minorl, thanks for your well considered thoughts. Since I am not an engineer, I will defer to your expertise. Just talk to engineers in aerospace, etc. to see whether audio engineers command the intellectual respect you say they do. Also, there is a crucial difference between the audio engineer who is catering to the subjective whims of many audiophiles who like a certain type of sound but may not value accuracy, and the other engineers like you who are designing for performance and applications based on objective criteria. If your product performs objectively poorly and causes mass disasters like environmental catastrophies, you get nervous about your job security and long term reputation. If your product performs at a reasonable level of accuracy but is overpriced, your company will ultimately lose business because the competitive marketplace with many brilliant engineers will encourage value and a reasonable price for the performance obtained. This is NOT the case with many of the expensive audiophile electronics out there, and even more so with many expensive dynamic speakers out there. If you value accuracy at a moderate, natural sound level, there is nothing like a decent electrostatic speaker whose technology dates back 100 years and is MUCH cheaper than today's dynamic speakers with their expensive drivers. Yes, I realize that to get dynamic drivers to perform with clarity approaching an electrostatic, it is expensive and time consuming in the R&D. The electrostatic principle is simple and inherently superior in low distortion to the dynamic. One of the tenets of good engineering is designing to a price point, optimizing the performance/price ratio. Most reputable engineers do this well, but not most audio engineers, despite their claims that they do. I don't have a test bench, but my hardnosed demands as a value for performance listener and musical expertise lead me to this conclusion.
charles1dad, continuing this discussion and to acknowledge your points, perhaps I used too broad a brush, but not much. There are a few audio companies I respect for the value they offer. For example, Dan Laufman of Emotiva personally may not have the technical level of Dag or Pass, but Emotiva is putting out damn good products for the money. I almost bought their top amp for $1000 new. It was absolutely better than MANY high priced gear from other companies, and there is no question that it is one of the top bangs for the buck. When I returned the Emotiva, it took some time for me to get the refund, because they put it on the test bench thoroughly to make sure it was in top condition. That's professionalism which I respect.