High-end amplifier clarification?

To me, "High End" always preceded the word "Audio" and not a specific component. You could take one of those half million dollar amps, hide it behind the curtains, and hook it up to a pair of $200 speakers and feed it from a consumer CD player and I'll guarantee that the music coming out of it will be anything that will make anyone notice the amplifier. Much like putting Pirellis on a minivan. It's still a minivan.

A truly high-end amplifier is the one you want, but cannot afford. Once you can afford it and actually buy the thing, the high end moves up a notch. And on and on -- forever.

Then there is the definition that it's not high end if it's not hand-built.

Yep, Agree with hodu.
Hi-End is the one you can't afford, or perhaps breaks the bank when you DO.

Personally, I've been fixating on the soundstage and the sonic image created. If the amp gives you a very natural, realistic sound with great placing of individual instruments in their appropriate places on the sonic "stage", such that you are fooled into thinking you're "there" in a live event, that's getting into high end.

Others may fixate on other aspects of sound reproduction and will have their own criteria. That's what makes this audiophile world such a jungle and rightly so. Its what keeps it exciting. If there were set definitions to everything, we'd eventually have all the answers. Who wants that?