Posted by Leigh (24.16.164.225) on January 13, 2001 at 08:48:24:
Many people seem to differ on what constitutes a high-end system or high-end equipment.
Some stereo purists like to disqualify anything involving multichannel or home theater, but that there are *great* multichannel amplifiers and processors that outperform many of the "high-end" amplifiers and processors on the market. Some stereolites will scoff at the idea of putting a television between the two front speakers of a home theater setup, but you can still find an optimum arrangement that yields great results for stereo imaging. With the advent of plasma TV and the growing use of front projection systems, this seems to be less of a concern.
Does the potential degradation of imaging and soundstage mean that home theater systems and equipment can't join the high-end club?
Some high-end "elitists" will rule out anything that even the wealthier audiophiles can afford or are willing to spend on, leaving only $10,000+ CD transports and the like as high-end. This is a bit of an extreme, but some people seem to relish that idea. (BTW, the $10,000 CD transport was just a rough example. Hopefully, most people will get the point.)
Does an item have to be outrageously expensive (sometimes with negligible audible improvement over "lesser" products) to qualify as high-end?
I've seen people bash lines of "high-end" speakers as "mid-fi crap" for number of reasons. For example, the speakers can't give them the warm sound they like or are not as good as their electrostatics. This seems to be more of a subjective, perhaps facetious argument.
So what really qualifies as high-end?