The term "High End" needs to die. Long live Hi-Fidelity!

Buy what you like, but when "High End" = "severely colored" you can't convince me that should be the universal reference.

  It is not universal for sure and wouldn't it be a hoot to get these guys to do double blind testing in a purely neutral non-seller environment and see what prevails.
If coloration of music is the paramount concern a free audio editing program called Audacity allows you to tailor to suit.

mahlman

... wouldn't it be a hoot to get these guys to do double blind testing ...

What are you waiting for? Why don't you organize some double-blind testing of your own?

Much of the so-called High-End is to blind listening tests what New Clothes were to the Emperor!  Suits you sir! Indeed.

How many times have we all heard the same tired excuses at shows when the audience response has been rather muted?

“It’s these hotel rooms”, or maybe “it’s the humidity”, or even the poor recordings to blame etc etc.

Let’s face it when you can pick up a pair of Harbeth M40.2s for £11.5k and a Technics 1200G for a little over £2.5k, it might be worth asking exactly just how high end do you really need to go?

I dont like saying I am in the "High End Audio" business at all. It denotes a social location. Fook that.
So Ive been using HiFi for about 10 years now, the only thing I run into is people that use the word "HiFi" to mean sterile sounding neutered music. The lifeless crappy sound, you know ... And lemme tell ya , there is no "End" to anything we do..lol