High End Audio-Gaining Higher Ground?

Why do so many threads devolve into criticism of the younger generation? Is it a demographic thing with audiophiles being older, educated and predominately male mansplaining to the presumably ignorant? Ultimately, what's the difference between Gwyneth Paltrow blogging about the 16 different products she puts on her face to let her natural beauty shine and a group of audiophiles describing ultra high end footers and how it let's them hear the music? The answer -- nobody else in their right mind should care!

We need to get over ourselves.

The generally accepted number of child deaths worldwide due to starvation/malnutrition is 3.1 million. An astounding number, but substantially less than the 3.65 million used elsewhere in this thread. That's assuming all starvation deaths are attributable to financial food speculation which is a highly dubious assumption.

The worldwide number of people who are starving has declined by approximately 15% over the past two decades. And yes, in some desolate part of the world the cost of your new state of the art power cord would feed an entire village for a year.

At best I'm trying to recreate the sound in the mastering studio which may or may not have a basis in real time musician performing.

To put what some people could interpret as cynicism in a more proper perspective, consider that sales of make-up products for 2013 in the US were close to $57 billion while for the same period recorded music sales were only $7 billion. If listening to music or using cosmetics to improve your physical appearance is an attempt at spiritual transcendence then clearly the general population is seeking nirvana via makeup. That actually makes some sort of sense since physical adornment probably predates making music in human evolutionary development.

But what about those people who go overboard with their make-up? At what point does it become too much make-up and instead of enhancing it begins to overpower your underlying physical assets? For audiophiles the analogous question is at what point does the sound of your system start to distract from you listening to music? With cosmetics it's easy to see how garish someone can look, or with perfume, smell. I believe as audiophiles we have a hard time seeing how garish some of our system look and sound to the general populace.

Why do you need all the make-up to look good? Why do you need all that equipment to enjoy music? They really are equivalent questions.