Price/performance curve

Interesting question. Assuming MRSP, the 85 to 90 percent level can be acheived for $6k to $8k. The value of moving up from this level is extremely subjective. Even if money is no object, most people do not go beyond this level. If you do decide to spend the big bucks, you can obtain definite improvements in sound quality. However, the room and equipment compatibility issues become much more critical as the price of a system goes up. The most obvious benefit of spending the big bucks will be deeper bass and higher volume levels. Your heart of your question is "How do people value their money?" To use an analogy, for $40,000 you can get an excellent car, but that doesn't stop people from spending two or three times as much for what they see as money well spent. Are they stupid? I don't think so, but not being stupid doesn't mean someone is smart.

Tubegroover, sorry if I was unclear. My intent is that for a total outlay of $6 to $8 thousand, up to 90% of what is in the music can be uncovered. I'm something of a hypocrite here in that my main system is five times this price range. And, yes you do get more resolution, transparency, greater soundstage information etc. as you spend more money. But I contend that the uncovering of musical information increases at a slower rate than that of audiophile esoterica. Take a look at a "good" manufacturer's line of speakers. What does the $2,000 model not do that the $20,000 model does? For $2k+ you can get a hell of alot of midrange resolution and soundstage accuracy without significant tonal colorations. The more expensive model unsually goes louder and expands the frequency range of high resolution into the low bass and the high treble. Now the effect of extending the high resolution into the frequency extremes does have a very positive effect on midrange resolution. In my system my main speakers go down to a usable mid 30Hz. When I added stereo subwoofers, not only did I extend the absolute bass response, but I increased the midrange resolution. I not exactly sure why, but my observation is similar to others. Adding high quality bass is expensive. Is it worthwile? I say so, but there are other valid opinions.

Tubegroover, my room is 33 feet long by 14 feet wide with mostly 8 foot ceilings (a third of the room is 8.5 feet). The main speakers are placed about 15 feet down the length of the room and the subs are located behind the listening position in corners. The listening chair is 6 feet from the wall and 9 feet from the plane of the speakers. With this setup the speakers are 18 feet from the wall behind them. If I didn't use subwoofers, the free space placement of the speakers would start to roll off bass at around 60Hz. The system would sound clean, but light weight. The subwoofers eliminate this problem. The overall bass response extends relatively smoothly down to 20Hz (there are small measured humps at 31.5 and 63 Hz, plus a deeper narrow band dip at 50Hz).