i didnt read any of the post prior; i did not want a bias...reference is what our ears tell it is to each of us....and our wallets....we all know of the multimillion dollar systems that some have...that is their reference...then there are those of us who have Best Buy reference, which is "good enough for government work"...so to speak....then there are those of us, which aspire to true high fidelity...hopeful to one day attain what we feel is reference, always knowing we are falling short...either in a cable, an inner connet, or a component, a stand, isolation gizmos....whatever...but I for one aspire to the Wilson Audio Alex VFX speakers (but had had to settle for the SashaV for now: and aspire to dual mono 330M tube aamps from Audio Research, but have had to settle for dual mono EVO 400 tube amps from Prima Luna......and have desired the Shunyata OMEGA class of speaker cables, but had to settle for SigmaX; and wanted OMEGA class XLR cables and had to settle for THETA (oh, but what value and performance)...so, we settle for audiophile common sense sometimes and wallet/bank balance...I have my current reference system in place and it sounds fantastic.....but the dream is the ARC equipment and more Wilson Audio......the reference is the desire to the motivation to strive forward, make some money, and buy more equipment of better quality...but....for the time being and just under $100K, my system sounds good enough to me....one can spend millions, or thousands, or a few hundred and it's the music that matters.......given a few beers, even a boom box sounds like reference...