High End Amp Price Collapse musings

To the OP: For many of us, Audiogon has been making high-end available at affordable prices since their beginning. The bargains you are looking for are already here. My wife and I are a retired middle-class couple living on Social Security, and although we did modestly well when we both were working, we could NEVER have afforded the equipment we own today had we bought it new. Only our main system full-range speakers were purchased locally from an audiophile friend who gave us a very generous deal on them when he upgraded. All the other components in our four stereo systems were purchased on Audiogon, and we are deeply grateful to Audiogon and every seller and buyer we dealt with for making it possible. What if you buy something and want to try something else? Re-sell it on Audiogon. You won't lose much money, and you'll have learned a lot from your choices. Don't wait. Do your research and treat yourself to a truly high-end system now! 

somebody commented on Class B amps as having a place in home audio ???? where ??? do you understand Class B topology ?? not in my house !

As for Class D, I've heard the good, bad and ugly. The best I've heard to date is the Rogue Medusa (Hybrid Class D) , actually quite musical driving a pair of Martin Logan Spire's

Look, I was a curmudgeon myself....as i said, I owned the Class A and AB $20K amps and preamps and the Wilson speakers and the Dyn C4's and the B&W 802D2's etc...!  What I am hearing coming out of a $799 BlueSound integrated and Vault 2 feeding my Totem Forest Signatures is crazy good by any measure.  In fact, it effortlessly trounces anything I've owned before....maddening actually!  3lb integrated and 40lb speakers absolutely melt my heart and entrance me like nothing I've heard anywhere...period.

All things digital carry a sense of instant obsolescence once the next version is announced.  I wouldn't buy a digital amp because I think it would be a poor boat anchor (too light) in a few years.  There are many old "analog" amps, speakers, and tonearm I'd love to have, but any old digital gizmo falls into the Atari, Windows 2000, iPhone4 graveyard.  Maybe it's an unfair association with computer products, or an unfair label of "digital" but DAC's have the same arc of obsolescence.  Analog dies a slower death in the used market.

I grew up with vinyl and I can say that Hi Rez ripped CD's through my BlueSound rig delivers that vinyl magic without it's fatal flaws.  My ripped CD's now sound like great vinyl when before, played through my $12k SACD/CD PLAYER sounded good but lacking in that vinyl dynamic vitality.