Is it important to long demo or own HIGH END gear to have a fair accurate view about it?

Like all of us, I have pondered where does high end start?  Is my H390 high end or does it start with Krell, Boulder or Dan D’Agostino?

My Brother, still happily listens to his tunes from the quarter inch speakers in his IPhone and thinks I’m nuts for having spent all that money on my rig. So I guess to him, my gear is high end.  To me it’s just the best that I could afford.

Well I jumped off this tilt-a-whirl a while ago. High end audio is all what you interpret it to be.  For me it is not about high end it is about the sound I enjoy, not status. Not sure where it starts but I know where it ended in my house. 

People who haven’t heard a component shouldn’t have an opinion on how it sounds. Price has nothing to do with it. If it’s too expensive for you then don’t buy it. The fact that it exists at all means someone can afford it. 
I used to find value in forums thinking they represented a collective mind. In other words, if there were enough people saying the same thing about a product then there must be some value in the observation, versus say an opinion from a single reviewer. Nowadays, not so much. There’s too much input from too many people who haven’t the experience to comment, but they do anyway. It isn’t just the Dunning-Kruger effect, it’s people being mischievous or propagating an agenda. 
 

Merry Christmas!

@grislybutter 

I said "Most."  Amplifiers can sound vastly different depending on the speaker you connect them to and their output impedance. Some amps are terrible at driving certain speakers but will sound great on others. Choosing the right speakers is the first problem them a matching amp the next. Everything else is very minor. My situation is a perfect example. I use Sound Labs ESLs. ESLs have a unique impedance curve. It starts out at about 30 ohms in the low bass and by 20 kHz it is down to 1 ohm. Any amp with an output impedance over 1 ohm will not be able to make high treble. Atmasphere MA 2s have a reputation for sounding amazing on SL speakers. I got a pair and they do, except for one thing. The treble starts rolling off quickly at 12 kHz. Their output impedance is 1.5 ohms. The sparkle is missing. If you try using an SS amp with a very low output impedance the treble can be wonderful but many such SS amps will die into a 30 ohm load and the bass suffers. You have to use a real monster like a JC 1+. The Atmasphere actually has more punch into the SLs than the JC 1! It's power does not change with impedance. I am working on a solution to this problem. I have a preamp coming with an integral 4 way digital crossover. I will separate the high frequency transformer from the low frequency transformer and I will biamp them using the MA 2s to drive the low frequency transformer and a Bricasti M25 to drive the high frequency transformer crossing at 5 kHz. The M25 has a sparkling high end. It operates in class A for the first 20 watts or so. It has an output impedance of something like 0.05 ohms.

Put the wrong amp or amps on these speakers and they will sound terrible and people will think the speakers and amp are garbage. This happens a lot with ESLs which is one reason people are skeptical. There are many other speakers and amps that can be as difficult to match. But, this is where the money is. Do it wrong and everything else does not matter. Get it right and everything else is easy. 

@mijostyn

Excellent post. I really like Sound Lab speakers… they can sound incredible. But, like all planars, amplification is critical.

As much as I love the sound of the different electrostatic, ribbon, annd AMT speakers I have owned for over thirty five years of infatuation I switched over to dynamic speakers. I am happy and cozy with them. So much less trouble.  But that is just me.