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

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. 

The old AR turntable sounded pretty good, along with the Adcom amps and old Dahlquist speakers.  Then came the CJ amps and preamp, and the Pass Labs Phono stage and the Rega Rp6.  Way better, but not where I wanted to be.  So, out went the RP6 and in comes the RP10, and some EgglestonWorks Viginti's, and now I have a really great sounding system.

I think you can hear some really expensive stuff and it can sound great, or not so great, depending on the gear itself and the set up.

There's a point of diminishing returns, and i think I am close to it, or at least hope that I am.  I can't imagine spending much more money to get anything sounding appreciably better.

Whenever I doubt how far my system has come, I connect the old AR (which was great for its day), and then say "wow, even with all the new gear, just using the old turntable makes a huge difference.

It helps to know what you are shooting for, and hearing some nicer gear makes it easier to define, and perhaps find.  But then comes the synergy piece, which I think is a matter of art and science and personal preference.