WHY IS THERE SO MUCH HATE FOR THE HIGH END GEAR ON AUDIO GEAR?

It’s not the gear. It’s the people who think they are special, or have a special right to be right, because they have such gear, that draws the ire.

Some people are desperate to be relevant. They’re latched on to ab element where they have some level of familiarity with a subject and can express the "right" words to appear to have credibility. Being a "giant killer" is the most rewarding for those desperate to be relevant. Being the "David" in a world filled with "Goliaths" is the ultimate high (actually low?) for this individual. The bigger the target to publicly humiliate, the greater the adrenaline rush. Excellent, high performance, beautifully constructed, commercially successful products, that have earned a high satisfaction and adoption rate with their owners, thus generating referrals, get batted around by the highly passionate dude aiming to protect the world from, in his view, bad sound or poor price/performance ratio.

Another possible explanation may be these are, indeed, not very nice people. They have undetected crimes against their fellow man in which they have not accepted responsibility for. This creates an (almost) uncontrollable desire to find others more devious, sinister, and morally corrupt than they are. So, if THEIR crime is an 8 on the 10 scale, they are looking for a 9, or higher out there. Unable to locate the "9" they are looking for, they only find a "4" -- the company that makes gear that does not align with their value structure. So, to cleanse themselves of their personal transgressions and find a more dispicable individual(s), they elevate the status of the "4" to a ’9" and "educate" the world about it in the most energetic means possible. Hence, gross exaggerations, profound blanket statements, general devaluation, and invalidation of a product, and everything connected to it.

I think some of us fail to acknowledge the intangibles associated with a purchase. These could include esthetics, build quality, manufacturer’s story/history, prestige, or fear of being embarrassed if they don’t own "the right stuff". In this regard, there are no right or wrong answers if, in owner’s mind, they got what they paid for.

Many times "upgrades" are geometrically proportional. A speaker at 2x the price of a $400 pair of speakers is $800. A speaker a 2x the price of a $40k speaker is $80k. In BOTH cases the price was twice as much. Did performance improve by a factor of 2? I think we’ll find some consistency here and the math didn’t work in either case to provide 2x the SQ.

In a world of free enterprise, markets will dictate the success of a commercial product. If it’s successful there is some acknowledged and measurable value there.

@calvinj 

Your comment "people have the right to hate".  

Hate is nothing more than a negative response to fear, whether it's fear of someone's appearance or ideas being different (and possibly better than one's own), fear of missing out (sour grapes reaction), personal economic circumstances vs others (keeping up with the Jones as well as overly prideful), and many other countless fears ending in phobia.  People who are reasonably comfortable in their own skin are not afraid of being wrong, freely admit when they are, and learn from the experience.  

@unreceivedogma

"If you don’t like $1.2M audio systems, instead of not buying it, change the system that caters to millionaires."

"Prices today are a reflection of the (passive, like you maybe?) acceptance of the grossly unequal economic structure we have in the U.S. today. It doesn’t have to be that way."

So, I am curious.  If, "it doesn’t have to be that way", then what are you suggesting people do to "change the system that caters to millionaires", other than voting with their wallets?

For me audio hobby was never about the "best" gear...

It was about the optimization of what we can afford for the sake of music ...

It was not about the wallet size but about creativity ...

It was not about "upgrades" but about the three working dimensions ways of control : mechanical,electrical and acoustical ...

I just listened to a 500,000 bucks system on youtube , very well known dude , and his room is atrocious, it is audible and clear in spite of his panels ... fatiguing system not because of the high tech gear but because he dont use the right method to make it more musical ... details are not music ... Price tag dont beat acoustics knowledge at all ...

Then listening to his system compared to mine at 700 bucks make me proud and happy ...😊 Incredible ... Because so good his system could be some big defect undetected by him even if it is evident are in my face not in his face because he look ALWAYS for more details not for acoustic musicality ...Acoustics is about musicality not details given by the gear piece he sell ...

We must quit branded name fetichism of the gear and of the tool, study acoustics which is not mere room acoustic panels ...

This hobby is about learning music and acoustic experience not about the 40 amplifiers someone could afford to try and compared ... Ridiculous obsession with no real learning ... The user manual is not acoustics book...

I learned a lot about the way to make any gear system optimally musical relatively to his level of quality/price for sure ...my gear value so good the design is are not Mile Lavigne ballpark ...( i respect him because he know a lot , it is evident when you see his dedicated acoustic room )

I was in the obligation to create a concept for audiophile because it does not existed here in this forum before i wrote it : minimal acoustic satisfaction threshold starting point which is determined by some optimal ratio between all acoustics factors implied for some gear/room/ears...This threshold passed is enough to be in sonic heaven with no frustration...Better dont means satisfying ...

Then we must learn how to work on these acoustic factors with the gear we own BEFORE any upgrade, if our gear is synergetical to begin with for sure...WE must train our ears with what we do first and last , not with what we buy ...

To do that we must identify these factors one by one in our system/room/ears and look how we can improve them one by one and all together ... Be it reverberation time, reflective ratio and location, dispersion , sound source dimension , listener location and envelopment, crosstalk, transients, dynamic, bass, pressure distribution zones, the 5 factors determining timbre , immersiveness in headphone and speakers...

Wwe must learn also how vibrations and resonance destruct the acoustic experience and how powerfully destructive is a too higher electrical noise floor of the house and of each part of the system ... We must learn about EMI and unusual device to control the room atmosphere as ionization and schumann generators...We must become creative and think ...Forgetting to be passive consumers frustrated because we could not afford a Dartzeel amplifier ... I dont need that to be proud and in a relative sonic heaven .....Trust me happiness can only be born of thinking and creativity not from money most of the times ...Money can help at best ...