Has anyone made the jump to $uper High end and were disappointed?

Frankly I find that 9 out of 10 of the six figure systems I hear (mostly at shows) make me turn tail and walk straight out of the room. And I haven't heard a system at a dealer that I rated more than "Meh" (and i work with some of the most highly regarded dealers there are) but when I get home to my system (which you can inspect in my virtual system listing) it's a completely different matter -- and also an experience I can and do constantly improve (which is what makes this hobby fun)

So what does this mean? It means that "good sound" is an intensely personal affair, and that also it's likely that we all tune our ears to appreciate a certain acoustic aesthetic. Think about the times when you've made a change and thought at first "I hate it" but once you listen through the removal of some prior tonal or temporal distortion you realize that the thing you're missing is just a coloration.

So is there a point of diminishing returns? I've not found it. But careful system balance is the key -- and simply dropping gobs of money on one or more components is not likely to give you the results you want. Careful balancing and tuning of all components, including much time and effort with the room and accessories is essential. There's one NYC based dealer who I won't name who constantly posts pictures of six figure systems installed in acoustically bare, sterile rooms - I hate to think how bad these things sound

If you can take the time to visit and listen to one of those who post here that have had long established systems (Mike Lavigne, Albert Porter etc) then you will gain an appreciation for what we are striving for ... and anyone in the Portland area is welcome to reach out to me to see if they think what I'm listening too is worth it

@aberyclark I could just as well say "nothing will bring out the virtues of badly recorded content as much as a great system"

One of the benefits of the sorts of improvements I was talking about is hearing the qualities of recordings you'd previously dismissed -- I discussed this point at length in a recent thread on considering a high end turntable investment

$50K would be for a 13’ pair of non biwire WEL Signature speaker cables, bi-wiring almost doubles the cost so a standard 8’ pair biwired would run $60K or so

In my experience the WEL Sig speaker cables are a little too expensive for the quality they deliver. I get much better results from the analog interconnect that I have a lot of, at a more ’reasonable’ $7.5K per 1M (I have an 8M balanced run that I got at a very good price)

The new Dragon HC power cord is a relative bargain at $4.4K for 1M, and the base Dragon low current (for sources) is half that. As both of these cables absolutely hands down destroy the previous WEL Signature power cords (which were $4K) I have to say they qualify as a bargain. I believe that the Hurricane that Bo alludes to is the sweet spot in the line and also very fairly priced -- the Dragon’s have silver in them so run more than the Hurricane’s which are all copper

I currently use WEL Sig for all my analog interconnects and a mix of AQ Dragon and SR Galileo for my power cords. AQ Digital cables are OK but can be bettered by Transparent and others -- I use a mix of Transparent Ref XL and Marigo’s top end AES/EBU.

Anyway AQ certainly cover the full range from entry level to high end -- one of the main complaints against them being the complexity of their product hierarchy.