Does hearing the best in high end audio make your opinions more valid?

Depends. I used to go to hifi shows and listen to big expensive esoteric systems I wouldn’t be caught owning in a million years, even if I had a million to spend on such a thing. Curly-spiral-shaped speakers that looked like they come off the set of The Fifth Element, pressure cylindrical sound pumps (MBL $70,000 with frequency and step responses that are crap), horns, water cooled tube amps (where were the goldfish?), Nordost cable spray a/b demos (after an exhaustive half hour lecture on why this works, all eager ears, no one was impressed!), reps snorting coke in the bathrooms, all the above complete and uttter nonsense/bs to me at high $$$$$ and not one that sounded good. So, I listened, and I listened, and when I got home I felt so fortunate that, over time, and few mistakes, I had built, refined and set up properly a good sounding rig that well played the music I like and that I could chill to and hang with my audio buds every now and then.

And +1 glupson and onhwy61: best is an oxymoron in the land of music reproduction equipment.

Calvin: When I say the best I mean what I actually mean those pieces that are supposed to be really great based on the reviewers and the industry guys that supposedly say they are.

"supposed to be really great," and "that supposedly say they are."

Best is quantitatively finite, it is not subjectively infinite, which is why it’s an oxymoron with regard to music reproduction equipment, as I said earlier. And, who cares what those so-called reviewers and industry guys think, anyway?

We’re the ones with the ears, and the bux they want.