Does hearing the best in high end audio make your opinions more valid?


I say yes. Some say no. What are your thoughts?
calvinj
I like the topic. In my case would fall into the yea probably group. And you bet I would love to hear more high quality systems. Would lead me toward possible improvements. 
Our talent at discerning what might improve our systems reducing trial and error, and lord knows the expense is pretty critical unless you have pretty unlimited budgets. I was around as stereo reproduction left the runway, say '67-'72. My circle of friends included numerous sound engineers with Capricorn who had some pretty outstanding systems. Tubes and horns-still a valid high end product. So yes it certainly helped. Have to have a reference to set the bar otherwise you are somewhat ignorant as to the possibilities.

@dentdog I agree. I have been around a lot of the old school guys. I’ve learned from the guys that have been in the hobby 35 plus  years. I’ve learned a lot about tubes and horns. I  demoed some older equipment earlier. I then moved up and then tried some other things. I eventually moved up by trying classe, bryston, esoteric, Audio research LSA statement, musical,fidelity then I heard veloce and wammo the transparency of this battery powered pre amp was amazing. It was like Audio butter but crazy expensive. There were a bunch of different great sounds in the things I tried but the technology in the veloce got me thinking.  I eventually settled on my kr Audio va 900 integrated because of the tubes and musicality. I learned because I heard these and many others it allowed me to grow in the hobby. Then I met Dave Baskin. I heard devaliet, accuphase, Lumin and soulution. That allowed me to expand my knowledge of sound in terms of pre amps and power Amps. I heard about 7 to 10 more brands in between those. I heard rogue, Mark Levinson, McIntosh, Cary, and marantz. This has allowed me to,have a better informed opinion and more exposure to all ranges of gear. Speaker wise I have heard Sonus faber, revel, b&w, Vienna acoustics, definitive technology, Gato, magico, dynaudio, raidho, magnepan, voxativ, focal, yg, vivid, Joseph Audio,and Dali. There was also a speaker with a big blue horn that I can’t remember the name of but all this gave me a better idea of the great different sounds of Audio. Because of these experiences I feel like I have a better ear.  The more you hear the better to me!
I think the best way to judge the quality of a stereo system is a comparison with live music, piano, voices )solo and grouped), in various environments.  I've never heard an audio system that truly sounds like a Steinway grand, but some come very close.  Using a known excellent system as your standard is not without some problems, because it is in a different room and probably at a slightly different volume.  Don't just focus on  transients or the bottom and top of the spectrum. You can usually tell is a system is good in the first minute of hearing it.  After that your brain begins to accommodate it.   Real music (and the memory can recall it) is the better standard. This is an easy test: the length of time you can listen to your system before you have audio fatigue.  If you can listen for 5 hours and not feel unsettled, you have a well-behaved system.
Inorganic. That is true. When you are listening for long periods with having the treble hit your ear wrong and the music has the right amount of detail with organic musicality it’s a nice long music session
 I find when people go gaga over expensive or new stuff, just because it is, that it's an indication of lack of experience or lack of knowledge. Not saying some of it isn't good but a lot of it isn't and almost all of it isn't worth the price. Once you pass a certain price level it's about status and bling, not sound quality. 
Also there is no best, it depends what you value. My point source speakers are going to image and stage better than the aforementioned Raidho big dollar ones, it's just physics. On the other hand, they probably do something better than mine. 
That being said I've heard numerous high dollar Raidho systems and they left me cold.  Again subjectivity. 
And elizabeth, I think what Erik said had a lot of merit. Sounds like you are just getting defensive.