I'm interested in hearing what "the best" systems sound like, where to go?


I have my system sounding pretty good now with a wide sound stage and good depth and imaging. I hear faint details that I have never heard in songs before. It took me three amps, two CD players, two sets of speakers and room treatments to get where I am. But the rabbit hole being what it is....I can't help but wonder....do I have the best it can be? I've been to brick and mortar, high end audio stores, but they don't really have listening rooms. Do any of you know of a place that has a good selection in stock that also has a good listening room to try them out? I would like to hear what is considered "the best". I would like a yard stick to use to determine if I'm getting everything out of the recordings that I can get. Even if it is thousands of dollars outside of my budget, I would like to know what I'm chasing.
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Interesting, I never have the chance to listen to this kind of very costly audio system in my life....I am sure that it will sound musical with tweaks though.... :)

Right. I sometimes worry the people who don't read carefully will see only bragging about being impossibly better than $1.3M worth of audiophile excellence, and entirely miss the main point which is to draw attention to the fact you cannot achieve excellence with any amount of money until and unless you bring everything- every tiny little thing- up to a high level of performance. 

The same system that underwhelms the way I heard it would I'm sure be stupefying beyond words with just a few thousand dollars of tweaks. This is Washington State, so for less than state sales tax they could go from blah to blown away. With the right tweaks. 

But they didn't. So they got blah. But with a whole lotta big. And it does go boom. Thus the phrase, big bada boom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8WLYzA0lCs
Maybe it’s just me but isn’t MC copying Michael Green’s whole free wheelin’ Elmer Gantry way of talking? It’s that over the top Las Vegas 🎡 carnie thing. Naked and they dance. 💃 It’s uncanny.
mahgister1,570 posts03-08-2020 2:41pmAny system that can make piano great is great.... :)

Each note of piano is like a particular rainbow, it takes great audio system to play these shades of colors, not only the the bass and high notes...
Agreed,  played the piano for years. If you can get your  system to get close your doing something right. ;)

This thread has me imagining a world where people competitively compare audio systems the way hot rodders would race for pink slips.
You could just loudly proclaim that your system is the best ever and wait for folks to come out of the woodwork offering to prove you wrong.
Did anyone mention PS Audio Music room 2 yet?  In all of Paul’s YouTube videos he tells people to come on by.