How competitive are you with your system?

"The only bragging rights would be for "how much was spent" which is at least objective, but does not say much else about the sound."

That would depend on your crowd.  Those at AK typically take the opposite approach..., i.e., "how little was spent for the results obtained".

Unfortunately, it is impossible to accurately portray all aspects of the "results obtained" over the net and this requires attendance at the venue.

BUT, a good YouTube video can go a long way, and while you’ll never portray all the nuance, you will hear anomalies in the response and get a good idea of what the system is capable of, and you will know if it is garbage.  Of course this assumes that you have a fairly neutral playback system on which to hear the videos or listen over good headphones and the video was well done.

@mwinkc I only know people with the best ears. They come listen and they won't leave. I can't get them out. They will tell you. :)

toddalin

... a good YouTube video can go a long way, and while you’ll never portray all the nuance, you will hear anomalies in the response and get a good idea of what the system is capable of ...

YouTube uses lossy audio - not unlike mp3 files - and it sounds like it. The visual component adds no value. YT just can’t tell you much about how a system sounds. Of course many people are happy with lossy audio. Just look at the popularity of Spotify!

I don't see how any reasonable evaluation via youtube is possible.  First, it takes a master recording engineer to do a recording properly and good microphones cost many thousands of dollars each, and many are needed so that the right microphone for the job can be selected.  Even with all of that, how will one know that the recording is faithful to the original without playing it back on a system which has its own sound; the only way to sort of close the loop is to hear the system in its original venue and hear the recorded playback immediately on multiple systems to confirm that the recording is reasonably faithful.  And even if you have that, the youtube watcher has a completely different system coloring the results such that any comparison is hopelessly flawed.  The only way to compare systems is to hear them in person, and the result is a purely individual, subjective assessment, not all that useful unless there was a big panel of judges that makes it sort of like a baking contest--the "winner" is a rough consensus choice.

Any "contest" comparing systems is NOT about the sound because there is never a valid sonic comparison.  It is about something else--how nice something looks, how much was spent or how little was spent, or how may pieces made the Stereophile category A list, etc.  

@cleeds

That’s because you don’t know how to use it.

It will tell you if a system has a smooth frequency response in the room and if there are peaks and nodes (assuming a good recording).

Also, to do this, you need to go back and find the original direct transfer and that is what you are comparing the system too.

You are not listening to "what it sounds like" but rather "how close does it sound to the direct transfer" when listening on your quality monitoring system.

If you do comparisons in this manner, you will hear what the room sounds like as well as deviations in the system.

Sure, you loose imaging, soundstage, and the like, but you can tell trash from treasure.