Often when I see pitifully poor logic the thought, "Just like Darwinian theory," enters my mind. So, my post was not bereft of any connection to the OP.  I saw it as an opportunity to let people feel how it is when someone rudely dispenses with another's worldview without pertinence to the topic at hand. If people were offended, maybe they will stop to consider in the future how inconsiderate it is to take a blindside swipe at others just because you can.