Is it important to long demo or own HIGH END gear to have a fair accurate view about it?

I have heard a lot of opinions about high end gear on the forums but a lot of it comes from folks that don’t own it. They bash it because of the price. Which I understand on one end but many don’t own, haven’t long demoed or even heard a lot of higher end gear thoughts? Please no personal bashing just your opinion?

@calvinj

the high end is not gear, it’s a state of mind.

it’s important to have a hunger to want the best sounding music reproduction. and then love the music and enjoy the process. it’s a state of mind to love doing it and thinking about it.

Negative Nellies miss that fascination and love for the hobby, both the music side and reproduction quality side......they are overwhelmed with having to be smarter and miss the passion. the human condition is to complain, and find fault....takes zero effort. but to rise above that takes a positive action and connection.

if you have the passion, then hearing something that moves your soul does seal the deal. but your mind has to be open to listening. dollars are not the issue. great gear + the hunger = high end. and great gear is more a relative thing. gear snobs are thinking wrong too. it’s ok to love pretty things, but it’s not the issue.

plenty of people have come to my room and got hooked. it does happen. that epiphany can certainly occur and i've seen it. exciting for someone to gush and feel the joy of music reproduction being real to them.

There's a high-end gear that deserves bashing due to the unreasonable pricing, forget affordability.

The fact of the matter is most people’s rooms are not so big that it takes a massive million dollar hifi to do the job well.

The other fact of the matter is no matter what you put in there, the room in most cases will be a big factor in determining the resulting sound. So throwing money at equipment without first getting a handle on room acoustics is not a practical approach to achieve the best possible sound.

Although, it’s also true that

1) Hi end gear are luxury items so one also would naturally expect a certain amount of visual bling as well as excellent performance, so there is that, and

2) part of what goes into judging good sound is often subjective, so anything is possible there.

The more decisions are made based on subjective criteria, more possible outcomes will result. This is evidenced by the fact that few systems end up being exactly the same and often not even similar sounding, even at "high end" shows. The only thing all the gear demoed at a high end show have in common is higher than average cost.

About commenting on what one hasn't heard - I think it's ok to have an idea based the rest. It would be silly to comment about the sound, of course, but I can still read and watch reviews, specs and such to have a somewhat informed opinion.   

Re the never-ending overpricing debate -I pulled and compared data for a lot of speakers and among a few things, one is very obvious: you usually get what you pay for. With a "freakonomics" approach, I'd say that very few brands are overpriced, in the sense that some party in the distribution chain is "overpaid" disproportionately.

To me, the main thing one needs to be in a good position to make useful judgements is experience listening.  Both to live music and to as many reference systems as possible.  That is the only way to really know what is possible and set a realistic goal.  Then its pretty much anything goes from there and more power to the winners.