Has anyone made the jump to $uper High end and were disappointed?

Although not as expensive, upgrading recordings can add quite a bit of cost. With each new remaster, hi rez release, im sure many own multiple copies of a single album, in many formats. Myself, I have pretty much purchased every vinyl, cd edition of Dark Side of the Moon thru the years. 

Come on fellas, if you spent 50 grand on a stereo system and we're not happy, would YOU admit it?
Think about it.
Whoever out there does is the God of Honesty and don't think there is one.

Sitting here banging out some Hank Mobley, "Uh Huh" through the Quad 989s, Wolcott amp and Lamm pre.
Life is good.
Great thread.
GJI

Come on fellas, if you spent 50 grand on a stereo system and we're not happy, would YOU admit it?

Fifty grand isn't even close to the expenditure needed for a $uper high end stereo system.  :)

The $1 Million super system at CES 2001, which I’m pretty sure was comprised of monster Wisdom Audio speakers and a bunch of huge Plinius amplifiers sitting on a stage of the appropriate proportions, sounded, well, not..too..good. I hate to judge before all the facts are in, but I’m pretty sure throwing money, even massive amounts of it, at the problem is not the answer. I was supposed to go listen to the Million Dollar System, which had generated considerable buzz that day 🐝 with a couple of guys but I made the mistake of sticking around at two big rooms I was supporting hoping for a miracle.

Which reminds me. In the 80s they had a CES in Washington DC area and I attended a big demo of the Audio Research electronics driving the monster Infinity Reference speakers, the ones with the outboard stack of woofers for each channel. The source was a big reel to reel. The dude conducting the demo stood on the stage and alerted the audience that they were about to hear sound that was indistinguishable from live music. I cannot recall what the recording was they played but as soon as it came on everyone looked around at each other, incredulous, and raced for the EXIT doors, your humble scribe included. 🏃 🏃 🏃

"A rich man has about as much chance of attaining Audio Nirvana as a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle." - old audiophile axiom

In my little side career of live sound stuff, I use extremely clear sounding multi thousand watt systems for live shows, with basically a mono mix for each side. Is that the "live sound" we all strive for? It shouldn't be…and do home systems reproduce the magic 10th row center of orchestral performances? Uh…maybe sort of, but if the music get's its point across evenly enough to be enjoyable, that's all you can ask for. Think about what a home system is doing, and where it's doing it (8 or ten feet from your earballs), and understand that putting your faith in Audio Salon sales people is in THEIR interest more than yours. Much more. If you're in to this stuff, and have some experience, you may have heard some tiny English monitors driven by a tube amp in the 70s and thought, wow…that's nice. Or a pair of old Altecs or ARs or whatever and been happy as a clam.  I've listened at length to the magic of Magicos or whatever in various carefully controlled environments over decades and have always thought, "my home stuff sounds better." Because it does…and it all cost an almost irrelevant amount of cash compared to the pricey stuff because I think that's where the actual magic resides. You just have to work at it to get it there, and dumping big bucks on what Inna imagines is worth it is the actual lazy approach. Kind of like relatively unpopular brilliant musicians in the "folkie" (or acoustic) scene as compared to hyped popular ones…in my experience I've found that the lesser known performers are often simply better, and the good new is there's more of them…but you have to get out there and hear 'em…don't be lazy...