Hi-end audio is a big zero

I think the most difficult to project is the speakers.  My other components are highly adaptable (Peachtree Grand X-1 hybrid integrated with Sabre DAC on board) and turntables and other digital sources are easy to blend.  But not speakers.  And the shipping challenges, including the cost.  Even a local needs a fork lift and big truck to move some of these and 3 heafty movers to pick them up.  

Not for an audition!  After decades of chasing the sound and too much money spent on commercial speakers, I learned to build my own.  I began with 4 foot high cabinets sold as Inter-Audio A-4s.  These were built from the late 50s and into the '80s by Bose Corp and before 'direct-reflecting' sound.  They came with 2 tweeters crossed for a 'super tweeter'; a 6" mid and a 10" woofer.  A highlight was a second cutout below the woofer for a passive radiator that absorbes excess pressure.

I began by stripping all but the box and worked from there.  The turning point (Hey Archimedes, what's ypur point?)  was moving 3 sets of tweeters out and in, 3 different mids and 2 woofers and these in various combination.

I knew what I wanted to hear and built them to fit my smaller but open space.  And when I got the final set of tweeters (B & C with sensitivty at 108)  I put Mondorf hollow core silver foil resistors in to bring them down to the 95 sensitivity of the other drivers.

Anyway, I had a great time.  I learned a lot and proceeded with more certainty to build 3 sets of fine speakers for my adult chldren.  And I am mostly very happy with this system.  Sometimes I sit and think I should get all pure silver wire and take them apart once again.  Then I put on some vinyl jazz and pour 2-fingers and wait for the urge to go away.  

Close to $10,000 spent on components and then, 'home made speakers'.  And I could not be happier.  This one is too hot, this one is too cold, and this porrige is just right.

I wanted SET sound with Magnapan speakers (0.7 with DWMs are the biggest I can fit into my little 26-foot-diameter house.) I could not bring my amplifier to audition it because it has too many separate components: twin KV power supplies, cathode heaters that are filtered with 4 Farad capacitors, and two more chassis for drivers of the radio station transmitter triodes it would take to drive Magnepans. When I brought the speakers home, I got a better sound than the solid-state amplifier available at the store. Later Wendell Dillard and his wife came to the store and gave a seminar on the Magnepan speakers. I brought photographs of my SET with triodes the size of quart jars and he and his wife laughed their asses off calling it wild. His wife said that such a setup would have terrible wife acceptance factor. Fortunately, my wife let me get away with the Jules Verne style of stereo gear I build.

It’s high end in name only if the customer service is poor. Plain and simple

'High End' is a term that can only be useful to gauge price.

It has very little relationship to high performance.

We've seen time and time again that performance and price have a very tenuous relationship at best.

Go to a show and hear it for yourself.

It's only magazines and dealers that want to propagate the myth that performance and price are closely linked.

I suspect almost all of us would think our systems are high performance but would any of us want to claim that our systems were High End?

High-end is indeed a big zero.

@cd318 , that is a BIG claim when you group every "magazine and dealer" into a pile of myth propagators. If you are telling me that I can get champagne on a beer budget, I am happy to partake, please post a link to the oasis of sweet deals.

If it is just the term "high end" I suppose you could substitute "luxury" or "reference class". I think one component where it is easy to spot "high end" is home theater.

Its the total package, the experience, it isn’t a turntable or a dac or speakers. Luxury baby, all the way. I really enjoy going through the Virtual Systems here to see what other members are doing. I like and aspire to "high end", why else would we all have OCD about this hobby? Low end?