High End Audio-Gaining Higher Ground?

I have to ask - when you guys talk about "high end", what exactly does that mean? I'm not asking to be argumentative, I'm asking genuinely, as I've seen these types of discussions but I don't know how to put them into perspective. Does "high-end" mean $10,000 systems? $50,000? $100,000? I completely appreciate that the answer is going to be nebulous, and may mean different things to different people, but there has to be some kind of baseline...where, once you spend $xxxx, you are officially "high end". I'd like to contribute to the thread, but need to understand the lay of the land first, so to speak.

Thanks to those who responded regarding my question about what defines "high end" in dollar terms. I understand, it's all relative. With that in mind, I agree with previous posters that many high-end companies will go out of business, but that's par for the course in most industries. How many automobile manufacturers existed in 1915?

What will maintain "high-end" audio into the future is the same human longing from which high-end audio was born - the desire not just to have music in one's life, but to connect with it. A person could take the position that there's no point in buying physical artwork anymore, when you can hang a high-definition screen on your wall that rotates through digital images of thousands of pieces of art for a fraction of the cost - but there's something about being up close to an original acrylic on canvas, the smell of it, the depth to the brush strokes, and the way it changes at different lighting angles. It's very organic, the way it affects the senses, and humans have been drawn towards objects of creation for thousands of years for that reason.

The average 18 year old may not appreciate an original Monet today, but there comes a day when they not only appreciate it, they seek it out. It brings us down to earth, like a good cup of coffee, or the smell that hits you when you walk into a florist's boutique.

It's the same with music...high-end audio isn't about the coolness of the devices, or the spec sheet - it's about letting us be right there as a musician's fingers glide across a guitar's nylon strings.

In fact, given what the millenial generation is about to go through, regarding debt overload, social upheaval, geopolitical turmoil, I see them (re)discovering a love for music reproduction as a way of escaping and finding their own sense of organic peace. Humans have loved music for centuries, and that will continue - and technology that gets us that much closer to the origin of the music will always be in demand. JMHO.