Does hearing the best in high end audio make your opinions more valid?

Listening to lots of acoustic live music gives the best benchmark for building an audio system. 

Frank

Live acoustic music is a mixed bag at best. I would say a well put together, tweaked and tuned audio system is more reliable as a point of reference. A suffiently large high power all tube Class A System with regulated everything and isolated everything would be where I would start. Then tweak your brains out. 🧠

One Big Hurdle to good sound is the ugly fact that it’s difficult to find a CD that’s not overly compressed or in Reverse Polarity or BOTH. Most things sound SO bland.

especially gossips.

Conversely, hearing what reviewers claim is "the best" which costs a million dollars, and knowing your are happier with your system that was quite affordable can certainly make you an insufferably smug bastard. 

That's pretty much what happened to me. :) 

Best,

E

Listening to lots of acoustic live music gives the best benchmark for building an audio system.

If that's what you want to reproduce. Accuracy is not the goal for every audiophile.